This piece, by Howard Friel, about the bullying by Alan Dershowitz of Hampshire College following its divestment agreement, shows that Dershowitz frequently uses the word "bigot" to describe critics of Israel. He uses the word or its derivatives 6 times in one Jerusalem Post piece attacking the Hampshire student activists.
(Five of those references: "There must be a price paid
for bigotry"; "singling out only Israel for divestiture is bigotry
plain and simple"; "this bigoted resolution"; "Students and faculty [at Hampshire]
too must understand that bigotry has its cost"; "decency cannot survive
with the kind of double standard bigotry directed only against the
Jewish state")
But Friel also suggests that Dershowitz has been effective. He quotes the fawning open letter to Dershowitz from Hampshire president Ralph Hexter and chairman Sigmund Roos, a Boston lawyer:
If "discipline is an internal process that is not shared with the public," as Hexter and Roos wrote, why would they pledge to sanction the SJP students in an open letter to Alan Dershowitz, in order to pacify Dershowitz, but who is obviously not an administrator at Hampshire College? And immediately after ominously signaling that the Hampshire students would be thrown under the bus, Hexter and Roos concluded with a final plea for a stay of execution from the despotic Dershowitz:
The question is, Why is Dershowitz so effective? He is one 70-year-old professor. It is not sufficient to say that Roos's father is active in the Jewish community in Boston, or that Dershowitz's son went to Hampshire. The answer is: Hexter and Roos are afraid of Dershowitz's influence over the donor and media community. They are afraid of Dershowitz's power over Establishment opinion. That a man who throws around the word "bigotry" so casually has such influence is a reflection of the entrenched power of the Israel lobby in our public life.
