I’m catching up on my Alan Dershowitz reading today. First an email from former Senator James Abourezk:
In reference to your blog [on the casual slander of Israel critics as anti-Semitic], Alan Dershowitz was one who freely threw out the “anti-semite” term, finding that especially American liberals were sensitive to being called “Jew haters.” Dershowitz wrote a column in the Jerusalem Post calling me an anti-semite. During the dinner honoring Helen Thomas in Washington, I told the audience the the term, “Anti-semite” meant someone who hates Jews just because they are Jews. My response, during my speech was that I did not hate Jews, but I did hate Alan Dershowitz.
My speech was reprinted in Alex Cockburn’s Counterpunch, and Dershowitz wrote to Cockburn, disputing the charge. Alex dug out the old Jerusalem column and reprinted the accusatory section, calling Dershowitz a liar. We haven’t heard from Dershowitz since.
[From Cockburn’s column, which unearthed the Jerusalem Post piece:
[Dershowitz wrote “Well maybe former Senator Abourezk isn’t so different from the late Senator Bilbo after all. He uses the word ‘Zionist’ in precisely the same bigoted way Bilbo used ‘kike.’ It is true that not all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic, but just because it is anti-Zionist does not mean it is not also anti-Semitic. If the shoe fits…”]
It’s possible that those who object to Israel being called the “Jewish State,” or calling AIPAC the “Jewish Lobby” are linguistically correct, as there are a great many Jews who disagree with Israel’s colonialism. To make it easier to defend against the term, “Jewish Lobby,” Israel would do world Jewry a service by no longer insisting that Israel be converted to a Jewish state, as the lobby has been trying to do for years.
And by Dershowitz himself, in his book The Best Defense [1983] (Thanks to Council on Foreign Relations fellow Stuart Levey for uncovering this in his senior thesis):
The single most important factor in hastening the demise of the JDL [Jewish Defense League] was the death of Iris Kones [killed in 1972, in the JDL bombing of impresario Sol Hurok’s office in New York because Hurok brought in Russian acts]. That senseless tragedy weakened to the breaking point whatever remaining pillars of support the league enjoyed within the Jewish community. It demonstrated that the JDL had so cheapened the currency of civil disobedience and violence that it had lost whatever meaning and purpose it might have had if selectively and intelligently employed. Even those militants who could justify the use of violence against Soviet or PLO officials were appalled by the bombings directed against Hurok and Columbia, and especially by the death–even accidental–of a young Jewish woman.
Actually, they are linguistically, conceptually and factually *incorrect* with regard to AIPAC.
AIPAC is a formal organizational member of the organized Jewish establishment — the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Denying that the Conference of Presidents is a leader (probably the most important leader) of the Jewish lobby would reduce one to absurdity.
How many non-Jews have served as heads of AIPAC? AIPAC’s main mission is to promote Jewish nationalism and the interests of the Israeli government. It is a key component of the Jewish lobby.
Pro-Israel activists do no favors for themselves or their credibility when they insult one’s intelligence.
While the hydra of anti-Semitism in USA raises its ugly heads while their are being chopped off by the indefatigable forces of light, Europe is deep in the anti-Semitic mire.
Boys and girls, today in ynetnews.com I read a blood-curdling commentary (somehow news in Ynetnews seem to be from a different planet than comments, more research is required to figure out which one is ours). Tada:
“Op-ed: European governments funding Palestinian annihilation campaign against State of Israel
Eldad Beck, Published: 01.11.13, 00:34 / Israel Opinion”
The horrifying story starts in The Netherlands where “The Foreign Ministry heads managed to dodge the questions about the continued funneling of funds collected from the tax payers to the Palestinians, through various channels, despite the continued terror activity and anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incitement. They also avoided answering questions regarding the perpetuation of the refugee problem by assisting UNRWA.”
And why is the demonic activity possible? Because traitors in the Israeli government allow it to happen. Now wonder that Jews with some modicum of survival instinct are abandoning Likud-Beytenu for Jewish Home.
Exposing Dershowitz as a liar is a full-time occupation. Even Abourezk and Cockburn, who obviously spent some time on this and were accurate, didn’t catch the full measure of Dersh’s dishonesty. Some things to add:
1) Cockburn did not need to find the complete version of the Dersh article to prove that he did accuse Abourezk of being anti-semitic, though the last paragraph certainly sealed the deal. Even in the Huffpo version, Dersh said: Senator Abourezk then went on to blame what he calls this “immense wave of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment” on the Jews. . . Get it? The Jews always need a “boogeyman.” They picked on the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union didn’t pick on the Jews who they were discriminating against and preventing from emigrating. I guess the Jews picked on the Nazis before that. To be sure, he doesn’t exactly use the word “Jews.” Instead he uses the politically correct euphemism “Zionists.” But in the context in which Abourezk uses it — soviet jewery — he plainly means Jews. An accusation that Abourezk unfairly blames things on “the Jews” is equivalent to an accusation of anti-Semitism. Is there really any doubt about that? At the end of the Huffpo article, Dersh includes the comparison of Abourezk with Bilbo: Well maybe former Senator Abourezk isn’t so different from the late Senator Bilbo after all. He uses the word “Zionist” in precisely the same bigoted way Bilbo used “kike.” Wasn’t Bilbo anti-Semitic for using the word “kike” and wouldn’t that meant Abourezk was anti-Semitic for using “Zionist” in “precisely the same bigoted way”?
Dershowitz’s defense – that he did not use the word “anti-Semite” – is laughable. Hypothetically, imagine that I accused Dersh of forcibly having sex with female interns against their will. When he protests that I accused him of being a rapist, could I then say “I challenge you to find the word “rapist” in my accusation”? Dersh’s whole article reeks of an accusation of anti-Semitism, and his claim that he did not use the word is less than lame. Cockburn need not have found the word “anti-Semitic” to prove Dersh was a liar.
2) Dersh also claims that when he added at the end of another version of his article: “It is true that not all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic, but just because it is anti-Zionist does not mean it is not also anti-Semitic. If the shoe fits…” , he was only making a “general point about the relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.” No, Alan, since that statement was made in an article accusing Abourezk of using “Zionists” when he meant to blame the “Jews,” you were not making a “general point,” but a specific one aimed at Abourezk. You were accusing him of being anti-Semitic in his condemnation of “Zionists.” There simply is no question about it.
The real question is why Dershowitz bothered to deny his accusation that Abourezk is an anti-Semite. After all, he has leveled the same charge, often without using the word, against Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Mearsheimer and Walt, Cockburn, Finkelstein, Goldstone, Desmond Travers, Abulhawa, to name just a few off the top of my head. Often he uses the word “bigot” but isn’t bigotry against Jews “anti-Semitism”? Why did Dersh get cold feet about Abourezk?
I wish somebody would pay me to write a full-length book about Dersh’s dishonesty. Never mind the odious nature of his opinions, his sheer dishonesty is truly breathtaking.
“…He [Abourezk] uses the word ‘Zionist’ in precisely the same bigoted way Bilbo…”
Dershowitz is such a vandal of the English language through conflation. Perhaps it is a habit picked up from running with real vandals destroying Arab property in New York back in his younger years…
http://www.irmep.org/ila/zoa/doj-149-1603-zoa/01291957_files.pdf
Released from the National Archives fall, 2012
“Even those militants who could justify the use of violence against Soviet or PLO officials were appalled by the bombings directed against Hurok and Columbia, and especially by the death–even accidental–of a young Jewish woman.”
Especially Jewish, eh? Don’t we just love that crawling beastie of a Dershowitz? Had she been your common-or-garden Orthodox-Russian or godless Russian, the kind that the Zionists invite with cannon fodder status because Jews are too smart to come anymore, there wouldn’t be anything to be appalled by; just unjewish road kill. No matter what our learned friends here say, he is an accessory to torture and murder.