Phillips and Dershowitz go head to head
BY MELANIE PHILLIPS, THE SPECTATOR
My criticisms here of the piece Alan Dershowitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal appear to be making some waves across the pond. Dershowitz has now written a lengthy defence of himself against me here. I had said that he had failed to address the most egregious aspects of Obama’s extreme hostility towards Israel, and that this was undoubtedly because, like most American Jews, he was incapable of admitting that a Democratic President could be so vicious towards it.
In his reply, Dershowitz not only shows that he still doesn’t ‘get it’ but also that he doesn’t appear to have understood what I wrote. Dershowitz says:
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Israel must not be turned into a ‘wedge issue’ in America as it is in Britain and Europe, where it has become a target of virulent hatred for the Left while the Right remain more supportive; in the US it must remain bi-partisan
I have advised American Jews to vote Republican
I don’t want American Jews to remain Democrats
To take the last two points first: I said nothing of the kind.
Dershowitz declares:
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She should not be trying to influence the voting patterns of American Jews.
But I did no such thing. I did not advise them to vote Republican. Nor did I say I didn’t want them to remain Democrats. I simply wanted them to acknowledge the danger that Obama poses to Israel and the free world. I hold no particular candle for the Republican party. As in Britain, I look at the positions being adopted by whichever party, issue by issue.
My argument was rather that Dershowitz and those like him amongst American Jews appeared incapable of acknowledging the terrible truth about Obama simply because they appear incapable of acknowledging that a Democratic President could ever be bad for Israel and the world. Their obsessive and irrational – indeed, Manichean — dread of the Republican party means they approach politics with heavy blinkers on and become incapable of seeing what is under their noses, a fact which Dershowitz’s own article merely underscores.
His main point, however, is that Obama must be supported because Israel must not become a politically divisive ‘wedge issue’ in the US as it is in Britain and Europe. He writes that instead of criticising American Jews, I should be
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trying to change the terrible situation in Great Britain, where support for Israel has never been lower–in part because support for Israel has become a liberal versus conservative wedge issue.
This is wrong in almost every respect. First, I am trying to change the terrible hatred in Britain towards Israel. Second, it is not a political wedge issue in Britain. For sure, hatred of Israel is virulent on the Left. But it also courses through the Right. Although the two sides come at this issue from totally different positions, there is barely a cigarette paper to slide between them when it comes to attitudes towards Israel. The Left is fuelled by its anti-imperialist, anti-west, pro-Third World attitude, which means it hates Israel as America’s supposed ‘proxy’. Conservative ‘Middle Britain’ thinks that ‘abroad’ is a dangerous place full of lunatics who will leave us alone as long as we are nice to them, and that the only reason we and the world are at risk is because we support America and America supports Israel; and Israel is at the root of the world’s problems because it is preventing the Palestinians from having a state of their own, a fact of which the ‘settlements’ are the unpalatable evidence.
CONTINUE
Could it be that Deshowitz, who is of a certain age, sees Obama as a Black President rather than a Muslim President? American Jews of Dershowitz’s generation have fond feelings for Blacks as many Jews (especially in the legal field) helped them through the civil rights movement and helped them work their way through the inequities/divisions/brutality of past generations. Mr. D conveniently forgets the complete rejection of Israel (and the replacement theology that went with it) by Blacks once the Muslim Brotherhood and others started to bring their hate doctrine to the Black people in the 1960′s and beyond.
Mr. D could not possibly fathom a Black President who would want to hurt and sacrifice Israel in order to help raise the Muslim nations and make them allies of the USA at the expense of the Jews. To Dershowitz, the struggle of the Black people and the struggle of the Jewish people is similar, permanent and unshakable.
Were Dershowitz to realize that this President is more Muslim (mixed with lots of anti-social anger taught to him in church) than Black, then he might begin to understand the real issues.
regarding-
plus ca change.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/tobin052600.asp
see yourself Prof Dershowitz
Gary:
Gary, could it be that your hatred of anybody or anything resembling a liberal, which is the ultimate manifestation of self hatred, has clouded your judgement of Obama, the democrats or the vast majority of Jews in North America? This is a hatred which is merely the mirror image of the other fringe right wing movements in current fashion. Islamic fundamentalism, and fascism. Welcome to the club!
peskin,
You are still engaging in historical revisionism, and consistently do this to the benefit of Islamic naziism. A hatred of Obama’s antisemitic policy is the exact opposite of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and fascism. You are the one that supports the spreading of sharia law in the ME. This is an ideology of human-rights denial and subjugation. This makes you the fascist.
Your views regarding Israel are indistinguishable from those of David Duke: http://www.davidduke.com/general/dr-david-duke-improves-american-image-in-arab-world_458.html
If the ‘Jewish extremists’ were actually the new nazis, as opposed to being slandered as such by your ilk, Duke would be supporting these ‘Jewish extremists’.
Since July 3rd The Dershowitz-Phillips joust has filled 11 pages, with probably more to come.
Unfortunately, both dwell in peripheral issues: With regard to the present Middle East situation, Phillips criticizes the Left in general (wrongly) and Obama in particular (rightly), while Dershowitz continues to advocate the “two-state solution” (wrongly).
But is there anyone to raise the one and only question that matters: the legal rights of Israel under international law? Only then, the current impasse on the settlements and the “two-state solution” will be jettisoned to the dustbin of phony issues.
After pleading so many “Cases” (“Case for Israel”, “Case Against Israel’s Enemies”, “Case for Moral Clarity”), Alan Dershowitz should get to the bottom of it and tell us whose land it is. Even if it goes against the liberal mainstream.
Dershowitz say this or that, really? who cares? What do we need his Kosher stamp of approval for our existence? The truth of the matter is less Liberal or non Liberal views of the Jewish condition it is Americanism vs. Judaism. Dershowitz is an American first Liberal Jew, and that means he considers himself primarily and fundamentally America and liberal and the Jewish part is just hereditary baggage that he pay lip service to when it gives him press exposure ( feeds his inflated ego I suppose). If he weren’t Jewish he would just be another liberal bleeding heart lawyer academic who made a career for prestige and academic advancement while defending the morally indefensible all in the name not of justice but tactical lawyering. That he picked up quite a few Shekles along the way should not be held against him.
Americanism vs. Judaism is simply Jews who abandoned Judaism in most forms in order to assimilate as similar Americans to the general gentile community in America. Dershowitz is better than some as he at least has kept some semblance of Jewish identity but I will bet dollars to doughnuts his children and grandchildren haven’t.
I personally reject fighting the so called Jewish battles for assimilation in the diaspora. They are dealing with the present and not the future and in this I believe they have none as Jews. Why fight for those atheist female lesbian rabbis anyway.
CINDY’S link to Tobins articale should be read and the subject of Rabbi Lapin should be studied. I commented on him last year on a thread with NONAME DENTON: I researched him a bit and found he is supported in his work and radio programs byu some of the most viscious conservative antisemitic billionaires in America. Yet he is a respected rabbi in the American and Israeli talking heads circuit.
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=2283 Yamit: on Lapin
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/tobin052600.asp Tobin/ Lapin/Dershowitz
I invite my fellow Jews to be more concerned by Jews who aren’t celebrating the Seder this year than by Christians who are.
How Did Liberalism Become Judaism?
By Steven Plaut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPQtTYNssW8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRo8l2pcKm8&feature=related
Yamit, if for no other reason, this small family needs to cling to their faith, heritage and culture.
It appears that American Jews are distancing further from their roots. Sad.
Young American Jews need to spend time in Israel.
Jerry Gordon writes,
As for Dershowitz’s characterizing Obama as ‘young African American president’, the latter is anything but. Read what Dr. Richard L. Rubenstein, noted American theologian,distinguished university president and scholar, author and scholar wrote in an email that many of us believe underlines the views of the President Obama-his multi-racial third world origins, upbringing and associations. He is decidely not an African American. Further, Obama was infatuated as a college student with the argot of the late Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and Frantz Fanon’s ‘Wretched of he Earth.” Look at the attached picture of Obama as a community organizer in Chicago and the scribbles on the blackboard-straight from Alinsky.
Look at Obama’s background: a mother obviously alienated from the US mainstream, a secular Muslim father, a Muslim step-father, an Indonesian childhood, followed by a Hawaiian upbringing, hardly the background one has come to expect in a US president. Of course, in an era of multi-culturalism, such an upbringing must seem ideal, but it adds up to no real background with any sense of tradition. I suspect that he learned that the one background of which he could be certain was his Black background although even there he was different from the vast majority of US blacks whose roots are in slavery and painful emancipation-either the Southern version or the Afro-Caribbean verson. Do not forget that at the beginning of his campaign a lot of Blacks wondered whether he was “truly Black.’ Nor ought we to forget his years as a parishoner of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright whom he “disowned” when Wright became a political embarrassment. He is essentially rootless. Hence, he sees the world as his stage, not the US. Add to all that his appeal to all the Third-world types that populate the Democratic party and all the resentments they carry. A good introductory textbook on Obama might be Friedrich Nietzche’s work on the dynamics of resentment. Obama is a disaster that never would have happened had the economic crisis not exploded on us.
Richard L Rubenstein
Re #3: Peskin, I am not against liberals and some in this forum might consider my views to be left of center. I think that the “right” in America is now lost to a few generations, they have been championing the wrong causes, and they are too exclusive – and not appealing the general public. I am, however, against naive liberal thinkers who have some kind of disease that prevents them from viewing the world in a balanced way. They have taken sides against Israel, against America and essentially against the system that has brought many of them prosperity – thus they shoot themselves in the head and everyone else in the process. Observe that the biggest enemies today of Israel are wealthy socialists.
I resent you calling me names and pigeonholing me. I like the fact that Obama is a charismatic figure but he needs to use that charisma to make hard decisions, and he should stop siphoning off money to give to failed industries and financial institutions to delay the inevitable (and, in the process, bankrupting our future). Most of my criticism is on his foreign policy which borders on insanity and illustrates the dangerous behavior and sick plan of some on the left to leave the world to violent Islamists who they seem to be working for.
Peskin, cool it baby!
Re #3: Peskin, I am not against liberals and some in this forum might consider my views to be left of center. I think that the “right” in America is now lost to a few generations, they have been championing the wrong causes, and they are too exclusive – and not appealing the general public. I am, however, against naive liberal thinkers who have some kind of disease that prevents them from viewing the world in a balanced way. They have taken sides against Israel, against America and essentially against the system that has brought many of them prosperity – thus they shoot themselves in the head and everyone else in the process. Observe that the biggest enemies today of Israel are wealthy socialists.
I resent you calling me names and pigeonholing me. I like the fact that Obama is a charismatic figure but he needs to use that charisma to make hard decisions, and he should stop siphoning off money to give to failed industries and financial institutions to delay the inevitable (and bankrupting our future). Most of my criticism is on his foreign policy which borders on insanity and illustrates the dangerous behavior and sick plan of some on the left to leave the world to violent Islamists who they seem to be working for.
Peskin, cool it baby!
“Our survey of three and a half millennia of Jewish history is closed. But the story which we have set ourselves to tell is unending. Today, the Jewish people has in it still those elements of strength and endurance which enabled it to surmount all the crises of its past, surviving thus the most powerful empires of antiquity.
Throughout our history there have been weaker elements who have shirked the sacrifices which Judaism entailed. They have been swallowed, long since, in the great majority; only the more stalwart have carried on the traditions of their ancestors, and can now look back with pride upon their superb heritage. Are we to be numbered with he weak majority, or with the stalwart minority? It is for ourselves to decide.”
- Cecil Roth, A History of the Jews
(Oxford University: Shocken Books, 1961) pg. 423
Re #9: Should read: By the way, Peskin, if you think that being against terrorism is in the same category as being for “Fascism” or “Islamic Fundamentalism,” then you have lost all credibility in my eyes.
Gary, Peskin: I see you Canadians stick together? Geee Gary It took you so long to understand what and how peskin views things. I piked it up from his first post.( Must be that blind left of center liberal in you)! I think I labeled him antisemitic and he laughed then cried claiming for himself the purity of hereditary persecution syndrome. Our friend Dershowitz in his definition of Chutzpa cites one who murdered both his parents then claimed mercy from the judge because he was an orphan. That’s peskin!
Yamit: You have a great gift for figuring out who is holy and who is not and who believes in Yamitism and who is forever lost in the desert. No, it does not take me long to figure out where people are coming from but this forum (you included) is for discussing ideas, history, news, facts, observations and should not be used for endlessly assassinating peoples’ characters. Yamit, you are an intelligent guy and I stand in awe of your knowledge but, when you get off track and start proselytizing, you sound like a lot like a mullah. Peskin is what he is and you are not going to change him by making an ass of yourself in this forum.
Heck Gary I was referring to this statement by you. Peskin has for all intents and purposes placed Islamic terrorism as a right wing bogey man to scare the liberals (A Right wing conspiracy). He will admit to a few lunatic Muslim criminal elements here and there but views it as a strictly police enforcement problem and not a national security or a world security issue. That said, he in many posts justifies Islamic terrorism because of the policies of America (before Hussein O) and especially Bush the younger who he equates with the Christian concept of the devil. Israel is his number one devil though and while he has much criticism of Bush still shows America and American pop culture (especially the 50′-60s variety)a lot of love and respect. Not so with Israel as we Jews make his neck itch. Israel being to his mind the aggressor occupier of the poor down trodden Ishmaelites should be forced by what ever it takes to rectify what to his mind is a gross historical injustice to those same slime balls. He blames the Jews themselves for the Holocaust and has held a grudge all these years. He twists every bit of factual history he can to fit his world view and ignores that which he can’t manipulate.
Now Gary do you have a different understanding of Hymie? And since when do I or anyone else have to sit quietly while such an antisemite vents his poison post after post? ( especially from a self proclaimed Jew)- Yamitism? I have strong views to which I am prepared to argue or debate any of the merits or demerits of them with anyone. I am not stating that I am right but if wrong show me where. Character assassination unfortunately is the last weapon when reason and truth are trampled ignored or destroyed by some of the commenter’s to this and other open forums. Then again when I am personally attacked I attack back and have a good and long memory. Only certain kinds of people turn the other cheek, I only have two and refuse to give either. I never proselytize to Jew or non Jew. I state History and Judaism to the best of my knowledge, those for me are truths but can be considered opinion in the context of this forum.
I don’t believe it is possible to discuss or debater issues relating to Israel while ignoring the foundations upon which Israel the idea, belief and modern state rests. I don’t believe one can discuss Israel intelligently while ignoring Judaism, Jewish concerns and Jewish concepts, especially if they relate to any Germain thread under discussion.
Among the reason you gave for support of Israel was that Israel helped to shield the spread of Islamic militancy westward and I guess you see we here ultimately helping in protecting your ass there. That’s from your point a legit argument, but I would,t want to die for that reason I would prefer it the other way around.
In so many ways I see you have much more in common with Peskin than those like me. That has nothing to do with what you call Yamitism: it is just my humble opinion and not ideologically grounded.
Yamit: Peskin is confused and his idea of self-sacrifice (another word for suicide) to convince others that Israel wants peace (when nobody else in the region does) is perverted, self-destructive logic to the extreme.
Your ideas concerning a pro-active self-defense makes sense (to me) but your eagerness to find fault with others who are actually on your side and your pompousness and belligerency are real turn offs. I don’t give a damn about the relationship you have with G-d – it is quaint and if it makes you happy, fine, but don’t shove your Yamitism down the throats of others.
Quaint? like: very strange or unusual; odd or even incongruous in character?
No, it is more like I do not care, Yamit – got that??
Gary I know that! I may be lots of things but not obtuse. I knew that about you three years ago. I find your overreaction quite Quaint in fact!
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