Norman Finkelstein was probably the last human being that the giant monster known as Alan M. Dershowitz has devoured. It looks now like the wicked witch of the deep has lifted the spell she once cast on the monster, and he went back to being the midget he was meant to be and so remain for the rest of his time.
Unable to make a name for
himself in legal circles, Dershowitz declared himself a friend of Israel and a
Human Rights lawyer. He went on to demonstrate what his specialty was by
uttering something that sounded like this: Israel has the right to do to the
Palestinians anything and everything that someone has done to anyone throughout
history and throughout the expanse of the planet. In other words, he meant to
say that anything Hitler did, Israel can do in spades; not to mention other
names like Stalin, Mussolini and so on.
Alan Dershowitz soon
discovered that it was no longer a good idea to bash the already battered
Palestinians, which he did in the mistaken belief that the approach would help
promote Israel, the very entity that was battering the Palestinians. He
reasoned that the enemies of Israel were the people who could think for
themselves and were not afraid to speak their mind. Having determined they were
the learned people of academe he went after them. He scored a few successes,
but had many failures as well. Unfortunately, one of his successes was to have
Norman Finkelstein denied tenure at his university.
In time, the machinations of
Alan Dershowitz resulted in two opposite legacies which are now playing an
important role in the cultural war that's sweeping the United Sates. His work
gave rise to a student right-wing movement on the campuses of the nation even
if he pretended to be a liberal. In turn, that movement caused the rise to a
student left-wing movement that countered it. And the battle between the two
camps spilled over to the rest of society.
Guess what happened next that
should not surprise you but did surprise him bitterly. It happened that the
one-sided crusade he once led against the Palestinians, has reversed itself and
gone against Israel. This is what prompted Dershowitz to complain in an article
he wrote under the title: “Should Anything Be Off-Limits to Debate and
Discuss?” It was published on March 20, 2021 on the website of the Gatestone
Institute.
Here is how Alan Dershowitz
reported the effects of the reversal:
“There are several exceptions
to the cancel culture rule. You can say almost anything negative about Jews, as
evidenced by the recent Grammy awards, during which three overt anti-Semites
were honored. These bigots did not even try to disguise their anti-Semitism
behind the facade of anti-Zionism. They accused 'the Jews' of promoting white supremacy.
They denied the right of the Jewish people to national liberation. They showed
support for Farrakhan who calls Judaism a 'gutter religion,' and blames them
for the slave trade”.
That's a reversal alright, but
what was the reversal about to begin with? Well, it's a bit tricky to answer
this question, but let's give it a try.
There was an original set of
circumstances representing what the Jews were doing and was annoying society at
large. Then came the reversal, which the society embraced and used to give the
Jews a taste of their own medicine. And so, when you read about the reversal,
which is lamented by Dershowitz, you'll know what the original set of
circumstances must have been. So, here is the Dershowitz lament:
“The fact that we even have to
ask these questions demonstrates the precarious state of freedom of speech and
the marketplace of ideas in the cancel culture which is quickly becoming the
American culture. Professors are being fired for private discussions of grades
and race. Students are terrified of expressing politically incorrect views,
especially about race, sex, sexual orientation and even politics. Even silence
is not always an option. An adjunct professor at Georgetown law school was
suspended and pressured to resign for not criticizing a fellow professor who
bemoaned grade disparity based on race. His sin: Bystander complicity”.
You must have guessed that the
originators of what Dershowitz calls the “cancel culture,” were the Jews
themselves, chief among them Alan Dershowitz. In fact, he has done more than
anyone to cancel good people (including Jews such as Finkelstein) who did not
see eye to eye with him concerning the Jewish theft of Palestine or the
treatment of the Palestinian people by armed losers that pour into the West
Bank from around the world, claiming to be indigenous to a land where no
ancestor of theirs ever set foot.
Not only did Alan Dershowitz
do all the things he accuses others of doing, he continues to do those things
as a matter of habit without thinking about it. You say you want proof? Look at
the article he wrote and we’re discussing. And judge for yourself:
“These bigots did not disguise
their anti-Semitism. They accused the Jews of promoting white supremacy. They
denied the right of the Jewish people to national liberation. They showed
support for Farrakhan who blames the Jews for the slave trade”.
There was a time when words
like these would have canceled the meek and the powerful. It is no longer the
case, but that doesn’t mean the battle is over. There is still work to do in a
society where a school principal can be fired for saying he cannot attest to an
event he knows little or nothing about, as it happened in Florida not long ago.
Oh yes, that event happens to be the Holocaust. So, let Alan Dershowitz write an article demanding that the Florida principal be reinstated and fully compensated for what he was put through. Only then, will Alan Dershowitz have redeemed himself enough to write about the subject with authority.