Alan Dershowitz used to be a paid lobbyist for Israel but I doubt that the Israelis have the money to pay him now, so I must assume that he is doing what he is doing free of charge and that he may even be donating cash to feed his soul brothers and sisters in that hapless land, especially that his donations would be recognized as charity by the IRS in America and thus be tax deductible. But Dershowitz is also a prominent lawyer in America if not a notorious one which makes it so that to study the intellectual approach he employs to make his points is to gain an insight as to what impact his conduct has on the American culture, especially the legal component of that culture.
And so I discuss an article that Dershowitz wrote under the title: “The Palestinians' U.N. Agenda” that was published in the Wall Street Journal on September 13, 2011 and that was given the subtitle: “Encouraging another Palestinian intifada should be the last thing anyone wants.” Although he is not laying out a legal case as he would do in a court of law, Dershowitz is here laying out the doctrine that goes with the thinking which underlies his legal argument much as he would do in front of a judge. The difference between this article and the ones he wrote previously on the same subject is that the previous articles were meant to impress mainly the law makers who vote in the American Congress to make American law whereas this article is meant to impress the people who vote at the UN to make international law. And this difference translates into the respect that he displays toward the UN people whom he treats as his equal in contrast to the disrespect he displays toward the American legislators whom he treats like the servants he must denigrate to keep them in their places or like the dogs he must whip to make them stop pulling on the leash that tethers them to their Jewish masters.
And so what Dershowitz does here is something that is familiar to those of us who watch the nature shows on television. Instead of exposing himself to show what a stiff erection he and Israel have by which they can diss a former American president, he begins the article this time by pulling his pants down to expose his rear end and that of Israel as a gesture of humility. Turning his rear end to the Alpha male that beat him up is what a male monkey would do to signal submission, and Dershowitz must have been watching National Geographic lately. Thus, he begins the article this way: “As Egypt and Turkey increase tensions with Israel, the Palestinian Authority seeks to isolate the Jewish state even further...” Let's all join the Jewish lawyer and weep for the little boy who is made to stand alone by the wall with a bare ass and no one willing to talk to him. But the thing is that the boy stinks like hell and no human being wants to go near him as long as he refuses to change. Of course, he can end his isolation by abandoning the habit of exposing himself on every occasion even if Dershowitz complains that to do so means the boy will have to cease being Jewish. And this, my friend, is the existential question that goes to the heart of this matter: How to create a viable Jewish tradition that is at odds with the definition of humanity and yet be accepted by it as a human endeavor?
And so the question for him is this: What can he do as a lawyer to politely tell the world that the boy should be accepted for what he is and not for the way that he looks or smells? Well, in America, Dershowitz would have picked up a megaphone and hollered the antisemitic refrain, and everyone would have fallen in line. But he is wise enough and experienced enough to refrain from doing the same thing to the rest of the world. He will not do it because he knows that it would be an insult to the intelligence of his audience, an act that will invite the boot of the international community to be impacted on his rear end whether it is left naked or not.
Thus, what Dershowitz does instead is distort history. To do this, he picks one side of the story and spins it to strengthen his argument. This approach is considered legitimate but used mainly by second rate lawyers who can think of no other way to impress a judge or a jury. Although the trick is ineffective most of the time, he employs it here in conjunction with a cerebral somersault that is so fast, you hardly notice it. What he does is recycle an old argument that the Israelis and their cohorts used to employ when they still respected their American audiences and did not treat them like servants or dogs. The argument consisted of a game of time travel by which they traveled to the time of their choosing and refused to budge from there. To play the game, Dershowitz latches on to a declaration made by the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas who said that he will tell the UN that the Palestinians have been under occupation for 63 years. No, says the Jewish lawyer, it should only be 44 years. And he goes on to say, in effect, that this is a technical error made by Abbas which, if allowed to stand, will have the effect of undoing every resolution that the world body has passed with regard to this file. He thus recommends that the application for Palestinian statehood be rejected and he goes on to build the rest of his case from there.
The difference between 63 and 44 is that 63 years ago takes you back to 1948 while 44 years ago takes you back to 1967. What happened in 1948 is that the UN gave the Jews a homeland in Palestine referred to as the Mandate which delineated a well defined border. What happened between that year and 1967 is that Israel engaged in a series of illegal activities (much as it does today) by which it doubled the size of the land it was legally entitled to. Thus, the historical fact is that a number of Palestinians have lived under an illegal occupation since 1948 to which another number has been added by 1967. Thus Abbas is correct in saying that the Palestinians have been under occupation for 63 years. And if the UN accepts this language it will only reaffirm its own Mandate of 1948 much as Abbas did it.
But what about the land that Israel has acquired illegally between 1948 and 1967? What to do there? Well, this is where the fait accompli has trumped the law. The result is that only a small minority of people now advocate the return of Israel to its legal borders of 1948, and their voices are almost never heard. Instead, the general call is that Israel must return to the borders of 1967 and even then, these people accept that minor adjustments are in order to accommodate the new fait accompli that Israel has shoved down the throat of the West Bank Palestinians.
And here is where the Dershowitz somersault comes into play. Instead of recognizing that the language of Abbas reaffirms the 1948 Mandate, he says that if the UN accepts that language, it will undo that Mandate. False. What it will do is bring into focus the fact that between 1948 and 1967 Israel has doubled the land it is legally entitled to and has added still more to it since 1967 -- to which it is adding even more with the continued expansion of the illegal settlements in the West Bank. Of course, the Jewish lawyer was not going to say any of this which would be a legal argument to push Israel back to the borders of 1948. And so, he flips the argument and says that to forbid Israel from engaging in anymore illegal activities is to undo the legal Mandate of 1948. So horrendous an argument that you can tell only a Jewish lawyer of the Dershowitz ilk could have made it.
But the fact remains that the man believes he made a breakthrough with that argument, and the proof of this is that he does what Jewish debaters typically do when they think they made a penetration; they push their luck past all the limits and try to build on what they consider to have been a good presentation. Now that he finds himself in the fanciful land of his imagination, he seeks to get someone to give Israel what belongs to someone else. To this end, he says this: “Mr. Abbas's occupation complaint also explains why he is so adamant in refusing to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.”
This is an accusation by which the lawyer for Israel paves the way for the implementation of an even greater diabolic plan. It is a plan that is pushed for by the likes of Avigdor Lieberman and Anatoly Sharansky who have been working on it for some time now. It is to expel the non-Jews who have survived the slaughter heaped on the Palestinian people by the Jewish hordes that keep pouring into occupied Palestine from abroad. The idea is that if Abbas can be made to say that Israel is a Jewish state, lawyers doing somersaults will pop up all over the places and work on justifying the massive ethnic cleansing that will result. More on this subject in a moment.
For now, look at this other accusation that Dershowitz makes. He accuses the Arab states of not “being prepared to accept the permanent existence of a state for the Jewish people in the Middle East” even though, as he laments: “Every Arab state is officially a Muslim state.” But because he is flying high in his fancy, he fails to see that what he is saying will only raise the eyebrows of the people at the UN who know that countries do not ask to be called of this religion or that one; they call themselves what they want. In fact, Abbas told the Israelis they can call themselves anything they want and this is where the matter ends with him. In addition, the people at the UN know that the Arabs have proposed to recognize Israel if and when the latter ends the occupation but the latter has refused to do so because what it wants is the land and the recognition too. So very Jewish!
Back to ethnic cleansing. Here is what he says: “Certainly some, including the Palestinian Authority, are prepared to mouth recognition of Israel as a state, so long as the so-called right of return remains for four million so-called refugees who, if they were to return in mass, would soon turn Israel into yet another Arab state.” He is not only asking the world to forgive Israel for practicing ethnic cleansing which is a crime against humanity, he is accusing “some and the Palestinian Authority” of being derelict in their duty toward Israel for not going along with the ethnic cleansing of their own people. This is beyond belief, my friend, but it is true and you can read it in the Wall Street Journal.
Dershowitz and those like him who appoint themselves to speak in the name of all Jews must know that to accuse the innocent of something they are not is bad manner; to engage in ethnic cleansing is a crime. And to combine the two in a single proposal is such a hateful conduct that many Jews want to see it stopped but for the handful of loudmouthed fanatics who accuse them of being self-hating Jews. Dershowitz and company better understand this simple truth and stop engaging in this kind of activities if they want to avoid being tried in a Nuremberg type tribunal in La Hague or somewhere else soon or posthumously.
Still, Dershowitz is not finished because having done all this, he ends the article with four paragraphs in which he accomplishes a thing or two in each. Here they are:
First, he hurls an insult and an accusation at the Palestinians and he delivers an Israeli threat to the world: “Such recognition ... would encourage the use of violence by frustrated Palestinians who will gain nothing ... but will expect much.” The idea he is propounding here is that Israel will do the right thing by rejecting the UN resolution and that the Palestinians will do the wrong thing by being frustrated at which point they will protest with their voices and bare hands, and Israel will take advantage of such development to kill as many of them as possible.
Second, he gives a stern warning to the UN and to the world: “The U.N. will be responsible for any ensuing bloodshed if it stokes the flames of violence ... by lowering the prospects for a negotiated peace.” The idea here is that the Palestinians must go to the negotiating table stripped of any clout by which they could push back against the dictates of the Israeli negotiators and ask for a better deal.
Third, he makes a false promise to the Palestinians and to the world: “...everything would then be on the table for negotiation, including the borders, the right of return, recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, the settlements and anything else the Palestinians would seek as part of a negotiated two-state peace.” The idea here is that without push back from the clout-deprived Palestinians, the Israelis will obtain a deal where each of those items will come as a Palestinian gift to them in return for nothing. How much more Jewish can Dershowitz show himself to be!
Fourth, he gives a final advice to the UN and through it to the world: “...instead of discouraging negotiations by promising recognition, the U.N. should be demanding that the Palestinian leadership and the Israeli government begin negotiations immediately without any preconditions.” The idea here is to do all of the above based on a “demand” by the UN which will then be binding on the Palestinians even though Israel has rejected every resolution that was passed against it so far and promises to reject the upcoming one since it will go against it yet again.
Alan Dershowitz started the article like a defeated monkey and ended like a hyena on the prowl. It's hopeless, my friends, it's hopeless.