Archive of February 2009
Thu 26 Feb
On Dershowitz and Hampshire College
February 25, 2009
From: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20670
By Howard Friel
Howard Friel is coauthor with Richard Falk of The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy (Verso, 2004), and with Falk of Israel-Palestine on Record: How The New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East (Verso, 2007).
Suppose you are the president of a small college in the United States, or chairman of the board of trustees at the same school, and a prominent professor from the most powerful and prestigious university in the United States unfairly attacks a group of your students with baseless accusations of anti-Israel bigotry and political extremism. Do you first and foremost stand by your students—if indeed the charges are baseless and inflammatory—or do you submit an open letter to a newspaper in Israel, addressed to the university professor in question, and plead for mercy, knowing that this one professor can go a long way in ruining the reputation of your college with allegations of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bigotry?
The college in question is Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, the college president is Ralph Hexter, the board of trustees chair is Sigmund Roos, the prominent out-of-town professor is Harvard Law School's Alan Dershowitz, and the students belong to a Hampshire College branch of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Whether the students inappropriately announced that the college had narrowly divested from investment funds that benefit Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories is not addressed here, though it is a key component of the controversy that has unfolded on the Hampshire campus and in the Jerusalem Post. Rather, the concern here is that Hexter and Roos neglected to defend the underlying motivation of the Hampshire students against the McCarthy-era allegations of Alan Dershowitz, and instead engaged in a sycophantic and unprofessional public effort to distance themselves from the legitimate political and humanitarian concerns of the students.
In his "Double Standard Watch" column in the Jerusalem Post on February 15, 2009, Dershowitz referred to the SJP students at Hampshire as "a rabidly anti-Israel group," "the virulently anti-Israel group called Students for Justice in Palestine," "the anti-Israel group," "the anti-Israel students," and "the anti-Israel student group." Meanwhile, Dershowitz invoked "bigotry" six times as the underlying motive of "the anti-Israel students," while demanding that the college punish the SJP students for their "bigotry." Here is what Dershowitz wrote in this regard: "There must be a price paid for bigotry"; "singling out only Israel for divestiture is bigotry plain and simple"; "this bigoted resolution" (describing the Hampshire students' divestment initiative); "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"; and:
Hampshire is a small college without much influence. But those who are conducting the national [divestment] campaign see their "victory" at Hampshire as an opening wedge with which to get other more influential universities to follow suit by adopting similarly bigoted proposals. This is a cancer that is threatening to spread around the world, and it must be stopped where it began—at Hampshire.
The "cancer" here is the nonviolent SJP campaign to divest from businesses that contribute to Israel's four-decade occupation of Palestinian territories in violation of international law.
Rather than defend the Hampshire College students from the charge of anti-Israel bigotry to which they were subjected, Hampshire's Hexter and Roos began their letter to the Jerusalem Post as follows: "Dear Alan: We begin by affirming our high esteem for you, both as a legal scholar and a powerful voice against anti-Semitism." And in response to Dershowitz's incitement against the students—stating that "there must be a price paid for bigotry"—Hexter and Roos sought to reassure Dershowitz that the Hampshire administration will take "disciplinary action" against the students:
But we are also clear, and urge you to understand us clearly, when we say that students do not speak for the college and may not willfully misrepresent the school. It will be, and must be, the college's task to undertake any disciplinary action, according to its established rules and procedures. Discipline is an internal process that is not shared with the public.
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:
Your good opinion matters to us; it matters, yes, because you are an influential public figure, but it matters even more because we count you as one of the Hampshire family, and hope that you will think of yourself that way, too.[1]
So the students will get what's coming to them—in response also to Dershowitz's threat to encourage a financial boycott of Hampshire, given the "anti-Israel bigotry" on campus—while Hampshire's president and board of trustees beseech and implore Dershowitz to remain within the Hampshire "family." In effect, then, by acceding as such to his demands and threats, Hexter and Roos certified Dershowitz's allegations that the Hampshire students had engaged in "anti-Israel bigotry" on campus.
Clearly, however, Hexter and Roos had another option: To situate Dershowitz's charges of "anti-Israel bigotry" at Hampshire in light of the serial nature of such allegations by Dershowitz against legitimate critics of Israel. Though it scratches the surface, the record below of Dershowitz's defamatory characterizations of many others as bigoted, anti-Semitic enemies of Israel will provide some needed context on the nature of these allegations, and background for the charges against the Hampshire students, which, unfortunately, were seemingly certified and supported by the president and trustees of the college.
Dershowitz's most recent book, The Case Against Israel's Enemies (2008), is in fact a Nixon-esque catalog of enemies—literally an enemies list—of legitimate critics of Israel's policies. While composing the original Nixon's enemies list, White House counsel Charles Colson described Bernard Feld, an M.I.T. physicist and proponent of nuclear-arms reduction, as a recipient of "heavy far left funding," journalist Daniel Schorr as "a real media enemy," columnist Mary McGrory as the author of "daily hate Nixon articles," and the actor Paul Newman as a supporter of "radic-lib causes."[2] The enemies list compiled by Dershowitz in his 2008 book, which features a former U.S. president, prominent academics, and human rights organizations, is presented in a far more virulent manner.
About former President Jimmy Carter, Dershowitz wrote: "Whatever the reason or reasons for Jimmy Carter's recent descent into the gutter of bigotry, history will not judge him kindly."[3] In an interview on Shalom TV in Israel, Dershowitz said: "Jimmy Carter has literally become such an anti-Israel bigot, that there's a kind of special place in hell reserved for somebody like that."[4] Is this what Hexter and Roos intended to support, in addition to Dershowitz labeling the Hampshire students as anti-Israel bigots, when they wrote to Dershowitz in the Jerusalem Post that "your good opinion matters to us"?
About John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, who together authored The Israel Lobby And U.S. Foreign Policy (2007), Dershowitz wrote that "they are hate-mongers who have given up on scholarly debate and the democratic process in order to become rock-star heroes of anti-Israel extremists."[5] Is this included in what Hexter and Roos admire about Dershowitz?
Because Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—both of which are on Dershowitz's enemies list—issued reports that were critical of Israel's conduct in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in summer 2006, Dershowitz referred to them as "so-called human rights groups," and described their reports as "bigotry—pure and simple."[6] Dershowitz also cited "Amnesty International's predisposition to blame everything on Israel," claimed that "Amnesty International just can't seem to help itself when it comes to blaming Israel for the evils of the world," and described Amnesty as "a once reputable organization that has destroyed its own credibility by repeatedly applying a double standard to Israel."[7]
Dershowitz also wrote that "Human Rights Watch (HRW) was even more biased in its reporting of the facts on the ground" during the Israel-Lebanon war in summer 2006,[8] and commented as follows: "HRW no longer deserves the support of real human rights advocates. Nor should its so-called reporting be credited by objective news organizations. The same must be said about Amnesty International."[9] Dershowitz then went further, arguing that the "biased" and "bigoted" anti-Israel human rights organizations "side with the terrorists":
The so-called human rights organizations that constantly side with the terrorists are actually guilty of encouraging the tactic of using human shields and firing rockets from civilian neighborhoods. The terrorists themselves acknowledge that they are counting on these biased organizations to make their case for them, and the organizations are succeeding. That's why terrorists persist in this doubly criminal tactic and civilians continue to be killed. And that is why Israel did not win a more decisive victory in its battle against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.[10]
Is this also what Hexter and Roos admire about Dershowitz? If Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were students at Hampshire College, would Hexter and Roos also have acquiesced in the Jerusalem Post to punishing them, pursuant to these abhorrent attacks from Dershowitz?
If the analogy to Nixon's enemies list seems exaggerated, consider Dershowitz's remarks from his 2001 book, Letters to a Young Lawyer. While advising the young lawyers to "Have a Good Enemies' List"—the title of chapter 3 in that book—Dershowitz wrote:
Your mother told you it's important to have the right friends. But it's equally important to have the right enemies. Pick your enemies as carefully as your friends. A really good enemies' list is often a sure sign of a courageous and moral person. The world is full of evil people and it is important to stand up to evil.[11]
Compare this statement about standing up to "evil people" to the statement in Dershowitz's column in the Jerusalem Post about the "evil" students and administration at Hampshire College, which, in Dershowitz's words, "now promotes discrimination and is complicit in evil" as a result of the divestment effort and their "anti-Israel bigotry." It would be difficult to find words more authoritarian, let alone Nixonian, than these from a U.S. academic. Is the Dershowitz "enemies list" against "evil people"—which now includes the SJP students at Hampshire College—another source of admiration by Hexter and Roos? In light of the above statements by Dershowitz, shouldn't the president and trustees of Hampshire College state the basis of their admiration for Dershowitz with more detail?
Nor are Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky, Amnesty International, etc., the only "evil" people on Dershowitz's enemies list. Others include Rabbi Michael Lerner (editor of Tikkun); South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu (recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism in 1987), and Pope Benedict XVI.
Referring to Rabbi Lerner in The Case Against Israel's Enemies, Dershowitz resorted to the default Nixon's-list assault, calling Lerner a "hard-left academic."[12] This is a common designation of "evil" for Dershowitz. Writing about Jimmy Carter's appearance at Brandeis University in January 2007 to discuss his book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, Dershowitz wrote that "some hard-left professors" invited Carter to Brandeis. Likewise, Dershowitz wrote that Archbishop Tutu "has joined anti-Israel extremists in likening Israel to apartheid South Africa."[13] (As he does with Jimmy Carter's use of the word "apartheid," Dershowitz misrepresents how Tutu applies "apartheid" to Israel. Both Carter and Tutu use the word to describe Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, not to describe Israel's domestic political system.) And about Pope Benedict XVI, Dershowitz wrote:
In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI condemned terrorist attacks against civilians in Great Britain, Egypt, Iraq, and Turkey. In a pregnant omission—very pregnant, in light of the Vatican's long history of silence in the face of attacks against Jews—the pope omitted any mention of the country that has suffered the largest number of terrorist attacks against civilians since 9/11, namely, Israel.[14]
Note that Dershowitz criticizes Pope Benedict not because of anything that the pope actually said in this instance; his criticism is that the pope did not say anything about Israel, which, according to Dershowitz, "has suffered the largest number of terrorist attacks against civilians since 9/11." But how should the pope handle the situation in the manner in which Dershowitz suggests, when (as Hampshire's Students for Justice in Palestine have pointed out) Israel has killed more than four times the number of Palestinian civilians, including seven times the number of Palestinian children. According to B'Tselem, the highly regarded Israel-based human rights organization, from September 29, 2000 to September 30, 2008 (that is, up to the September 2008 publication date of Dershowitz's The Case Against Israel's Enemies), Palestinians killed 1,061 Israelis, while Israelis killed 4,873 Palestinians. These fatalities include 954 Palestinian children (ages 17 and younger) and 123 Israeli children (17 and younger).[15] Furthermore, B'Tselem's statistics on Israeli-Palestinian casualties closely track the statistics reported by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. This means that according to Dershowitz's own logic, the pope should have mentioned the killing of Palestinian civilians and children before mentioning the killing of Israeli civilians and children. But that was not the basis of Dershowitz's attack on the pope. In short, there is no way to win under Dershowitz's rules for criticizing Israel, which includes the privilege to list a person an "enemy" of Israel even when that person doesn't criticize Israel, as was the case in this instance with the non-comments from Benedict XVI.
Another of Dershowitz's privileges is that while he regularly throws the daggers of "anti-Semitism" and "bigotry" at Israel's "enemies," Dershowitz reserves the right to deny that he resorts to any such tactic. In his introduction to The Case Against Israel's Enemies, Dershowitz wrote: "The claim that critics of Israel are branded anti-Semites is a straw man and a fabrication of Israel's enemies who seek to play the victim card."[16] Dershowitz made the same claim elsewhere in the same book, while referring to Carter, Mearsheimer, and Walt:
Ironically, they have attempted to hide from scrutiny by labeling their critics intolerant, using the same ad hominem attacks that they claim they are victims of. They refer to me, for example, as being "often quick to brand Israel's critics as anti-Semites," without offering a shred of proof.[17]
There is in fact an abundance of proof that Dershowitz, and others who hold similar positions, do what Carter, Mearsheimer, and Walt have claimed. In 2007, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote a book titled, The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control, as a response to the Mearsheimer and Walt article, "The Israel Lobby," published in 2006 in the London Review of Books.[18] Foxman's book was issued to coincide with the publication of the book by Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.[19] In the introduction alone, Foxman wrote "anti-Semitism," "anti-Semitic," "bigotry," "bigoted," "bigot," and "bias [against Jews]" a total of twenty-three times; overall, Foxman uses these same words in over sixty pages of his book. Yet, despite this immersion in "anti-Semitism" and "bigotry" as a direct response to Mearsheimer and Walt, Foxman, like Dershowitz, denied as follows that he labels legitimate critics of Israel as "anti-Semites" and "bigots":
It's an accusation I deny. Are there some overly sensitive Jews who are excessively prone to seeing anti-Semitism where none really exists? There probably are. But I don't agree that this charge applies to me, to the Anti-Defamation League, or to the great majority of Jewish leaders and Jewish organizations with which I'm acquainted. We know the difference between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, and we are careful to respect that difference.[20]
This being the case, why write a book in direct response to Mearsheimer and Walt that is immersed in anecdotes and references to anti-Semitism and bigotry? Either Foxman should have argued outright with evidence that Mearsheimer and Walt are anti-Semitic, or he should have declined to infuse his book with a multitude of references to anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish bigotry as the suggestive context of his book.
Similarly, while Dershowitz denies resorting to charges that Israel's legitimate critics are anti-Semitic and bigoted, his 2008 book The Case Against Israel's Enemies contains over a hundred pages of references to "anti-Semitism," "anti-Semite," "bigot," "bigoted," and "bigotry." His 2005 book The Case for Peace has over seventy pages of such references. And his 2003 book The Case For Israel includes sixty pages of such references. Without this trademark backstop, Dershowitz's book-worn rendition of facts and law as they pertain to Israel's policies would have little effect, given that it systematically lacks merit. His claim that he does not brand critics of Israel as anti-Semites and bigots is on a par with his other factual assertions.
More specifically, in The Case Against Israel's Enemies, and about Jimmy Carter, Dershowitz wrote: "Initially, I defended Carter against accusations of anti-Semitism";[21] the implication being that the initial assessment of this "enemy of Israel" was a mistake. Referring to John Dugard (a distinguished South African law professor and former rapporteur on Israel for the UN Commission on Human Rights) and Richard Falk (a distinguished professor of international law at Princeton University for forty years, and Dugard's successor as special rapporteur), Dershowitz wrote: "Carter's book has given aid and comfort to such bigots [Dugard and Falk]."[22] In his chapter titled, "The Case Against Mearsheimer and Walt," Dershowitz wrote that the two professors "acknowledge some of the concerns that critics of their essay ["The Israel Lobby"] have raised about anti-Semitism, declaring, ‘Let us be clear: we categorically reject all of these anti-Semitic claims.'"[23] Later, in the same chapter, Dershowitz denounced "the incantation of boilerplate disclaimers against anti-Semitism" by Mearsheimer and Walt.[24] Dershowitz also argued that Mearsheimer and Walt "write behind a façade of erudition that purports to reject anti-Semitism but copies its classic archetype."[25] And in the concluding paragraph of his chapter on Mearsheimer and Walt, Dershowitz called them "hate mongers" who sought "to become rock-star heroes of anti-Israel extremists," and "perhaps this is not anti-Semitism but misanthropy."[26] Thus, after Dershowitz denied "that critics of Israel are branded anti-Semites," and that such claims are a "straw man and a fabrication of Israel's enemies who seek to play the victim card,"[27] he proceeded to tar Mearsheimer and Walt with inferences and innuendo of anti-Semitism. But for Dershowitz, none of this means that he ever called Mearsheimer and Walt anti-Semitic.
Furthermore, in writing about the British University and College Union (BUCU) boycott of Israeli educators and academic institutions, Dershowitz explained how he and others "wrote an op-ed piece for the Times of London, in which we demonstrated parallels between this boycott and previous anti-Jewish boycotts that were undoubtedly motivated by anti-Semitism."[28] The authors of the op-ed piece, including Dershowitz, then "turned to the motive underlying the [boycott] campaign," and asked, "To be blunt, is it anti-Semitic?"[29] While the issue motivating the boycott was Israel's forty-year, illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, and the attendant and systemic violations of Palestinian rights, Dershowitz and his coauthors argued that "in supporting a boycott they have put themselves in anti-Semitism's camp," and that the boycotter's motivation was "the desire to destroy Jews."[30]
Likewise, and still writing in The Case Against Israel's Enemies, Dershowitz condemned the U.S. Presbyterian divestment initiative targeting multinational corporations that sell goods and services which support the Israeli occupation. About the Presbyterian initiative, the Israel-based Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) reported:
ICAHD supports the initiative of the Presbyterian Church of the US to divest in "multinational corporations that provide products or services to...the Israeli police or military to support and maintain the occupation,...that have established facilities or operations on occupied land,...that provide services or products for the establishment, expansion or maintenance of Israeli settlements,...that provide products or services to Israeli or Palestinian organizations/groups that support or facilitate violent acts against innocent civilians,...that provide products or services that support or facilitate the construction of the Separation Barrier." We certainly support the campaign against Caterpillar whose bulldozers demolish thousands of Palestinian homes.[31]
While mentioning none of these details, Dershowitz simply referred to "the Presbyterians in their malevolent divestment campaign."[32] Omitting such details of course makes it easier for Dershowitz to argue, as he did, that "the Presbyterian [divestment] resolution is so anti-Israel in its rhetoric and so ignorant of the realities on the ground that it can only be explained by the kind of bigotry that the Presbyterian Church itself condemned in 1987, when it acknowledged its long history of anti-Semitism and ‘never again to participate in, to contribute to, or (insofar as we are able) to allow the persecution or denigration of Jews.'"[33] Dershowitz added that "unless the [Presbyterian] church rescinds this immoral, sinful, and biased attack on the Jewish state [that is, its divestment initiative], it will once again be ‘participating in' and ‘contributing to' bigotry and the encouragement of terrorism."[34] Based on Dershowitz's expert assessment of the Presbyterian church and its motives, should the FBI launch an investigation and initiate surveillance of the church's leaders and rank and file, given their "participation in ... contribution to ... and encouragement of terrorism"? Or is Dershowitz engaging in defamatory libel when he makes such comments? And is this the kind of example, like the others above, to which Hexter and Roos referred, when they wrote in the Jerusalem Post that they affirm their "high esteem" for Dershowitz's "powerful voice against anti-Semitism."
Dershowitz denies calling legitimate critics of Israel "anti-Semites" as follows in his 2003 book The Case Against Israel's Enemies:
I have challenged anyone who claims that mere criticism of Israel is often labeled anti-Semitism to document that serious charge by providing actual quotations, in context, with the sources of the statements identified. No one has responded to my challenge.[35]
To give this claim the narrowest reed of credibility—notwithstanding the actual innuendo and accusations of anti-Semitism—in many cases Dershowitz simply types "anti-Israel bigot" and "anti-Israel bigotry" as understudies to "anti-Semite" and "anti-Semitism." Thus, regarding Jimmy Carter, Dershowitz wrote: "In the weeks and months following the Brandeis debate, Carter's tone became more and more shrill and his substantive accusations against Israel more one-sided, even bigoted."[36] Or, as when he called "the former mayor of London"—unnamed—"a notorious anti-Israel bigot." The substitution here—"anti-Israel bigot" for "anti-Semite"—is apparently intended to give Dershowitz plausible denial that he doesn't call Israel's critics "anti-Semites." But what is the functional difference between an "anti-Semitic" critic of Israel and an "anti-Israel bigot"?
In similar fashion, Dershowitz also wrote in The Case Against Israel's Enemies that the "claims about Judaism and Israel" by Israel Shahak—a Jew, Holocaust survivor, and Israeli human rights activist—"are clearly absurd and bigoted."[37] About the late Shahak, Dershowitz wrote:
Shahak apparently borrowed his distorted views of Judaism directly from Stalinist "zionology." Stalin commissioned former Jews who had studied the Torah and the Talmud to distort or invent the most extreme view of Judaism and present it as mainstream. The Nazis did the same thing.[38]
Dershowitz footnotes this passage to an inaccessible Polish-language text, from which Dershowitz provided no quoted passages, or even a single word, to support his claim that Shahak—a survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp—was influenced by Stalin and the Nazis. And since Shahak is deceased, he, like the unnamed mayor of London, is unavailable to comment on his own behalf.
Similarly, Dershowitz called protestors at an event in Boston in 2004 "bigoted" without providing any details of the allegedly bigoted speech, except the protestors' comparison of Dershowitz to Hitler, as he relates:
I will never forget how I personally experienced this hatred in March 2004. It took place in front of Faneuil Hall, the birthplace of American independence and liberty. I was receiving a justice award and delivering a talk from the podium of that historic hall on civil liberties in the age of terrorism. When I left, award in hand, I was accosted by a group of screaming, angry young men and women carrying virulently anti-Israel signs. The sign carriers were shouting epithets at me that crossed the line from civility to bigotry. "Dershowitz and Hitler, just the same, the only difference is the name." The sin that, in the opinion of the screamers, warranted this comparison between me and the man who murdered dozens of my family members was my support for Israel.[39]
If comparing Dershowitz to Hitler was evidence of "bigoted" speech by the protestors, then by his own standards, Dershowitz also is guilty of "bigoted" speech, since on the very same page in his book he compared the protestors to Hitler, as he did when he compared the views of Israel Shahak to Stalin and the Nazis. In response to the protestors at Faneuil Hall, Dershowitz wrote "when I looked into the faces of the protestors, I could imagine young Nazis in the 1930s in Hitler's Germany."[40] Note also that Dershowitz—a repeat offender of crossing the line of civility—complained that the protestors had "shout[ed] epithets at me that crossed the line from civility to bigotry." Perhaps the protestors were indeed guilty of resorting to "bigoted" speech; we wouldn't know, however, because Dershowitz quoted nothing that the protestors said, beyond the slogan comparing Dershowitz to the Nazis.
What we consistently get from Dershowitz is hardly civil, substantive, public discourse in the marketplace of ideas, which is how Dershowitz often describes his contribution to the debate about Israel's policies. There is, in fact, little to distinguish Dershowitz's allegations, for example, against the Presbyterian church—officially issued in The Case Against Israel's Enemies on September 29, 2008, that the church was "participating in" and "contributing to" the "encouragement of terrorism"—with Governor Sarah Palin's comments five days later that Barack Obama was "palling around with terrorists."[41] It seems that Dershowitz's characterizations of Israel's critics match the insulting and offensive tone generated by the McCain-Palin presidential campaign in 2008, which the New York Times editorial page correctly described as "one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember."[42] And what Glenn Greenwald described as "the disturbingly ugly atmosphere that marked virtually every Sarah Palin rally"[43] could apply as well to virtually every allegation of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bigotry from Alan Dershowitz, including his ugly incitement against the SJP students at Hampshire College, which, incredibly, is supported by the president and trustees at Hampshire College.
Perhaps Hexter and Roos know more about Dershowitz's writings than it appears, and thus take seriously what Dershowitz wrote about his philosophy of defending his clients—his number one de-facto client being Israel for the past many years—and thus are overly solicitous toward Dershowitz to protect their college, if not their students. For example, in a 1983 book, The Best Defense, Dershowitz wrote: "Once I decide to take a case, I have only one agenda: I want to win. I will try, by every fair and legal means, to get my client off—without regard to the consequences."[44] Without regard to any consequences? To address further the question of consequences, Dershowitz appended an explanation, which reads in full as follows:
This [to win for his client, regardless of consequences] is neither a radical nor a transient notion. As a British barrister named Henry Brougham put it in 1820:
"An advocate, by the sacred duty which he owes his client, knows, in the discharge of that office, but one person in the world, that client and none other. To save that client by all expedient means—to protect that client at all hazards and costs to all others, and among others to himself—is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties; and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction which he may bring upon any other."[45]
While one might credibly argue that this approach to defense-lawyering is appropriate in an adversarial legal system, what if Dershowitz has applied this same philosophy of defense and consequences—"and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction which he may bring upon any other"—to his pro-bono effort as Israel's public defender in the United States? What if in his public defense of Israel against a nascent divestment movement, Dershowitz is heedless of whatever consequences he might wreck upon Hampshire College by calling its administration and students anti-Israel bigots, and writing "there must be a price paid for bigotry"? What if, like DePaul University, which fired a real U.S. scholar of Israel and anti-Semitism to limit the damage from the Dershowitz wrecking ball, Hexter and Roos did the same thing for the same reasons at Hampshire by sacrificing its students in their open letter to Dershowitz in the Jerusalem Post?
Furthermore, what if Israel indeed is guilty of systemic violations of international law in its policies and conduct toward the Palestinians, as asserted and documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Archbishop Tutu, Richard Falk, John Dugard, and, similarly, by Hampshire's Students for Justice in Palestine? How might Dershowitz respond as Israel's public defender? In The Best Defense, Dershowitz wrote:
In representing criminal defendants—especially guilty ones—it is often necessary to take the offensive against the government: to put the government on trial for its misconduct. In law, as in sports, the best defense is often a good offense. Hence the title of this book.[46]
What if, in his defense of Israel, Dershowitz substitutes Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc.—and most recently Hampshire College and Hampshire's students—for "the government" in the above passage, regardless of the consequences, including in this case to Hampshire College and its students, all the while using the club of "anti-Semitism" and "anti-Israel bigotry" as his offensive weapon?
Isn't it time for someone to hold Dershowitz accountable for his defamatory libel against legitimate critics of Israel as "anti-Semites" and "anti-Israel bigots," including most recently against the SJP students at Hampshire, and about whom Dershowitz wrote: "There must be a price paid for bigotry"? Is it scarcely believable that a Harvard Law School professor would issue such ugly threats against a nonviolent student group whose express ideals are compliance with international law,[47] and that the president and trustees at a reputable college would respond by giving Dershowitz a "family" hug in the Jerusalem Post?
Dershowitz does not engage the debate in this country about Israel on the factual, legal, moral, and humanitarian merits because he knows that his client is "guilty" of violating international law in its occupation of the Palestinian territories, as the SJP students at Hampshire College have argued. Instead, he engaged the SJP at Hampshire by calling them "anti-Israel bigots" and by writing: "There must be a price paid for bigotry." What is the function of a college or university in the United States when it is the students, and not the professor, who is threatened with sanctions under this set of circumstances?
Wed 25 Feb
In Response to Hexter and Dershowitz - Divestment is Still A Victory
By Adam Horowitz
Dershowitz and Foxman just can't come to grips with the fact that Hampshire divested ...Dershowitz has finally called off the dogs and will no longer lead a worldwide divestment campaign against Hampshire College. The JTA reports:
“Hampshire has now done the right thing," [Dershowitz] said in a statement. "It has made it unequivocally clear that it did not and will not divest from Israel. Indeed, it will continue to hold stock in companies that do business with Israel as well as with Israeli companies, so long as these companies meet the general standards that Hampshire applies to all of its holdings."
Better yet, Dershowitz said he is going to donate to Hampshire and hopes his money is used to "start a fund to encourage the presentation of all reasonable views regarding the Middle East to the college community." And not to be outdone, Abe Foxman added his own two cents (not literally), “We welcome this unequivocal statement from Hampshire College that it did not divest from Israel, and that Israel in fact played no role in the college’s recent decision to disinvest from a mutual fund,”
Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s national director, said in a separate statement. “This is an emphatic repudiation of the campaign of misinformation that has cast the college’s investment decisions in a false and politically biased light."
What Dershowitz and Foxman so conveniently ignore is that the students at Hampshire never claimed that the school had divested from Israel.
The students have made it clear from the beginning that the school had divested from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation.
The students brought six companies to the school's Board of Trustees that the were profiting from the Israeli occupation. In the course of reviewing those companies the school also decided to divest from others, but this doesn't change the fact the school divested from those six companies because of the occupation. From the Hampshire SJPwebsite:
The bottom line is that before February 7th, Hampshire College was invested in companies that directly profited from the occupation.
Today, we are not. This is a direct result of pressure and efforts by SJP. However, we are glad that our anti-occupation movement also helped us divest from other bad companies.
Or to use Dershowitz's own language the Israeli occupation does not meet "the general standards that Hampshire applies to all of its holdings." In other words, Hampshire divested.
Wed 18 Feb
Update :: Where We Are, Where We're Going
Update :: Where We Are, Where We're Going
In the days following the initial announcement of Hampshire College's divestment, students on this campus, and members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in particular, have been working almost non-stop. We've been conducting interviews, answering letters, holding meetings, fielding calls, producing various media projects.
We have gotten so many responses from folks from all over the world. Overwhelmingly, these responses have been in support of SJP's successful divestment campaign. Some of you have also expressed your concerns and given us some questions about what we're doing here. It's easy for this information to get lost in all the news stories & irregular updates, so we've decided to make a more concerted effort to make the information we put out more readily available to you. We feel that it's time to reach out and speak to our community of supporters in order to live up to the phrase:
"Divestment is not a college, it's a movement!"
So:
First, we've been working on an educational video series about our experiences during this campaign. This will include everything from "the basics" (the Occupation--what is it and why are we mobilizing against it?) to the movement today (what is BDS, and how did it work at Hampshire?). These will be short segments intended to be general primers, with supplemental text that will outline places to look for further investigation & reading.
Second, we will be branching out our web presence to multiple blogging sites, so people have more room for community discussion.
Third, we have updated our site to make it more streamlined and comprehensible. We are now actively updating the news section to include every story that our rss feed tells us about. We have updated the endorsements page, which includes most recently a host of prominent French academics & scholars. We have also laid out a simple page to access all of the media we put out so you can find it in one place--pictures, videos, etc. We are working on incorporating a new page that outlines the history of divestment at this college, going back to the South Africa anti-apartheid divestment in '77. You will also be able to find more details on the February 7th divestment, including detailed information on the six corporations that spurred us into action in the first place.
On our end, we've been busy organizing spaces for community outreach & healing. Just last night we hosted the first in what will hopefully be many post-divestment Open Forums. On a campus as small and intimate as Hampshire College, there is bound to be confusion, tension, anger, & pain whenever anything as big and politicized as this happens. It is absolutely crucial, now more than ever, that we maintain spaces where open communication can be had between all members of this community.
In light of this, we have invited a couple of organizers to do a workshop at the end of this week. They are young Jewish anti-racist activists from outside the community, and they will be doing a workshop on the importance of recognizing and combatting anti-Semitism, specifically in the context of the Palestinian solidarity movement. We hope that events like these will allow us to do a little self-reflection & time to sit back and take a deep-breath in the heat of all that's been happening.
Though charges of anti-Semitism tend to be the cynical fodder of those who want to shut down legitimate conversations about the policies of the U.S. government and the state of Israel, we feel the issue of anti-Semitism in general is worth addressing, and that it's particularly important to clarify what anti-Semitism is actually about, and how we can uphold genuine efforts to challenge it while still working towards the end of all oppressions, including that of the Palestinian people. To this end, we've been distributing a zine (both before and after divestment occurred) called "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere: Making Resistance of Antisemitism Part of All Our Movements." We encourage any of y'all to download a copy of the zine here: http://pinteleyid.com/past-read.pdf
In the meantime, please keep writing, please stay tuned.
Tue 17 Feb
Why This Is A Victory
The bottom line is that before February 7th, Hampshire College was invested in companies that directly profited from the occupation. Today, we are not. This is a direct result of pressure and efforts by SJP. However, we are glad that our anti-occupation movement also helped us divest from other bad companies.
To read our full response to the administration's claryfing statement, go here.
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