Alan Derschowitz
A few years ago, Yale students and faculty protested the appearance of Daniel Pipes at Yale (see
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/9070?badlink=1 ).
On Thursday, 6-7 PM in front of there will be a protest of another person who made a career out of attacking Arabs, Muslims, and Jews who disagree with him. Alan Dershowitz is coming to Yale.
Dershowiz Supports war crimes
Dershowitz proposed that Israel should respond for each Palestinian "terrorist attack" (he does not define these and the reader is left with the impression that all Palestinian acts of resistance are terrorism) by engaging in “the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings.” He added that the destruction of the village “will be automatic. The order will have been given in advance of the terrorist attacks and there will be no discretion.” (Jerusalem Post, March 11, 2002). This is a war crime according to International law. In a book published later, Finkelstein amended his proposal to state that Israel should destroy the houses of the villages after their resident have left ("empty houses") but that is still a war crime. In an article in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2006, Dershowitz attacked Amnesty International for its descriptioon of Israeli crimes in attacking civilian areas of Lebanon in Summer 2006.
Dershowitz Denies Israeli war crimes:
In his deceptive book "the Case for Israel", Dershowitz consistently lied by claiming that Israel diod not enghage in violations of basic human rights or in war crimes. He claims Israel does not target civilians (and is actually far too accomodating to a hostiled population). Yet every single human rights organization in the world (including Israeli ones) taht have looked into the situation state that the facts are otherwise. This includes Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, Amnesty International, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and Association of Civil Rights in Israel. Even occasional published reports from the Israel friendly US State Department speak of excessive use of force and killing of innocent civilaians.
Citations and material in Dershowitz book "The Case for Israel" were identical to material in the widely discredited book by Joan Peters "From Time Immemorial". For a rigorous critique of Peters, see "Image and Reality of the Israel/Palestine Conflict by Norman Finkelstein). Dr. Finkelstein clearly went on to show in shows in his book "Beyond Chutzpah" that: a) there was clear plagiarism by Dershowitz from Peters, and more importantly b) that both books are full of mistakes, lies, and distortions. Dershowitz later had to admit that he took material from Peters' book without checking primary sources and explained this as due to him not being able to locate these sources! (with money and resources of Harvard, but even if he could not, would any of us accept that from our students let alone our faculty). For Finkelstein's work, Dershowitz mobilized a campaign that caused Finkelstein his job at DePaul University. For details on the feud between Dershowitz and Finkelstein and analysis of the charges and countercharges, visit http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=999 and some of the material below is taken from that website
For peace in the Israel/Palestine, Dershowitz prescribes "Palestinian extremists must give up their claimed right to all of "Palestine," including what is now Israel, as well as the alleged right of millions of descendants of those who left or were forced out of what is now Israel during the war of 1947-1949 to 'return' to their 'ancestral homes' in Israel." Yet International law is very clear on the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Geneva Conventions, . With the exception of a handful of Palestinian triators, there is unanimity among Palestinians in wanting peace to be based on human righst and International Law (see Palestinian Civil Society Call to Action 2005).
Dershowitz also supports assassinations. See "The Harvard Law Professor Who Sat On An Israeli Assassination Target Review Panel"
http://www.counterpunch.org/khan09302004.html
In defending his defense of torture, Dershowitz writes "If torture is, in fact, being used, and / or would, in fact, be used in an actual ticking bomb terrorist case, would it be normatively better or worse to have such torture regulated by some kind of warrant, with accountability, record-keeping, standards and limitations. This is an important debate, and a different one from the old, abstract Benthamite debate over whether torture can ever be justified"!. See detailed analysis of Dershowitz positions on torture at
http://www.amnestyusa.org/About_Us/May_13_2002/page.do?id=1101186&n1=2
In his vendetta against Finkelstein he implied that Finkelstein's mother collaborated with the Nazis while she was an inmate in a Nazi concentration camp! http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Finkelstein_Norman/Israel'sHumanRightsRecord.html
The 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) Article 2 defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." |