One of Alan M. Dershowitz's mantras, which
he used as a weapon to scare the Jewish-American rank-and-file, was the
argument that if Israel were to return to the borders of 1967, a precedent will
have been set, and Israel will eventually be forced to return to the borders of
1948.
Once a law professor that has always been
contemptuous of the rule of law, Alan Dershowitz is nevertheless keenly aware
that the rest of the world is respectful of the rule of law and will,
therefore, uphold Israel's claim to the part of Palestine that was given to the
Jews in 1948. For this reason, he never worried about the Jews losing that part
of Palestinian territory. But he deeply worried about losing what Israel stole
between 1948 and 1967 by creeping annexations, and what Israel stole after the
1967 sneak attack on its neighbors.
But guess what Alan Dershowitz is doing
now. He is making an argument, which says essentially that any Arab or Muslim
country attacked by Israel or its American surrogate at some point in the past,
has the right to dislodge the Jews out of the 1948 borders, and return the land
to its original Palestinian owners. Dershowitz is making this argument in an
article he wrote under the title: “Trump is Right about the Golan Heights,”
published on March 30, 2019 on the website of the Gatestone Institute.
The former law professor started the
article with this assertion: “No country in history has ever given back
territory that has been captured in a defensive war.” He did not explain what
he meant by defensive war, leaving it to the readers to make the determination
themselves.
Well then, since a state of war has
existed between the Jewish invaders who began storming the shores of Arab
Palestine at a time when every Arab country in the Levant was occupied by the
Turks, the Brits or the French at the start of the twentieth century, every one
of those countries has the right today, according to Alan Dershowitz, to
counterattack Israel and confiscate every inch of land occupied by it,
including that which the U.N. Security Council Resolution of 1948 gave to the
Jews. In short, Alan Dershowitz, who never respected a law that would limit
Israel's activities to expand, is now arguing for the rejection of the law that
would prevent Israel from shrinking down to zero. Give the guy credit, the
least that can be said about him, is that he is consistent.
Dershowitz went a step further when he
employed his usual circuitous trick of arguing that haggling about a case is
superior to the application of the law. Here is what he said in that regard:
“Predictably, the European Union opposed the U.S. recognition of the
annexation. But it provided no compelling argument, beyond its usual demand
that the status quo not be changed.” This means that Alan Dershowitz regards
the law as the instrument which protects the status quo. This being what
prevents Israel from expanding, he prefers to see Jewish pundits haggle about
such matters; see them reach whatever conclusion they feel good about, and
impose it on the litigants, rather than see the litigants obey the law. You
must admit, this is very Dershowitz-like, and very Pretzel-like contorted logic
of the first order.
Alan Dershowitz does something else which
speaks of his preference for what can only be called a system of ignorant
authoritarianism. To understand what's involved here, first think of a time
before the onset of the scientific method, a child asking a teacher why apples
fall to the ground; and the teacher saying: it is so because it is so. Well,
that was harmless ignorance because nobody knew better at the time. Now think
of a farmer asking the feudal lord's commissar of acquisition why he should
give half of his harvest to the feudal lord without getting paid; and the
commissar of acquisition saying: it is so because it is so. Now, this is not
harmless ignorance; it is ignorant authoritarianism.
And here is Alan Dershowitz's contribution
to ignorant authoritarianism, expressed in his own words:
“The reality on the ground is that Israel
will never give up the Golan Heights to Syria. There is no real harm in
Israel's decision to annex it and the United States' decision to recognize that
annexation. Furthermore, the decision to annex and recognize the annexation
removes the Golan Heights from the status of occupied territory and recognizes
the status quo as both de facto and de jure realities”.
In other words, Dershowitz is saying that
the Golan is disputed territory because it is occupied. Annexing it by Israel,
renders it no more occupied, and no longer disputed. Thus, the old status quo
that international law was protecting, and Dershowitz did not like, has now
morphed into a new status quo that has become a fait accompli on the ground, something
that Dershowitz loves enormously.