Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz ‘s Case For Israel was emotionally not easy for me to read. I suspect as difficult as Jimmy Carter’s ‘Palestine Peace Not Apartheid’ was for Israel’s supporters to read. First of all, as you know I feel it is important to initially find common ground. Dershowitz at least initially presented the opposing side to the argument, whereas Carter (although I agree with him more) omits the Palestinians misgivings almost completely
I agree that in retrospect the Palestinians may have been better off to be annexed by Syria, Egypt & Jordan all things currently considered. I was happy that Dershowitz agrees with the 2 state solution & I was also relieved to hear him say that it is only a matter of time before this occurs and anything that contravenes this is counterproductive. I also agree that Arafat should have taken the deal offered in 2000. Just like they should have stuck with the 1967 borders which were a far better deal than what they currently have; are fighting for, and would be lucky to have offered again. A portion of the book was obviously aimed at Dershowitz’s distain for Yassir Arafat since Arafat was still alive during the books writing. I have said this before, Arafat is dead, time to move on and let Yassir Arafat go.
Israel is quite progressive in comparison to surrounding nations and has better gay & woman’s rights than any Arab nations that I am aware of. I agree Israel acts far superior to how the US would act if embroiled in a similar situation. I could not imagine how the United States or the United Kingdom would act if they were faced with what Israel is faced with on a daily basis. One simply has to look at how they currently react to relatively minor security breeches to imagine this scenario.
Dershowitz quotes Mark Twain saying ‘there was much barren unpopulated land’, well duh! There was and still is! The population numbers would be inaccurate for many reasons least of which being the Bedouin’s nomadic lifestyle. This would make it inherently difficult to validate in any sort of accurate census. I get the point that both Jews and Muslims are interwoven into the fabric of Culture in Israel/Palestine however what happened in the 1800’s is irrelevant to the current situation. As opposed to what Dershowitz says before 1948 it was always my understanding that both Jews & Muslims lived side by side in peace much as they still do in certain areas today like Jaffa.
I have a large issue with Dershowitz’s use of the labels; bigot, racist & anti-Semite. It seems as though if one does not criticize Israel in the exact manner Dershowitz approves one falls under these categories. His interpretation of what constitutes an Anti- Semite is so limited I had a huge issue with it. His initial statements seemed to lean to intimidation. If anyone dare criticize Israel above anyone else the insinuation that they are Anti-Semitic is not reasonable.
Is Israel the only villain in this saga? Of course not! The British, Americans, other Arab States are also culpable however when you are assigning blame is Israel the largest aggressor against the Palestinians? It would be ridiculous to say anything to the contrary. Have the Palestinians been beyond reproach? No! (Munich 1972, numerous bombings killing innocents etc.) However what frustrates me in our culture is that somehow in Canada we are soothed by saying it’s both sides that was not my observation! Not in the West Bank & not during the time that I was there. The facts & statistics support my first hand observations.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org
Saying that Israel wants peace, although I dearly want to believe that they are sincere in this claim their continuous actions contradict this, the settlements for instance, which is currently the major stumbling block to 2-States. When disputing the numbers of Palestinian vs. Jews being killed. Dershowitz ‘s convoluted reasoning & logic somehow came up with the figure that more Israeli’s have been killed than Palestinians is simply factually inaccurate, I will not even go into detail explaining when our water was cut off for weeks, the mowing down of olive tree orchards etc. How can Dershowitz say and still maintain any sort of credibility that the razing of Palestinian houses is not collective punishment? Furthermore to state that the destruction of these homes were limited to terrorists is blatantly false. My friend, Sammi, who I have told you about before and any of my friends are free to meet his Canadian wife Rebecca had their house bulldozed and I can assure you that neither of them could even by the wildest claims be considered terrorists
When Dershowitz made the illogical claim that Israel earns the money that is given it by the international community because it’s a democracy was simply silly. By that logic, Canada should be given billions for practicing social equality! I also have always had an issue with calling Israel a true democracy when half the people were removed and are not allowed to vote regardless of the rationale. One point where I was literally laughing out loud is when he said that the Palestinians have HIV + suicide bombers to infect Israeli’s. According to MENA throughout all of Palestine there have been 4 recorded cases of someone who is HIV+. Believing that our point is as strong as our weakest argument puts Dershowitz ‘s credibility on very shaky ground.
A lot of the book was finger pointing at other countries or comparing Israel to the US, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other nations. Comparing yourself to horrid human rights violators such as China or other 3rd world violators is ridiculous. Is the Chinese ethnically cleansing the Tibetans really the standard that one should be compared to? Dershowitz claimed that the U.S. perpetrates human rights violations and the world says nothing, I mean come on! That claim is preposterous! The entire WORLD (outside of the farthest right of the Republican party) recognizes and openly criticizes the Americans for their actions around the globe!
Is Israel the only or the worst human rights violators? Of course they are not! Of course I expect more from Israel just like I expect more fro the US when they tortured detainees, just like I expect more from Japan in regards to their horrendous fishing practices, just like I expect more from ANY industrialized, free, democratic, secular nation.
Dershowitz lost me, he was too biased. (as I admit was Carter) particularly when he labeled his opinions as facts, twisted and altered the recorded statistics to fit facts & to meet his conclusions. His emotionally pro Israel viewpoint caused me to question his objectivity, but… he is a lawyer, & as lawyers do has made an incredibly successful career of manipulating the facts (for example defending OJ Simpson & his corresponding book Reasonable Doubts in which he defends Simpson.
I do not hate anybody, Jew, Muslim, Black, Hindu etc. however Dershowitz’s propaganda was so contrary to the persecution that I witnessed myself, in reading him made my support of the Palestinians even stronger than before I read the book.
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