Alan Dershowitz: Was He Against Nazi Practices Before He Was for Them?
Welcome to the desert of the real in which a Jewish man can cite Nazis in defense of torture tactics. I was raised on the Holocaust. I went to a highly religious school where many of my teachers and guest lecturers were Holocaust survivors.
My family talked about the Holocaust at every opportunity, remembering those who were imprisoned, tortured, and murdered, including members of my family. I lived under the Soviet regime, which also tortured and murdered. I have never met or spoken with any Jew who has ever defended torture, no matter who the "scapegoat" is.
Apparently, there are some Jews who are more than willing to become the very monsters they abhor. This mentality I do not understand and never will.
Take for example the latest Alan Dershowitz column in the Wall Street Journal. Aside from getting the new meme on Mukasey about how the Democrats are beholden to MoveOn.org - echoed by meister Rove, President Bush, Dick Cheney, and the right wing propaganda machine as if one ring ruled them all - Dershowitz actually writes this:
"There are some who claim that torture is a nonissue because it never works--it only produces false information. This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives."
This statement defies logic. Even if in some instances Nazi tactics worked, why would anyone endorse them for any reason, especially a Jewish man? Dershowitz, and others like him - Joe Lieberman, et al - do not speak for Jews, nor do they speak for Israel. In fact, the far right regime that has co-opted Israel and the US both is not representative of Judaism or Christianity for that matter. Whatever or whomever it is they represent, it is not the Israeli people or the American people. It is as though a multi-national organized crime syndicate has taken over both countries and is using the cover of religion as a shield against criticism.
No Jew, at least no Jew in touch with Jewish values, would ever support torture. When torture becomes policy for politically influential American and Israeli Jews, then the whole of our history becomes polluted with monsters whose crimes we lose the right to condemn. It is the responsibility of other prominent Jews in both countries to take our religion back from these political parasites, because if we don't, their handy work will create the kind of antisemitism not seen since WWII. Ever since this morally repugnant right wing extremism has in a "paper coup" taken over both Israel and the United States, antisemitism has skyrocketed.
"To look at the global situation, racism and xenophobia had become more acute, particularly antisemitism. Worldwide, there had been 590 cases of deliberate violence and vandalism against Jews, an increase of 31 per cent from the previous year, with the most incidents in Europe and the Middle East."
If Israeli citizens will not demand a more moderate government, then Jews around the world will have to ask the hard question: what is more important, the country of Israel or the Jewish people as a a whole?
And if American Jews do not demand that right wing political prostitutes, Jews in name only, stop the US march toward world domination, then American Jews might have to ask themselves a hard question as well: Is the United States more important than our traditions, morals, values, and history as a Jewish people?
In both cases, Jews of the world have to stand up against torture that other, more visible Jews in the US and Israel publicly endorse. We have to do this because we are a good people, a victimized people who know what torture is, and because we know that someday in the future we might, once again, be on the other side of this debate.
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Excellent essay.
Alan Dershowitz is a disgrace. He is a proven plagiarist (albeit, from Joan Peters' fraud, From Time Immemorial) and incompetent scholar regarding the Israel-Pal
Regrettably Israel has tortured thousands of imprisoned Palestinians. It's a shonda for the Goyim.
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People should remember one thing from Psych 101.
The abused child many times becomes the abuser when an adult.
Many of the tactics being used by Israel are very similar to Nazi Germany.
Given half a chance Jews would probably welcome builidng ovens for those pesky Palestinians.
"right wing political prostitutes" A perfect description. Welcome back. I have missed reading your work!
I firmly believe that Lieberman, Kristol, Podhoretz, et al, have no idea what kind of horror they may inadvertently unleash with their rampant anti-Islam rhetoric. Ever since Timothy McVeigh was executed, the American militia movement has gone off the public's radar screen; but it can't possibly have ended with his death. And anyone who's ever heard of these militias knows full well how ultra-right wing they are - every bit as much so as the neo-Nazis and skinheads. So there's already an enormous amount of anti-semitism just waiting to be unleashed. And if the Lieberman's succeed in getting the US in a war with Iran, that may well be the trigger to set all the not so well hidden hatred in America in motion. Because, if we're stupid enough to bomb Iran, that could easily induce a descent into madness - which, because of the highly visible Jewish presence among the instigators, could take the immediate form of rabid anti-Israel and anti-Jewish action. I believe the US uses Israel as a scapegoat for when American middle-east policy completely impodes - which explains how a tiny nation appears to be leading the world's "superpower" around by the nose. It's a ploy, pure and simple.
What I'm having a problem is anyone looking at the world through the lens of their own religion. I don't like it when Christians do it, I don't like it when Muslims do it,and I don't like it when Jews do it. I certainly can't stand the Born Agains, but if this post had been by one of them in their perspective, there would have been all sorts of howling(my own included).
Why can't religion just be left out?
A clear-sighted essay. One must be mindful of the 'slippery slope' at all time. While Larisa focuses on Jewish thought and (non)action, Moan or most America so called 'Christians' have lost their soul on this and other related issues. America may not recover from this poisonous reaction.
A New Yorker, I was there watching on Sept 11.
"Ever since this morally repugnant right wing extremism has in a "paper coup" taken over both Israel and the United States, antisemitism has skyrockete
I disagree, although I applaud your post.
Speaking out against nutcases like dershowitz, netenyuho, kristol, lieberman(s), olmert, etc, as well as the genocidal policies which they espouse, is NOT antisemetic, although those same hate mongers will dismiss it as such.
Speaking out against them is the duty of anyone who cares about human rights or international law!
So when amassing these 'antisemetic' statistics, there must be a distinction between those who are antijew and those who are antiisreal or antinetenyuhu. As you state yourself - "If Israeli citizens will not demand a more moderate government, then Jews around the world will have to ask the hard question: what is more important, the country of Israel or the Jewish people as a a whole?"
The same can be said for those jews, and non-jews, in the US who bend US policy to isreals interests; for they are trashing the reputation of the US as well.
Secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, torture as policy of the state: what has our nation become? The historical record shows that once a country adopts such practices against the so-called enemy they soon cross the line to their own citizens. Indeed it is already happening. Jose Padilla is a U.S. citizen.
Thank you for calling out Alan Dershowitz so eloquently. You should submit this to the New York Times.
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Posted November 11, 2007 | 08:49 AM (EST)