Last Saturday Alan Dershowitz gave a speech at Tel Aviv University in which he lashed out at professors who criticize Israel and use their Jewishness to do so. And those who aren't Jewish, too. Dershowitz apparently told a story about fellow Harvard Law School prof Duncan Kennedy not by name. (The transcript of the speech says only "Tell Joel Pollak story here," a reference to an Israel lobbyist/acolyte of Dershowitz's who is mentioned in the story). Duncan Kennedy has responded to Dershowitz in a collegial manner. His email is flying around the net; he let us post it. I don't have the attachments, but you get the story.
Hi Alan,
Congratulations on your honorary degree from Tel Aviv. Here is what I gather you said about me in your speech, from the video:
"Let me tell you a very brief story about a student of mine who was taking a class from a professor at Harvard Law School who was teaching a course on the Israel/Palestine conflict. The course was completely one-sided with all the materials representing an anti-Israel point of view. When Joel asked the professor to add some material to the syllabus that would give the students a balanced point of view, the professor rebuked him and said that this is my class, I teach what I want. Well, Joel didn't accept that ... "
A couple of things. First, I hired Joel as my research assistant during the summer before the course, and got him in off the wait list. He provided many of the materials for the class, all of it strongly pro-Israeli-government material. The attachment has my email invitation to him to work for me, and he accepted.
Second, I think Joel would confirm that I never rebuked him for proposing materials. As you'll see from the next email in the attachment, I went on asking him for material, in particular describing Palestinian war crimes, even after he had begun to denounce the course.
Third, I actually invited him to speak to the class when I taught it the following year, and he accepted -- that's the third email exchange in the attachment.
As to whether the course was "completely one-sided with all the materials representing an anti-Israel point of view," you may remember that I included a chapter from The Case for Israel [by Dershowitz] in the very first class, and you were kind enough to send your secretary around with a correction to the 2,000/200,000 misprint in the first printing. I've attached the syllabus for the second year, which includes the many pieces that Joel recommended and that I included (e.g., Katz and Karsh). I find it hard to believe that anyone who read this syllabus could describe it as you do. In fact, I'm quite proud of its balance. (I'll send you the first year's syllabus as well if you'd like me to -- it's just as balanced, but I like the second year's better because I missed some very good pro-Palestinian pieces the first time around.)
Yours, your colleague,
Duncan Kennedy
Kennedy’s patience and forbearance is amazing. If he has young children, he must be a wonderful dad.
Re Joel Pollack : how much sharper than a serpent’s tooth is the bite of an ungrateful child? [Yes, it’s not close to verbatim, but the point carries. And to think Kennedy was generous enough and kind enough to embrace that little Likudist viper to his bosom. Figuratively speaking. of course.
Once again Professor Dershowitz demonstrates that in Dersh’s World it’s always the case that slavery is freedom, truth is falsehood, day is night, etc…
In the old Superman comics of my youth, what would the Bizarro World version of A.D. be like?
Apologies, it’s Joel Pollak.
The greatest thing about this email is the zinger at the end about having missed out ‘some very good pro-Palestinian pieces the first time around’.
Well, Joel didn’t accept that … “
oh, intrepid joel, our modern david facing goliath! be fooled not, my hero, by goliath’s balance, for it is but the syllabus of the philistine, the anti-Semite! and after he had slain the giant, joel brought forth the blood-stained syllabus in his hand, and the women of israel rejoiced and played tambourines!
It’s sad that some of the best and brightest are forced to waste their energies wiping the mud of their faces thrown by frauds like Dershowitz. Proof that unbridled arrogance and lack of principles can get you very far (not just for him). Truly the lowest of the low.
well said. And what a fraud he is.
It is really unfortunate that we can’t see the syllabus– Id love to see what a “balanced” course on the Arab-Israeli conflict is supposed to look like, even if it doesn’t pass the Dershowitz sniff test.
(Personally, I think the idea of balance in studying such a conflict is about as sensible as studying Stalin’s gulags from a balanced perspective.)
estoy de acuerdo, madrid. it’s unlikely that a purely factual text exists that sufficiently covers the topic, but any inquiry should initially be advanced as a fact-finding mission. if there is nothing but tripe written from an Israeli or Arab perspective, why poison the well with shit in the name of balance?
I hear tell that when it becomes available it will be extensively covered by FOX News.
I heard a piece on NPR some years ago about the dilemma faced by employers and the so-called Gen-Xers (no offense intended), the employers’ point being that even graduates from elite universities were incapable of accepting constructive criticism or adapting to work place rules which they found overly restrictive, like showing up on time for example. Now I’m all for democracy in the work place, but the problem was more fundamental, more about the psychology of the emotionally retarded than the rigidity of the work place hierarchy.
It seems that Joel and Mimsy Pearl (‘Denying Said’) could be part of a case study on this phenomenon.
It reminds me the incident involving the University of california Berkley, Governor of california and the threat from Alan Dershowitz making threat aginst them over publication ofa book by Finkelstein. We all know what happened to the reappointment of Finkelstein by De paul University after that. The money stopped him in his track. His livelihood was taken away.His freedom also. On a larger sacle thats what a lot of despot do to silence and then lie .Same was done by Hitlerand Goebbles.
Really, Phil?! The Dersh again?!!
What a waste of everybody’s everything on that smarmy ziowhore!
Apparently, Dersh got his ass kicked at Tel aviv University. Quote an achievement when a self appointed Israeli advocate is denounced by his own client.
link to desertpeace.wordpress.com
I have one other comment, which is that I am actually impressed that Harvard Law even has a token gentile on the faculty there to teach a course like this. I suspect that, from his name, Duncan Kennedy is Irish and thus a foreigner, which seems to be the preferred way of putting a token goyim on the payroll. We can’t have any gentiles at the best law school in the country, unless they are of the exotic type!
See Andrew Sullivan’s employment at the New Republic for reference.
My apologies. I see that Kennedy is actually a red-blooded American who once worked for the CIA, of all places. Not sure what to think of that, but in any case, his hiring obviously preceded Kagan’s tenure as Dean.
Sorry, meant “goy”.
The next time Duncan Kennedy teaches the class, he can include in the syllabus the latest book by Norman Finkelstein, “This Time We Went Too Far”. Just in the interest of keeping the course balanced, Prof. Dershowitz!
Kennedy’s is one of the most devastating, yet polite, rejoinders it has ever been my privilege to read! You go, boy!
I read the speech after the comments. I expected a hate speech. If you guys were not so blinded by your petty ideologies, you would agree with most of it. Sure parts of it are ego boosting and cheeleading for Israel, and I guess that sticks in your craw, but the rest was hardly objectionable.
Comparing academic criticism of Israel to sexual harassment hardly constitutes as an agreeable form of discussion.
But then again being blinded by the ethnic supremacist ideology that is Zionism can blind you to reality.
Nice of you to drop in Rachel– which part did you like best? Where he bizarrely accused professors that object to the occupation of sexually harassing their students, or where he went on to characterize those very students as “consumers” of their education?
In my mind, the two images came together in a frightful image of Dershowitz down on his knees giving the collective body politic of Israel a big hummer…
I did not read such thing. No entiendes muy bien el Inglés, no?
Are you sure you are not experiencing difficulty in reading comprehension, in addition to sexual perversions, you dirty old man?
I did not read such thing.
There. Cut and paste from the transcript for you. Now you can ‘read such thing’.
The right of the student’s academic freedom, however, goes well beyond this law. It includes the right not to be propagandized in the classroom by teachers who seek to impose their ideology on students. It includes the right of the student to express opinions contrary to those presented by the teacher without fear of being graded down and without fear of being denied recommendations or job opportunities. Indeed, any professor who punishes a student for not agreeing with his
controversial opinion is guilty of academic harassment, which is a
variant on what we all would agree is an academic violation, namely
sexual harassment. No teacher is permitted to threaten a student with
lower grades or poorer recommendations if the student refuses to
consent to sexual contact. Nor should any professor be permitted to
threaten lower grades or recommendations if a student refuses to agree with a teacher’s ideology. Students are the consumers of the
university and consumers have rights that, if they don’t trump those
of the producer, are at least equal to them in the context of
controversial ideas.
Where is the phrase ” objecting to the occupation” that Madrid mentionned?
Oh shut up rachel! The whole world can see you’ve slipped on your own banana skin – all thanks to marc b.
He did no such thing, so go fuck yourself or better yet, join Dershy in that massive hummer…
Gonna be eating shit and dirt if you don’t gracefully collect yourself off the floor and FUCKING SCRAM YOU ILLITERATE TROLL!
Taxi, you are losing it! I love it!
FUCKING SCRAM YOU ILLITERATE TROLL!
You better follow your own advice before!
Yeah, before you have a heart attack!
Be nice to this troll Taxi, she exposes Zionism rather nicely =P
You’re still on the ground punch-drunk moron and you ain’t distracting us with your jolly-joys either asshole!
Again my thanks to marc b for the set up.
Marc exposed nothing! But you exposed yourself for the loser and nutcase that you are! You won’t have the last word!
Ok! I will have pity on you and leave. It is my bedtime in any case. But I would like to leave you with some choice insults from my vast and literate vocabulary. ASSHOLE!! Now what are you going to do about it? Grab me across your monitor. Ha!
You’re so adorable Rachel. I mean that.
Hey, don’t distract me with compliments now, Shingo. I have some righteous anger building up! But it will have to wait until Vendredi soir. I have to go to bed. I work for a living you know, Wrestling with pigs in the mud is only a side line.
Ciao!
I have no patience for your fuckeries rachel – you lost an argument to marc b and that’s that!
Did not!
Did too loser!
” Wrestling with pigs in the mud is only a side line. ”
Well, if ever you take up mud wresting, be sure to let me know.
Wow, my heart just did a summersault!
Now I exposed you as a baby too! It is like playing Simon says!
Ok. I let you have the last word. I am nice.
Don’t be too upset , it is only virtual!
Ciao!
Last comment to Taxi. Not Shingo.
STFU you drunken hag rachel bullshitter.
You lost to marc b. End of story.
Madrid May 13, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Nice of you to drop in Rachel– which part did you like best? Where he bizarrely accused professors that object to the occupation of sexually harassing their students, or where he went on to characterize those very students as “consumers” of their education?
rachel May 13, 2010 at 8:27 pm
I did not read such thing.
marc b. May 13, 2010 at 8:48 pm
I did not read such thing.
There. Cut and paste from the transcript for you. Now you can ‘read such thing’.
Yet another dissembling fruitcake, another variation on ‘suzanne’. Not that I have any evidence that ‘rachel’ is even female. It’s just as likely that some budding young psychologist determined that a ‘female’ profile would be appear slightly more sympathetic. But the stench always overpowers the perfume in the end.
RE: “Dersh the knife” – Weiss
Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
And it shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
And he keeps it … ah … out of sight.
Ya know when that shark bites, with his teeth, babe
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves, though, wears old MacHeath, babe
So there’s nevah, nevah a trace of red…(Bobby Darin variant)
FROM WIKIPEDIA: “Mack the Knife” or “The Ballad of Mack the Knife”, originally “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer”, is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928. The song has become a popular standard….
Ella fitzgerald – Mack The Knife (04:03) – link to youtube.com
Dershowitz is a slimeball. Just watch his debate w/ Chomsky years back. He would simply shout over Chomsky, or straw man his arguments. It was so obvious how corrupt he was.
He’s a clown, and I think both sides know that by now.
Yeah check out the youtube comments too – they’re mostly uncannily mondoweissian!
But the ultimate Dershy intellectual humiliation is his debate with Finklestein – everybody’s gotta watch that! Go for watching all 11 parts – very compelling and excellent!
link to youtube.com
Ha ha – I’ve watched it before but jumped in just now and watched the first clip for fun.
Amy Goodman, normally so composed is laughing her head off after Finkelstein’s opening comment – she knows it’s going to be a great discussion.
I did read your comment a few days back on the live-to-air footage of the attack on the police graduation ceremony in Gaza – sounds gruelling, I’m almost glad I haven’t seen the footage. Yet, there is a responsibility TO look.
Yeah Sumud, F versus D is the best! Yet, I kinda feel sorry for the bastard Dersh, the way he gets intellectually manhandled out of the ‘smart room’ by Finklestein.
re: the massacre of the Gaza police cadets – Sumud I felt wretched and sick to my stomach to watch the two minutes or so of it. I wouldn’t have watched it if the broadcasters had given prior warning to the audience.
I wish I’d never seen it. I already knew all the evil that israel is – I didn’t need to see it so graphically.
Wrestling with pigs in the mud is only a side line.
What really amazes me is that someone of conscience has not grabbed the perv (Dersh) by the throat and choked him within an inch of his life. I mean the guy’s a Nazi Jew cheerleader cultivating his smugness at the expense of the Palestinian’s misery.
I hear ya Debonnaire.