Dershowitz waxes eloquently at a JCPA event but is he right?

7 Comments / 7 Comments

1. @ Ted Belman:

   Ted, I deeply appreciate that you took the time to answer me on such a triviality. However I don’t accept that it’s because you are approaching 80. Very few of that age could grasp so well the often subtle and complex situations that you constantly publish on this site for members to comment on. I for one-and I’m not alone-appreciate and realise this very well.

   I just now listened to the whole “debate” although in reality it wasn’t a debate, except between Dershowitz and himself. He could barely contain himself when Gold was (rarely and frugally) speaking, and tried several times to interrupt. He seems to be able to keep talking both whilst breathing out and in again, with no noticeable disruption of the “flow”… It’s a common failing of those with over- active minds whose thoughts keep bursting out of bounds to impress all, and he’s got it badly.. Others speak only by his kind condescention…It seems to me.

   I wonder what examples that Bannon has given that he “hates women”…. I find this odd, from a grown up, civilised, highly educated and articulate (over artic if you ask me) man like Dershowitz. It seems that Bannon’s boss Trump is not aware of this because he’s picking women for his cabinet over and over, many of whom Bannon will need to meet and have serious contact with. He certainly won’t be confined to speaking and advising only Trump. Many of the most important people in Trump’s election campaign have been women….

   I knew before I even looked at the “debate” that there would be repeated mentions of books Dershowitz has written, and the blatant self-bloviating at the end, because students will be able to access one of his books freely, was nauseating-to me anyway, but I just don’t his self-shmeering…..

   By the way, to “fix” the “Highlight and Quote” thing, I’ve now found that a few XXX or a single line downshift solves it so don’t go to the extended trouble.

2. @ Edgar G.:
   It is a big failing of mine that I don’t proof read my work. I must make sure to do so.

   I am approaching 80 years old so my faculties are not the best. Thanks for correcting me.

   As for Reply and Quote, they are part of a plugin. I don’t know whether it can be amended to make it work on cell phones. It will take me a while to find out.

3. @ Ted Belman:
   I won’t discuss your comments because I agree with them, and have said as much as I meant about Dershowitz the other day, so no point in repeating it in different form.

   Trump using a “big stick” may bring the Arabim Mamzers to agree to 2 states, which is a slow form of death for Israel and will always be a thorn in the side anyway so I don’t like that idea unless it completely does away with the P.A. Fatah and the PLO, leaving Israel for the Jewish People as the only legitimate International Agreements on the subject stipulate and intend..

   So I descend to a silly matter…..You are far too good a writer to continuously make silly spelling errors which are meaningless in the intended context. I refer to “reign”… REIGN is for succession of Kings, dynasties and the like. The word you NEED is “rein”, such as in pulling up horses and other forms of forward activity that you want to slow down or stop.

   And please make the “Highlight and Quote” a line higher so that it doesn’t obliterate the meaning of the first line in every post. A solution for posters is for them to skip down a line before writing. But nobody remembers to do it, even myself. and gives each post a bad beginning.

   That’s all my silly stuff for today.

   REIGN does not mean REIN.

4. Then again, he defeated BDS at Oxford. He’s good when debating people who challenge Israel’s right to exist. [How’s this for a parody, a debate in which one of the challengers denies the other one’s right to exist. Or even better, a debate between a Solipsist and a Cartesian. One is debating that his opponent is a figment of his imagination and the other is arguing that he must exist because he thinks.]

   http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/195452/at-oxford-alan-dershowitz-debated-a-prominent-human-rights-activist-on-bds-and-won-video

   Has a see also link to a debate between Dershowitz and Kahane. That I must see.

5. Dershowitz is full of himself that is what is clear and present as always. He is articulate but wrong on so many things he is painful at times to listen to.

6. Just heard a little of this hallucinatory nonsense. Did he just say that Geert Wilders (he also referred to him as “she”) and the right wing parties — he mistakenly lumps him with — he seems to confuse anti-islamist and neo-nazi and lumps together le pen with his daughter who threw him out of his own party for his anti-semitism, in Europe support Jews and Israel because they learned the lesson that Hitler didn’t, that he would have won the war if he hadn’t picked on the Jews? Is he nuts? 90 to 95 percent of all the Jews in Nazi occupied Europe were murdered! When Jewish activists asked the American government to apply the same threat FDR made to carpet bomb Germany with chemical weapons if it used them on Soviet troops on behalf of Jews the response was, Jews aren’t an ally because they don’t have a state. FDR, at Stephen Weiss’s behest, refused to see 400 Orthodox Rabbis who marched on Washington. But, he’s a liberal. What do you expect? They’re crazy.

7. I listened to the exchange again.

   Dersh said “Jews thrive at the center”. I would agree. Nevertheless I believe that Jews and Israel will thrive under Trump. Remember that the evangelicals who a large part of his base also love the Jews and Israel.

   But what happens when society is polarized as American society is now. Israel must get whatever it can from the Trump administration while at the same time trying to move the Democrats to a more favourable Israel policy. Her job is not to change her druthers in order to get Democrats to approve but to make demands for Democratic support.

   Dersh was against Bannon because he was against Muslims. Most of us agree with Bannon and therefore support him. I might add, its not Muslims per se but Muslims who don’t like us or our constitutions or who are committed to Jihad whether violent or stealth.

   Dersh chose keeping tyrants who represent stability as opposed to removing them. I agree.

   Dersh said that Trump was unpredictable because he doesn’t have an ideology. I disagree because his movement does and he will be true to it so far as he can.

   Dersh said we can learn nothing from Trump’s appointments. I strongly disagree. He chose Flynn because he was dedicated to destroying Islamist terrorism and ideology. That’s what he will be tasked with doing. He choose Gen Mattis because he wants to win. Trump does too. He chose Gen. Kelly to rein in immigration. He choose Pruitt to manage the EPA because he has been a long time opponent of its policies.

   Dersh took Trump to task because he didn’t appoint more people with experience on government policy. Yet how can he justify saying so since the “experienced” people have made a mess of things. Kushner had no experience yet engineered Trump’s victory by rejecting conventional wisdom. Currently his current picks will do likewise.

   Dersh did not comment on the Supreme Court picks. My guess is that he considers the Constitution a living document that must be continually updated rather than a document that must be interpreted as it was intended. So he will be at odds with Trump.

   Dersh held out no hope for Trump making progress on Arab/Israel peace. That’s because he can only see negotiations as they have been and wants the Gulf States to end up pleased. I believe that we must get out of the box of conventional thinking. If Trump begins to use a big stick on the PA and make serious demands on them, he can force them to change their position. If not the train can leave the station and a unilateral solution can be backed. Furthermore there is no need to appease the Gulf States. Obama threw them under the bus but they still need the US and Israel. If their wishes re the Arab/Israel conflict are ignored, they will still be with us. That’s because they have bigger fish to fry.

   Dersh says that Trump won’t move the Embassy just as past Presidents have not moved it. I believe that Trump will move it and strengthen Israel’s hold on Jerusalem. Trump will also build the fence where its needed.

   Finally he evaluated Obama on two fronts. He was only half right, namely in saying his foreign policy was a disaster. As for his domestic policy, it depends who writes the history. But if there are any objective historians, what criteria do they use to evaluate his legacy. He did nothing for the economy except hurt it or the inner cities, except ignore them. He also made race relations worse.