A reply to Melanie Phillips

Gene Schwimmer

"The vast majority of liberal politicians in the United States also support Israel. These include President Barak Obama..." No, he doesn't and that's what Dershowitz refuses to see.

Joe L

I greatly admire of, and usually agree with, both Alan Dershowitz and Melanie Phillips. They are both no-nonsense political analysts and are both strong supporters of Israel. Hence its such a shame to see them fall out like this. (Mind you, they're probably enjoying it really.) But, as a nearly returned Jewish US citizen after many years in the UK, I recognize much of Melanie says about the blind support for any Democratic candidate amongst most Jews here.

Obama's statements and actions re: Israel so far are not every encouraging, are they? His two bows to the King of Saudi Arabia were pretty scarey too.

And I really don't understand Alan's idea that support for Israel is a Dem/Rep "wedge issue".
Surely the fact that the religious "right" are the most pro-Israel of Americans disproves Alan's theory? Left-wing Jewish students are also largely pro-Israel. Israel is not a left/right issue over here.

Alan, a true champion for Israel, say that "Melanie Phillips does not believe that one can be a true liberal and a true supporter of Israel." Where does he get that idea? Many of my own very liberal relatives are very pro-Israel - I don't think it has ever crossed their minds that the their position is untenable.

Anyway Alan and Melanie - I think you're both amazing.
Perhaps a debate is in order?

aram karibian

If Dershowitz thinks that American support for Israel is being maintained because of anything American Jews are doing, he's more deluded than even Melanie thinks. BTW, when exactly was Arlen Specter a Republican?

Ted Paull

Lots of words from Dershowitz, but 'methinks he protesteth too much'. He still doesn't get it. Obama's heart is with Islam, and he is actively subverting Israel's interest. But not to worry, he's subverting the rights and interests of Americans as well.

Harry I Brown

Professor Dershowitz: Your rationale for loyal Jewish support for the Democratic Party in order to have continuing influence for support of Israel and other important issues, has merit. However, it is one thing to support the Democrats. It is quite another to HATE the Republicans, as well as conservatives in general, and George W. Bush, a.k.a. the "Bushitler" in particular. Almost 100% of my liberal Jewish relatives astound me with their rabid irrational hatred. they are not atypical. No "bipartisanship" there.
A year ago in Jerusalem, George W Bush gave a wonderful speech, and reportedly had tears in his eyes at the Holocaust Memorial. Last September, Sarah Palin was scheduled to give a passionate pro-Israel speech at the UN when Ahmadinejad was there , but was disinvited when pressure was applied by Obama's Jewish operatives. American "red state" Christians are undoubtedly the most pro-Israel non-Jewish voting block in the country.
In the liberal Jewish community (the majority of American Jews), none of this is acknowledged or appreciated. In fact, the opposite is true.
Jewish liberals should understand that it is not a good idea to take one's friends for granted or to treat them with contempt. It is not as if we have so many friends to begin with.
One more point. I believe that you are wrong about Barak Obama. Dead wrong.

PenGun

All you have to do is support the separation of church and state in Israel and all the problems go away.

Scott

Penngun,

You have a point BUT not in the way you think!

Yes, seperate religion and the state especially in Muslim countries because as soon as those countries and societies stop being led by religious despots more interested in their own personal power than in freeing their people, as soon as that stops then you are right.

Israel will also stop being a problem...because there will be no one running around whipping up jewish hatred.

Mr R

Such a pity - I'm a great admirer of both Dershowitz and Phillips - but here they are both too full of hubris to really think about the other's point of view. AD a little more guilty than MP. As a side issue (I've forgotten) didn't AD defend OJ Simpson? Why is this relevant? - it tells us something about AD's popint-blank refusal to see that Obama MAY just be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

GaryO

Here in the UK, there is no meaningful or real "genuine support from the heart" for Israel, either from the Left or Right. Sure, our politicians make all the right noises and have "Friends of Israel" groups within their parties. But if I know one thing about politicians, it is this: votes.

It is not islamophobic to suggest that Europe now has a substantial muslim population – it is a fact. And it is growing both in demographic terms (in many districts it's birth rate outpaces the local indigenous Europeans') and political influence – in many constituencies holding sway in who gets elected. And it is not unfair to suggest that majority of these new European muslims would like to see Israel pushed back to a tiny strip of land hugging the Mediterranean, if not destroyed altogether. Their voice, perhaps not unsurprising due to the nature of democracy – where the loudest wheel usually is the one that gets oiled, is now being echoed in the corridors of power.

Combined with this we have the incessant biased media reports against Israel, where it is nearly always shown as an aggressor and a killer of muslim babies but seldom as a country under attack or as a defender of democratic institutions and freedoms. This has taken its toll on our collective psyche. Today Jewish schools in Britain have to install security guards and barbed wire fence to protect its pupils, old Jewish men and women are spat at and assaulted at bus stops, shop windows shattered, graves desecrated and in extreme situations Jews in Europe (Ilan Halimi) are even tortured and killed. But none of this now even raises an eyebrow anymore. For all intents and purposes, Jews are once again under siege in Europe.

Add to this the fact that, by and large, muslims across the world see I/P conflict as a religious one and to see the I/P conflict just as a territorial dispute while ignoring its religious aspect is a grave mistake.

In this mix comes a US president who is a muslim by birth, is brought up as a muslim, has relatives who are muslim and who has affinity towards islam. He exclusively addresses the muslim world again and again. Extends a hand of friendship towards a country that is on its way to being a nuclear power with explicit intensions of wiping Israel off the face of the earth. Undoubtedly, vast majority of muslims across the world see him as one of their own who will deliver them from the Jews. He then goes on to condemn Israel in a way that would have made even Osama Bin Laden proud.

So, when it comes to this US president, please forgive us if we do not see the future of Israel and Jews entirely from the rose tinted glasses that many of the Americans do.

Sharn

Mr Dershowitz doesn’t get it and Melanie is too kind to spell it out exactly. The reason most of the world is now anti-Israel and that old fashioned Judeophobia has once again become overt is the replacement theology and history that is and has been disseminated since the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood. It does not take much to read a bit of source material like the Hamas Charter http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp to understand the impact that ideology has had firstly on Muslims and secondly and probably more importantly on those in the West who consider themselves liberals. Dershowitz has fallen right into the trap in even honouring the “settlement issue” with any credence. This is a red herring in the greater context and has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat, Left of Right and it is not exclusive to Europe, the UK or America. There are those who get it as they see the world as it is and those who don’t get it as they see the world as they would like it to be. It is this second category that fell for the slogans that brought Obama into office, fatuous phrases based on a promise of “hope” and “yes we can” rather than getting the facts for themselves. Modern society is based on the 30 second sound bite and celebrity status, so taking time to get source material to bolster understanding and beliefs takes a back seat in most decision making. It is far easier to listen to the oratory of people like Blair and Obama, slick, good looking and mesmerising. Unfortunately substance is not of importance when choosing a leader. The other issue is the notion that education, abortion and gay rights are paramount to foreign policy. It escapes Dershowitz that such issues are meaningless in Sharia law and it is the onset of Sharia Law in the West that we should be discussing and planning to halt, not the building of “settlements” on pin prick plots in Judea and Sumeria in a region of millions of Islamic sand dunes. If the West doesn’t embrace its Judeo-Christian ethic with the same ferocity that Muslims embrace Islam, then woe betide our grandchildren who will be forced to wear burkas, deny gay proclivities and live a life of apartheid as Dhimmis, convert or be slaughtered. Israel in those terms will also become meaningless as without a strong democratic West Israel too will cease to exist as a pro Western Jewish State.

Sheila

Oh, Mr Dershowitz!

'Melanie Phillips is nothing if not prolific and fast. Even before Spectator readers could access my reply to her earlier criticism of me, she had written and posted her own reply, “He Still Doesn’t Get It.”'

What's she supposed to do check on us all individually? 'Have you read his post, and my post, and his reply, and my reply?' Don't be silly.

'In it, she selectively quotes from my article.' No kidding. 'The quotes do not do justice to the thrust of my argument. Accordingly, my article is being published in full here.' Well, if you must prolong the laughter.

Michael B

A still more indulgent display, Mr. Dershowitz, too much of it nothing more than eye-rolling silliness. E.g., the suggestion that MP is attempting to arrogate 100% (emphasis upon "all") American Jews is obtuse - and that is additionally coupled with the (tacitly) ad hominem label of "conservative." Horrors! Pathetic. It's these types of flacid indulgences, among others, that cause people, in a more intuitive and speculative bent, to surmise about Dershowitz's defense of O.J. Simpson's (almost certain) double murder as something of an analogy.

So, what to do? Dershowitz effectively entices toward an end-game that is nothing more than an elaborate, labyrinthine cul de sac - a "lawyerly" confine - i.e. his forte: sophistry and sophistical pretension in lieu of intellectual coherence.

Maximilian

Dershowitz’s argument boils down to this: The Republican Party is always going to be pro-Israel anyway, so there’s no need for Jews add their support. The Democratic Party is less reliable: it might go either way on the Israel-Palestine issue. So Jews need to make it clear that there is a substantial “Jewish vote” that helps get Democratic candidates elected and that, once elected, they can’t afford to alienate.

As far as I can see, the argument makes sense. It may be regrettable that American Jews, on the whole, are antagonistic toward the party (the Republicans) that is more strongly supportive of Israel. But that’s a fact of life, so tough luck, we just have to adjust to it.

Nicholas Storey

Gary O - You paint a dire picture of modern Britain - is it really comparable to the era just before Kristall Nacht? You have no statistics, have you, to suggest that most European muslims would wish to see Israel destroyed but, in your own aggressive and objectionable way, you will say it and this paper (that has ignored an earlier protest from me about such an approach)will print it. The fact that manners in modern Britain are at an all-time ebb is that it has lost its national identity and that process began a long time before there was a significant influx of muslims.

Heather

Dershowitz is clearly worshipping at the altar of liberalism and is irresponsibly using his visibility to mislead American Jews. For an insightful analysis of Dershowitz's shallow rationale in his support of Obama's statist agenda, see Lauri Regan's compelling piece (the second of two devastating articles on American Thinker)entitled: Alan Dershowitz, American Jews, and the Religion of Liberalism.

august

You're ignoring her actual argument. She's not saying you shouldn't remain a Democrat, or support Obama's non-Israel policies. She's saying you should completely oppose Obama's Israel policies.

This is the right thing to do. Myself, I remain a Democrat and a supporter of most of Obama's policies, but I'm 100% against his Israeli policy. There's nothing wrong with this.

The American mainstream left is so full of virulent hatred towards Israel that basically the only people with enough guts to support Israel right now are you and Chuck Schumer. We need strong Democratic voices coming out and telling the truth: Obama's entire Israel approach is wrong, and so is the virulent anti-Israel groupthink going on on the left. If we ignore this horrible state of affairs, all that's left are the Israel-haters in the Democratic party.

This is very dangerous. Have you seen the comments on dailykos or huffpost lately? They're so full of venom it's really out of control, out of any proportion to reality.

John Thomas

How naive can you get? I am not Jewish, or utterly, blindly pro-Israel (I would not seek to defend Israel, on any issue, against solid evidence), but any reading of the Arab/Muslim/ Palestinian approach to things makes it crystal clear that Palestine (or rather, the (Iranian?) militant-Islamists who control it) will never, can never, agree to Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state; their whole belief-system forbids such thinking. Therefore it is either foolish, or deceiving, to claim that there can be anything approximating "peace" by way of such a negotiation/"settlement". So either Dershowitz (and, more importantly, Obama) are fooling themselves, or trying to fool everyone else. How can supposedly-intelligent people be so stupid? And, remember, it should be "liberal", or "so-called liberal" not actually liberal; how can supporters of the biggest holocaust the world has ever seen (much bigger than Hitler's) in any sense be actually liberal?

The real Winston Smith

You guys talk too much. You do nothing and change nothing. Get out of your rooms and into some fresh air. It's getting pretty stale in there.

Dave Jurin

What's it going to take to persuade Alan Dershowitz that Obama is no friend of Israel? An Iranian nuclear bomb going off in Tel Aviv?

Dershowitz has been in the see-no-evil business for so long that he now affords Obama the same presumption of innocence he once extended to Claus von Bulow.

Lydia P Troyer

Like Jews, some of my best friends are lawyers... and it is hard to ignore what is a common and easily observable sin among people who "think like a lawyer". And that is they too frequently fail to consider the "whole man" by instinctively winnowing out all the constituent parts of a problem/issue into a series of mutually exclusive on/off logical statements/conclusions. This leads often to the criticism and confusion that the lawyers' offer of presumption of a client's innocence is the same as a belief in all his clients' innocence. I think those who "see" Obama's big picture "get it" in a way that the strictly lawyerly analysis fails to grasp. As for Israel being a bi-partisan issue for the US voter, doesn't Honduras' current constitutional travails as a pro-western democracy surrounded by proto-Marxist kleptocracies merit some discussion - is this an Allende-Chile redux?

dave

Two thoughts come to mind here.

First, granted that a nuclear-armed Iran might be a mortal danger to Israel, why does it follow in Mr Dershowitz's mind that the U.S. must be the guardian of Israel, the region’s most powerful nation, a nuclear-tipped one, and one that is notoriously ready to use its weapons?

Here, I’d observe that Mr Dershowitz's blithe presumption about what America's role should be betrays the deeper problem which troubles many Americans and much of the world: Namely, how is it that the Israeli Lobby can perpetually command such a presumption, so as not to even give it a second thought? The answer is that the Lobby applies incredible hardball pressure-tactics on all key decisions. This is really a problem for BOTH parties and for America.

Second thought: Mr Dershowitz also unwittingly illustrates and really 'proves' the accusation which is often leveled at Israel-firsters: namely, that their loyalties are ultimately to Israel, at the expense of the organization that they join and participate in so strenuously. They assimilate into this party of the left, or that party of the right; either way, they disregard party principles, and instead can spin the narrative, and apply the pressure, in Israel's favor.

I wonder if Mr D. is aware how transparent this behavior is?

I guess I should thank him for making a monomaniacal spectacle of himself, as it’s very instructive.

alanadale

This is a Flat Earth Debate between a man who has been exposed as a sloppy scholar – he couldn’t get the name of the chief drafter of Resolution 242 correct while claiming to have played a minor part in its preparation – and a woman who inhabits the farthest perfervid reaches of paranoiac fundamentalism.

The debate is meretricious because it is predicated on the assumption that Israel has title to some if not all the Occupied Territories. Dershowitz may say he disapproves of Israel’s settlement policies but he still ascribes to the view that Resolution 242 does allow for territorial changes which pitches both him and Phillips (even though at opposite ends of the spectrum in this confected spat, he at the ‘liberal’ end) against the rest of the world which doesn’t think it has a claim to any of these territories.

But the real con in this false debate is the painting of the Israelis as victims of the Palestinians’ belligerence and aggression when the Palestinians are simply claiming what is rightfully theirs.

Stephanie Tohill

Gary O.

Lots of bluster but no facts. Do you have stats on the numbers of muslimsin Europe? Do you also have any evidence as to the feelings of most of that population towards Europe/Israel.

You do yourself no credit with your wild and vivid creations not least of which in your claim that Obama was born and raised a muslim. Really? His father was originally muslim yes (although he was later an atheist). This does not equate to Obama having been 'born a muslim'. Religion is not bestowed on a child in the same manner as their ethnicity. But just say they were how on earth was he raised an upbringing. He was raised by non-muslim white grandparents in Hawaii. His father had nothing to do with him after the age of two.

Lastly the point seems to have been pissed about the voting habits of US Jewish people. Phillips seems to think that the American Jews should make Israel their first and foremost consideration in everything they do. So a Jewish person who is almost fully in line with the Democrats on all issues should still vote Republican if they show themselves to be more Israel friendly. What madness is this? Would she suggest the same of muslims when choosing who to vote for? Suggesting they select the politician most friendly to Saudi Arabia irrespective of their other policies.

Tom DUrkin

'And it is not unfair to suggest that majority of these new European muslims would like to see Israel pushed back to a tiny strip of land hugging the Mediterranean, if not destroyed altogether.'
i think you'll find it is grossly unfair to suggest it!
on another note can noone see the parallels between conspiracy theories around 'international jews' and the theories espoused relating to 'Barry HUSSEIN Obama - muslim intelligence mole'??
they both come from moronic bigots! GROW UP AND WISE UP...