T. Belman. Dershowitz mounts a vigourous defense to Sklaroff’s allegations and scores lots of points. I want to focus only on his position that “Israel remain a bipartisan issue”. Is he suggesting that Israel should change its policy to be more in line with the policies of the Democratic Party (DP) which supports the TSS with the armistice line as the border? Is he suggesting that Israel shouldn’t get the best deal possible from Trump for fear of alienating the DP? Is he suggesting that the DP would punish Israel for doing so if and when it gets back into power?
Israel has not left the DP so much as the Party has left, in fact abandoned, Israel. Just what does keeping it a bipartisan issue mean in practice?
In his ad hominem attack on me – he calls me a dybbuk – Robert Sklaroff tells me to stop “declar[ing] that [I] support Israel.” His reason for attacking me is that I want support for Israel to remain a bi-partisan issue in American politics.
A simple fact-check of Sklaroff’s defamatory statements would demonstrate that virtually every one of his accusations is a malicious lie, as I will now show.
He claims that I place my loyalty to “progressives” above “fealty to Israel and world Jewry.” He says that because he ignorantly ignores what I have been writing for years. If he had simply opened my most recent book, Electile Dysfunction, he would see that I have taken the exact opposite position. I rail against the so-called “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party, who I call the repressives: [These quote progressives] “are often not the progressive “good guys” whom I looked up to in my youth; they are repressive bullies and bigots who disguise their anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Christian, and anti-American bigotry as a quest for social justice.
They must be fought – on campuses, at Democratic Party caucuses and conventions, and in the media – with the same righteous indignation with which decent people fight extreme right-wing manifestations of bigotry.”
Sklaroff mendaciously claims that in my talk to the ZOA, I argue that “a Trump presidency was illegitimate.” Nothing could be further from the truth as a review of my videotaped talk will prove. What I said was that support for Israel must remain bipartisan, and that we must never allow support for Israel to become “a referendum” in a national election.
In order to emphasize that important point – a point with which all Israeli leaders agree – I pointed out that if only one Party supported Israel, as is the case with many European countries, that party could lose a national election, as illustrate by the closeness of this election, in which Clinton won the popular vote and Trump the electoral vote. That is a fact, not a “talking point.” Under our Constitution, Trump is the legitimately elected president, and I immediately offered my assistance to him with regard to Israel, as I have to every president, regardless of party.
Sklaroff ridiculously suggests that I “ignored the fact that a truly non-partisan stance requires Democrats to increase support for Israel and for combatting anti-Jewish agitation.” Can Sklaroff really be that ignorant or blind to reality? Does he not know that I spend my life trying to push the Democrats in that direction? Has he not read my articles opposing Keith Ellison to head the Democratic National Committee? Again, from my recent book: “Oh, how things have changed over the past half century! The Democratic Party has been pushed farther left by the growing influence of radical activist organizations such as MoveOn, Occupy Wall Street, Code Pink, the National Lawyers Guild, and Black Lives Matter, as well as by leftward pressure from young voters, especially university students. This was manifested during the 2016 primary season by the surprising success of Bernie Sanders and the leftward push his voters gave Hillary Clinton.”
Sklaroff also criticizes me for attacking the anti-Semitism of the hard-right, and he apparently apologizes for such virulent right-wing Jew-Haters as Pat Buchanan and what he calls “self-marginalized white-supremacists.” He complained that I think Jew-haters and Israel bashers from the alt-right are as dangerous and violent as those from the hard-left. Unlike Sklaroff, I do not give a pass to Jew Haters on my side of the political spectrum. I attack with equal vigor, the bigots of the hard-left and hard-right.
At bottom Sklaroff’s real grievances with me is that I do not support his radical one-state solution that would require annexation of the entire west Bank and the expulsion or political subjugation of its Arab population. His Kahane-like solution is rejected by the vast majority of Israeli’s and American supporters of Israel. Yet Sklaroff falsely sees it as a litmus test for being considered a supporter of Israel.
Sklaroff lies about my position on the Iran deal, claiming that I “discounted any congressional effort that might be mounted to enjoin its implementation.” Had he glanced at my book: The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Now Stop Iran From Getting Nukes, or my recent op-ed in the Boston Globe, he would know that I have urged Congress to authorize the President to take military action, if necessary to prevent Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons.
Sklaroff concludes with the absurd statement that “Dershowitz commits polemical malpractice when he declares that he supports Israel.”
Well, I am going to continue to support Israel. I’m going to continue to demand that support for Israel remain a bipartisan issue and that the Democratic Party reject the demands of “hard-left” progressives.
If Sklaroff has any problems with my continuing to support Israel on university campuses, in the media, and around the world, he should take it up with the democratically elected Prime Minster of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu who said the following at a recent Globus conference: “Israel has no greater champion and the truth no greater defender than Alan Dershowitz.”
But then again Sklaroff probably doesn’t believe that Netanyahu is a supporter of Israel!
With David Friedman as US ambassador to IL, there is a high probability that the US embassy will move to where it is supposed to be!
The West and the Muslims put on notice! Last opportunity for the Palestinians to put up or shut up!
Trump is for real!
Now you’re just getting hysterical and plain stupid.
Dandaman Said:
Clearly we disagree on the value of the life of the mind. Einstein built no Temples, had no armies, lived in the University and his ideas changed the world. In fact without him and those like him Israel would have no nuclear deterrent.
You need to go over your list again. More than a few people mentioned commanded armies, conquered nations, and built Temples. To compare them in any way with a high-brow intellectual known only for his trendy aphorisms makes no sense at all.
Dandaman Said:
No again. Bais Hamikdash means “House of Study.”
@ Economist:
Dandaman Said:
No. The great Talmudists and Yeshiva thinkers were, in effect, in a university.
As a general remark some here like the second part but forget the first part of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
Exactly my point. All very powerful men in life, not in a university. Glad we agree on something.
Dandaman Said:
How many divisions did Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have and how many Temples did they build? Rambam? Rashi? The Baal Shem Tov? The Lubavitcher Rebbes? Yet their ideas and history are fraught with meaning to this day.
@ Economist:
How many divisions did Santayana have or how many Temples did he build?
@ yamit82:
yamit82 Said:
It’s clear you don’t understand Santayana, one of the greatest thinkers of his time. The lessons of history are derived from the core principles of events, not the circumstances. Will Durant wrote an entire book explaining that, appropriately called “The Lessons of History”.
@ Dandaman:
Some say there is no such thing as Jewish History only Jewish Memory.. There is a great divide between learning Jewish history and learning the lessons there to be taught.
@ Economist:
Trite and meaningless unless you can explain history. History never repeats events exactly only general themes.
Look at it from a different POV. Our victory and retreat in 56 was effected by American guarantee re: Freedom of navigation in the straits of Teran… In 67 Johnson reneged on Ike’s promise which led to 6 day war that led to our Liberation of all the Jewish historic heartland and Jerusalem. So I credit this to the “Bradbury Butterfly Effect”. So if you want to use trite euphemisms go ahead of course it’s mostly BS when looked at closely from different angles er, POV.
@ Economist:
Not to worry, the Jews never forget the past. In fact we’ve been guarding it with our lives for a few thousands years.
yamit82 Said:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”–George Santayana
Dandaman Said:
Let’s wait for President Let’s Make A Deal to put his 2 cents in.. We may find that we are nostalgic for the Black Plague Obama…… Trump may not be ideological but he is the ultimate egomaniac and will try to accomplish what none has succeeded before him…. He too will eye Noble Prize…
Power is intoxicating and he is just getting a taste of what real power is like.
Sebastien Zorn Said:
Have to take them back next round.
@ Economist:
WOW are you living in the past!!! Israel of 2016-17 is not the Israel of 1956….
@ yamit82:
Awesomely put! Now just throw in the Sinai Penninsula and Southern Lebanon and we’ve got a deal.
@ watsa46:
Peace process doesn’t lead to peace. Concessions to Arabs and imploring for peace only provoke them for the last-ditch fighting. That correlation is clear at least since the Oslo accords.
Peace process cannot lead to peace. If history is any lesson, peace is only achieved through crushing defeat of one’s enemy.
Peace process is highly unusual. Every other nation destroyed whatever aborigines happened to live on the land that nation chose to build a state.
Peace process is illegal. The original arrangement for the Jewish state included Transjordan, but the British illegally cut it off. Then the UN further partitioned Israel to accommodate Palestinian Arabs.
Peace process is immoral. Palestinian Arabs don’t constitute a nation. Offering them a state is a plot against Jews.
Peace process doesn’t offer safety. Jews need a secure state rather than a beach strip eight miles wide.
Peace process runs against Judaism and Jewish history. Jews are attached to the land which the peace process gives to Palestinians: Judea, Samaria, Hebron, Schem, and the Temple Mount. Coastal areas of the modern Israel are irrelevant to Jewish religion or history. Jews could as well settle in Uganda or Arizona.
Peace process is not for real. Israeli government employs the peace process for the sole objective of destroying Jewish religious and nationalist opposition to its rule. Neither security of the Jewish state, nor fulfillment of Jewish objectives are the peace process’ goals.
Peace process fails to address the major issue of Israel’s Jewishness. Israeli Arabs already constitute more than a third of Israeli youth. Arabs constitute majority in many important areas of Israel. The area of Lod near Ben Gurion airport is as much hostile to Israel as Gaza. Israel’s real problem is not the Palestinian Authority, but the Israeli Arabs who can field the largest faction in the Knesset ten years from now.
Peace is not a proper objective. Jews moved into Israel to fulfill religious and nationalist objectives. If peace and security are the utmost objectives, Israelis should move to Canada.
Why is it that I’m not impressed? Even you should know that Israel’s dependence on the USA is quickly becoming a thing of the past. All you need to do is see the expanding relations it has with Russia, China, et al. Heck, even the Arabs are starting to meet with Israeli officials out in the open. We can all thank Obama for that. Stop living in the past. The Suez? HEH. That was decades ago! The future is brighter. Of course, this argument is academic now since Trump is taking over in DC. The important friendship between Israel and the USA is no longer in jeopardy, in spite of eight years of Barack Hussein Obama.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Error that was later corrected by original poster, to Ellison.