Dershowitz: Palestinians ‘Played A Significant Role In The Holocaust’
Professor Alan Dershowitz (publicity photo from alandershowitz.com)
Matt Duss says most of what needs to be said about the bizarre Avigdor Lieberman / Alan Dershowitz team-up to suggest that somehow “the Palestinian leadership, supported by the Palestinian masses, played a significant role in Hitler’s Holocaust.”
Let me just add, however, that if we’re going to cite alleged Palestinian complicity in the Holocaust as justification for dispossessing them of their claims to East Jerusalem that what this mostly does is bolster the argument, often heard from anti-Zionist Arabs, that the Jewish state should be located in Europe where obviously a much-greater degree of complicity existed. Obviously in the real world whatever the rights and wrongs of decisions made in the 1940s there’s no practical or humane way to turn back the clock and put Israel where Kaliningrad is or some such. But it just goes to show how nonsensical the entire line of inquiry is in the first place. As a historical matter, there’s a link between the Holocaust and the foundation of the State of Israel, but to try to ground Israeli claims to sovereignty over Middle Eastern land on the basis of some kind of decades-old collective guilt for events in which Arabs were extremely peripheral players is bizarre.
98 Responses to “Dershowitz: Palestinians ‘Played A Significant Role In The Holocaust’”
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July 28th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Someone needs to tell Lieberman and Dershowitz about Godwin’s Law.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Bizarre? It’s a fucking disgrace. Zionism, political equivalent of a zombie, ate their brains.
Although I suspect Avigdor Lieberman is probably in it purely for money and power.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:10 am
That’s just what someone who viscerally hates his own heritage would say, huh Matt?
July 28th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Dershowitz is a lawyer, not a historian. I don’t know why he opens his mouth to talk about so many subjects on which he is completely ignorant, showing the world how stupid he really is.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Dershowitz has had his hat handed to him so many times by Chomsky on Israel you’d thing he’d be a little bit embarassed to opine publically again on the subject.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:22 am
“Anti-Zionist Arab” should probably be used as an example in the dictionary defnition of “Redundancy.
Also, I love this tendancy of the Oh So Proud of My Jewish Heritage Juicebox Mafia to constantly lend credibility to the idea that a Jewish homeland should have been established in Europe instead. “Whatever the merits of the idea may be, what’s done is done.” Self hating Jew is, of course, an overstatement and actually pretty meaningless. But to accuse them of rejecting their heritage is pretty spot on.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Gee, maybe Mr. Yglesias would prefer that the State of Israel be located on the island of Madagascar, as proposed by one Adolf Eichmann in 1935. Or possibly in Oregon as proposed by one Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a year or two ago.
In a previous thread, the question came up as to whether Mr. Yglesias is a self-hating Jew. I don’t think so. I think that Mr. Yglesias is just a suckup to the anti-Israel left and craves their support and approval. Interestingly enough, I would bet that Mr. Yglesias political disagreements with Alan Dershowitz are almost exclusively centered on US Middle East policy. Unlike Mr. Yglesias, Mr. Dershowitz, like myself, has no problem at all being a liberal Democrat and being pro-Israel as we don’t give a flying fuck what the anti-Israel left thinks and neither seek or desire their approval.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Re Matt
Actualy, it is Mr. Dershowitz who has handed fuckface Chomsky his head and showed him for the Jewish anti-semite that he is.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:27 am
There is a very good chance that the zionist project would have failed without Hitler. Up until the mid 1930s Reform Judaism was opposed to zionism.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:31 am
It’s not usually the winner who feels the need to lash out profanely. It’s usually the other guy…you know…the loser.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Dershowitz is a lawyer, not a historian.
You don’t need any fucking credentials to see how incorrect and offensive this is. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with Godwin’s law. This is, itself, racist and not-so-crypto fascist stuff. Nice going Derhowitz, you sick bastard. Very efficient! You manage to simultaneously: a.) desecrate the memory of the actual victims of the Holocaust, b.) become yourself morally equivalent to a Nazi, and c.) do your little part to help destroy the country you are such a rabid partisan of. Wow. That’s a little too grand for mere ’stupidity’.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Wow, right to the personal slurs on this one? Most without even a token nod to the stupidity of Dershowitz’s bogus historical argument?
When the British monarchs used to visit West Africa, they talked big about the brotherhood of the Empire, but always arranged the ceremonies so as not to have to shake hands directly with any black people.
I wonder that Hitler was able to put his anti-semitism and racism aside long enough to shake hands with the Mufti, so the fool would think that he actually had some say in the matter of what to do about the Jews?
The Nazis used their tools and discarded them as needed. The Mufti and his followers were bit players on the stage of an almost entirely European horror show.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Dershowitz is a bit hyperbolic in his claims, but mostly because the Holocaust was such a vast effort that the Grand Mufti’s adventures in WWII were a tiny part of the Holocaust. Raising an entire SS division (which the Grand Mufti helped to do) isn’t a minor transgression, even if one SS division was hardly a major part of the organization, much less a major part of the Holocaust.
Of course, the collective guilt part of Dershowitz’s argument is an unacceptable argument. But, besides collective guilt, there is a well-founded (or at least possible) argument that current Palestinian politics respects some truly evil operators within its past. An analogy would be the American South: we don’t assign collective guilt to Southerners because their ancestors operated a horrific tyranny. But we WOULD be (and, in fact, are) much more dubious of current Southerners if they kept insisting that Nathan Bedford Forrest was the great political leader of the South or made similar claims. I mean, that’s why plenty of real-life current Southern politicians have run into trouble (praising the CCC or Strom Thurmond or the like).
July 28th, 2009 at 10:45 am
IRA leaders were in contact with Hitler during WWII, soliciting his support agaisnt the English. Obviously,we ought not to support Irish aspirations to nationhood, either.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:50 am
A division of Bosnians, which was raised while he was in exile, and had nothing to do with the Palestinians.
Nobody is defending what the Mufti did, just the absurd claim that his activities outside of Palestine, which involved no Palestinians, justify Israel’s dispossession of 21st century Palestinians of their land.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:51 am
The enemy of your enemy is your friend.
Sorta like Joe Stalin during WWII.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Didn’t Zionists cooperate with the Nazis too?
July 28th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Dershowitz’s purpose for bringing it up aside, it is the truth.
The Arab Higher Committee (the Palestinian leadership of the 1930’s) played a major role in keeping shut escape routes for Jews heading into the Middle East. And far from just being against migration, they were explicitly striving to keep Jews trapped in Nazi territories.
And when Haj Amin al Husseini went to Berlin in 1941, he overtly assisted in recruiting Yugoslav Muslims for the logistics of the Holocaust. Explicitly for the purpose of exterminating Jews.
Truth’s a bitch, guys.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:02 am
abb1: “Didn’t Zionists cooperate with the Nazis too?”
Oskar Schindler cooperated with the Nazis, too. He and the ZIonists cooperated in order to try to save lives.
Palestinian leaders cooperated in order to destroy lives.
Slight difference there.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Joe from Lowell:
“A division of Bosnians, which was raised while he was in exile, and had nothing to do with the Palestinians.”
While he was in exile IN BERLIN. They had plenty to do with the Palestinians. They were recruited by the Mufti and many went to Israel in 1948 to fight against Israel.
“Nobody is defending what the Mufti did, just the absurd claim that his activities outside of Palestine, which involved no Palestinians, justify Israel’s dispossession of 21st century Palestinians of their land.”
Actually, plenty of people are defending what he did.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:05 am
to constantly lend credibility to the idea that a Jewish homeland should have been established in Europe instead.
Just to state the obvious – MY was not ‘lending credibility’ to the idea that a Jewish Homeland should’ve been in Europe. If you wipe the rabies-foam from your face and read the post, you can see that he was using that idea to point out the logical absurdity of the Dershowitz/Leiberman ‘argument’.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:11 am
According to wikipedia:
Established in 1936, ceased to exist in 1937. September 1937 is at least 3 years before the holocaust started. Not to mention that in 1937 there are no “Nazi territories” other than Germany.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Foam at the mouth. That’s brilliantly original. I saw exactly what MY was doing and, believe it or not, he can do two things at once.
Looking at the context of the post and MY’s stated views on the matter, it’s clear that he thinks it would have been a better idea. I’m also a lawyer and I am aware that the text itself says no such thing. But as a human being who understands context, it’s quite clear to me (even while distracted by the foam in my mouth) what MY is saying.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:17 am
ZIonists cooperated in order to try to save lives.
No, they didn’t cooperate to save lives; they wouldn’t give a shit about lives. They cooperated in order to send young people to Palestine, they cooperated to achieve their political goals. They didn’t care how many old and weak would have to die for any young person to be delivered to their promised land.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Given that future Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and the forerunners of the Likud Party spent a good portion of the period actively pursuing an alliance with Nazi Germany against the British, I’m failing to see how the Israeli side is in a position to throw stones at the fact that a rival nationalist group also sought an alliance with Germany.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Someone needs to tell Lieberman and Dershowitz about Godwin’s Law.
It is kind of hard to discuss the Holocaust without mentioning Hitler….
July 28th, 2009 at 11:30 am
” But, besides collective guilt, there is a well-founded (or at least possible) argument that current Palestinian politics respects some truly evil operators within its past. An analogy would be the American South: we don’t assign collective guilt to Southerners because their ancestors operated a horrific tyranny. But we WOULD be (and, in fact, are) much more dubious of current Southerners if they kept insisting that Nathan Bedford Forrest was the great political leader of the South or made similar claims. I mean, that’s why plenty of real-life current Southern politicians have run into trouble (praising the CCC or Strom Thurmond or the like).”
Point taken. So I assume the clever but unstated conclusion that you want us to draw is that we should be dubious of the current leadership of Israel because of their failure to disavow those of their founders who participated in a terrorist organization (the Irgun) prior to the founding of Israel?
July 28th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Looking at the context of the post and MY’s stated views on the matter, it’s clear that he thinks it would have been a better idea.
Dershowitz and Leiberman are implicitly endorsing the idea that the location of the Homeland ought to have something to do with who perpetrated the Holocaust. If you find that idea offensive, you should be offended by them.
There’s also the little fact that the point is utterly moot, despite insane rhetoric from various quarters.
gosh, a lawyer (and a human being!)? I *am* impressed…
July 28th, 2009 at 11:48 am
“According to wikipedia:
On 26 September 1937, the Acting British District Commissioner of Galilee, Lewis Yelland Andrews, was assassinated in Nazareth. The next day Britain outlawed the Arab Higher Committee and began to arrest its members. Al-Husayni was removed from the presidency of the Supreme Muslim Council.[1] For all practical purposes, the [Arab Higher] Committee ceased to exist.
Established in 1936, ceased to exist in 1937. September 1937 is at least 3 years before the holocaust started. Not to mention that in 1937 there are no “Nazi territories” other than Germany.”
For all of BRITAIN’s purposes, it ceased to exist. The people in it were alive and the commitee continued to function sub rosa the whole time.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Leaving aside the Dersh article (yes, al-Husayni was a genuinely nasty piece of war-criminal work; no, that does nothing to support the contention that the Palestinians were somehow complicit in the Shoah), I’m fascinated by Lieberman’s behavior. His idea of smart diplomacy is to circulate a picture of al-Husayni and Hitler? (Deadpan response: “Foreign ministry staff opposed the move.”) I guess after politics Lieberman can make a career of posting on LGF comment threads.
It’s also interesting that this is an Irving Moskowitz property: Moskowitz has been buying up East J’lem properties for many years, with his critics alleging that he uses straw buyers and undervalued assessments to create settler and Ateret Cohanim beachheads across Jerusalem. (The Shepherd Hotel plan has been in the works for several years.) Given his longstanding relationship to Netanyahu, it’s not surprising that this is where Bibi’s drawn a line.
Jerusalem land rights are mired in the kind of bureaucratic labyrinth that would do a Soviet apparatchik proud. West Jerusalem is almost entirely owned by the Israel Lands Administration (ILA), which rents land on a 49- or 98-year basis. Although the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that restricting ILA sales to Jews alone is illegal and invidiously discriminatory, there are numerous roadblocks that make it almost impossible for Israeli Arabs to purchase land, while it is illegal for non-Israelis to enter into ILA contracts at all.
The division of land in East J’lem, on the other hand, is skewed in such a way as to limit Arab building and expansion to the bare minimum:
East J’lem: 17,600 acres (71,225 dunams)
Israeli setasides: 6,250 acres (25,295 dunams)
Unplanned: 6,957 acres (28,155 dunams)
Planned, development disallowed: 2,543 acres (10,290 dunams)
Planned, development allowed: 1,850 acres (7,485 dunams)
In sum, Arab residents only have the right to develop on about 10% of East Jerusalem, whereas Israelis have around 36% of the developable land in that part of the city. In addition, the Moskowitz settler plan will effectively (1) cut East Jerusalem in half by creating an Israeli bridge through the Mount Scopus and Shaykh Jarrah areas, and (2) remove Jerusalem’s territorial contiguity to the West Bank by bridging to the planned (and controversial) E1 expansion.
All in all, if Bibi goes ahead with the East J’lem expansion, then the entanglements will be severe enough to compromise any two-state solution talks. Why this is desirable given political, social and demographic projections is an interesting question in itself.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
The point went from being worthy of accusations about varous substances coming out of people’s mouths to being moot. Awesome. And the lawyer thing is not to impressive. Nothing impressive about it, trust me! But it’s to point out that you making your (now apparantly moot) point was done as a lawyer would do it – by looking at strictly the text. Not as a normal human would do it – by taking into consideration the context and source of the text. Maybe the foam was distracting though, dunno.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Since Britain controlled immigration into Palestine, that’s the ballgame. You’ve just acknowledged that you are wrong to say: The Arab Higher Committee (the Palestinian leadership of the 1930’s) played a major role in keeping shut escape routes for Jews heading into the Middle East. Thank you.
Yes, while he was in exile. So much for blaming the Palestinians, who had nothing to do with this effort.
You keep saying that, but your argument keep bumping up against history. Truth’s a bitch, Omar.
So, once again, the Palestinians had nothing to do with them. They had no contact with Palestine until three years after the war, and the assertion that the Palestinian masses played any role whatsoever in the Holocaust, much less a significant role, remains an unsupported, unsupportable assertion.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
29 Omri,
The people in it were alive and the commitee continued to function sub rosa the whole time.
…according to wikipedia there were 7 people in this committee. You can easily find 7 Zionists today who advocate… well, pretty much anything, you name it.
Also please note the phrase “The next day Britain outlawed the Arab Higher Committee and began to arrest its members.”
July 28th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Joe,
You can’t so easily separate the Grand Mufti from the Palestinians at the time. Now, since the position of Grand Mufti wasn’t elected, and there was no political polling at the time, it’s never going to be certain to what precise extent the Palestinian population supported what the Grand Mufti was doing in Berlin.
However, that’s not the end of the discussion:
1. We can’t know precisely to what extent the Palestinian population supported the Grand Mufti at various points in time, but we can say that the Grand Mufti generally had some significant level of support, and continued to have considerable influence over the politics of Palestine even though the British had formally removed him from technically holding various positions of power.
2. Even more importantly, most of the details of what the Grand Mufti did while in Nazi Germany are now fairly widely known. Yet the Grand Mufti’s memory as a political leader is still honored by at least some Palestinians. Now, we can debate whether the level of support is worthwhile discussing, or whether this issue is really that important, but I don’t think we can so easily say that it’s illogical for anyone to mention this as indicating that (some) Palestinians perhaps haven’t come to a level of political understanding or honesty that some could suggest that they should be at.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
But to accuse them of rejecting their heritage is pretty spot on.
What the fuck does my heritage have to do with the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East? My heritage (on my mom’s side) is of Diaspora Judaism. Fuck you.
BTW, were Italian Americans rejecting their heritage if they didn’t celebrate Mussolini’s conquest of Ethiopia? (A lot of Italian Americans *did* celebrate Mussolini’s conquest of Ethiopia, so this isn’t entirely a rhetorical question). What about German-Americans who didn’t approve of Anschluss or the Munich deal? And note that Italian Americans and German Americans actually came from the places that were doing those things. None of my ancestors came from Israel.
In the United States, respecting our heritage ought to be about culture, not politics. I respect my Irish heritage by getting drunk on St. Patrick’s day and enjoying James Joyce and the Pogues. I respect my Jewish heritage by going to high holy day services and seders, enjoying brisket and matza ball soup, and dancing the hora at weddings. The idea that the fact that some of my ancestors were Jewish immigrants from Germany and Hungary means that I have to support the oppressive policy of a foreign government in the Levant, or else I’ve rejected my “heritage,” is ridiculous.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
To counter Arab claims that the Jewish state rightly belongs in Europe, one important point, rarely made, is that the Sephardim – the Jews from the Middle East and North Africa – were expelled from their homes in Arab countries en masse after 1948. Jews expelled from Arab countries constitute 40 percent of Israel’s population.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
“So I assume the clever but unstated conclusion that you want us to draw is that we should be dubious of the current leadership of Israel because of their failure to disavow those of their founders who participated in a terrorist organization (the Irgun) prior to the founding of Israel?”
I don’t have a significant problem with that. Of course, the natural progression of the argument is that we should be dubious of the leadership of the USA because of their failure to disavow those of their founders who participated in terrorism against the British Empire during the Revolutionary War.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
This is too ridiculous for words.
So the Palestinians are guilty and ought to be punished by perpetual servitude for having had a leader in the past who did evil things, and whom some Palestinians may still respect.
Where have we heard that sort of argument before?
Oh, yes. The Jews are guilty and ought to be punished by perpetual servitude for having “killed Christ.”
So make up your minds, Dershowitz. Is inherited guilt a valid concept? I don’t think so, but you obviously do. You won’t mind someone beating on you for “what you did to Jesus” then, I suppose?
July 28th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
“I’m failing to see how the Israeli side is in a position to throw stones at the fact that a rival nationalist group also sought an alliance with Germany.”
The question can’t be whether various groups sought to deal with Nazi Germany: a huge number of entities, in some sense, dealt with Nazi Germany in one way or another. The question is what your aims and methods were. There’s a big difference even between say, General Motors, which dealt with Nazi Germany to make itself more money versus Henry Ford, who dealt with Nazi Germany because he wanted to make more money and that he admired their regime in certain ways. Both are problematic, but one is in a different realm of problematic.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
burritoboy,
The Mufti was appointed by the British. “Wasn’t elected” doesn’t quite capture that.
Just as the memories of pro-Axis, anti-British political leaders like Subhas Chandra Bose, and other leaders from the Indian National Army and Indian Legion are honored as nationalist leaders in India. I suppose that means that the Indian masses played a significant role in the Holocaust as well?
…as indicating that (some) Palestinians perhaps haven’t come to a level of political understanding or honesty that some could suggest that they should be at. The repellent argument made by Dershowitz isn’t that some Palestinians perhaps haven’t come to a level of political understanding or honesty that some could suggest that they should be at.” Rather, his argument is that Palestinians living in Palestine in 2009 bear responsibility for the Holocaust, so they have no right to object as Jewish Israelis dispossess them of their land.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
“So the Palestinians are guilty and ought to be punished by perpetual servitude for having had a leader in the past who did evil things, and whom some Palestinians may still respect.”
But we do say that Southern politicians who admire the era of segregation should be excluded from the political stage, if possible. Or at least we should work to ensure their political defeat. It might have nothing to do with collective guilt but an actual current political problem with the ideology of specific Southern politicians. Is your problem with Dershowitz only that he doesn’t name specific Palestinian politicians? (Which is my complaint, but probably isn’t yours.)
July 28th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
“I suppose that means that the Indian masses played a significant role in the Holocaust as well?”
Did the Indian masses have a leader who raised an SS division? (I don’t know, perhaps they did). If so, it probably would be a good idea for them to be dubious of that leader’s political wisdom.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
This is really great in a way, though. Clearly a significant portion of the “pro-Israal” crowd is simply too unreasonable, crazy, whatever, to even have a productive dialog with. This is a good test issue – anyone who can defend Dershowitz on this is clearly not someone with whom a rational dialog can be conducted.
Where is that line of rationality? I call it the Jeffrey Goldberg line – Goldberg is pretty far right and has IMO some pretty extreme opinions, but on the whole is capable of rational dialog even if he doesn’t always enage in same. Really just about anyone to his “right” on Israel is incapable of rational debate.
So we can call it the jeffrey Goldberg line I guess.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
The reality is that it actually would have been a better idea to locate the jewish homeland somewhere else, and the holocaust did have a lot to do with the creation of israel. It underscored that jews needed a refuge from anti-semitism.
But by putting it right next to jerusalem, and on land that was so important to so many religious groups, the international community basically guaranteed (1) 60 years of conflict between israel and its neighbors and (2) that israel would attempt to conquer the west bank and jerusalem.
What’s done is done, and israel has a legitimate right to exist and to secure borders. But it’s a really dumb to give an ethnic group 1/2 of land that it claims God gave to it when the other ethnic group already living there thinks God gave the land to them instead. It seems obvious in retrospect.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Dershowitz doesn’t claim that the Mufti’s involvement in the Holocaust means Israel can dispossess the Palestinians. All he says is that looking honestly at their own history, Palestinians may be more inclined to accept a two-state solution instead of fighting for Israel’s destruction.
Joe, Mufti was elected as the head of the National Palestinian Council. Read Dersh’s article.
The site in E Jerusalem used to be owned by the Mufti, but now the Israelis legally own it. In Jerusalem Jews and Arabs are allowed to live wherever they want. Arabs can buy land in West Jerusalem, and Jews can buy land in West Jerusalem. But now Obama’s telling Israel that Jews aren’t allowed in parts of Jerusalem. Obama’s really crossed the line with this one.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Call it the Peretz Principle: The odds that any mention of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict on the Internet will bring out volleys of racist bullshit on both sides approaches 1 within 10 comments.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
The point went from being worthy of accusations about varous substances coming out of people’s mouths to being moot.
Calm down, dude. Is Israel even remotely-likely to get relocated to Europe? No? That’s what ‘moot’ means.
Awesome. And the lawyer thing is not to impressive. Nothing impressive about it, trust me!
Trust me, I do!
But it’s to point out that you making your (now apparantly moot) point was done as a lawyer would do it – by looking at strictly the text. Not as a normal human would do it – by taking into consideration the context and source of the text.
I’m happy to use facts. Context is also about facts. I know that there are anti-Israel demogogues who push the idea that Israel should have been founded in Europe or elsewhere (you might want to keep track of what I called ‘moot’ and what I didn’t). What surprises me is your crazy defense of people from an Israeli-partisan point of view implicitly buying into the same logic – and blaming their victims to boot. Scapegoating, anyone?
Sorry for the ‘rabid’ stuff. But, excuse me, it really is crazy. It’s also, given the context, incredibly offensive.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Did you just equate stealing people’s land and denying them a voice in the government that governs them with differing with someone enjoying full human and civil rights over the best candidate to elect in an election that both of you get to participate in? Because that’s nuts.
As a matter of fact, yes.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
This post and line of comments is ridiculous. Don’t you understand Dershowitz is on your side? He endorses Obama’s policy of abandoning previous agreements and trying to force Israel to stop all settlement growth or build new homes in E Jerusalem. Look at his recent dialogue with Melanie Phillips. The idea that no one to the right of Goldberg (who endorses J Street) is a worthy person to listen to is incredible. The left is putting itself in a bubble and refusing to listen to any criticism of Palestinians or Obama. Only one-sided attacks on Israel and anyone remotely supportive of it will do. This is outrageous. Liberals will look back on this period with shame.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
It is very similar to antisemitic Nazi propaganda. Bankers, communist leaders there – Grand Mufti and his committee (or whatever it is) here. Same exactly approach. Like I always say: Zionism and Nazism are, conceptually, the same ideology. Thanks for another illustration, prof. Dershowitz, but it’s really obvious enough already.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Ambulatory fecal matter Alan Dershowitz has played a significant role in amping up anti-Semitism worldwide. He’s really the prototype of the unutterably squalid, morally bankrupt Jew who corrupts and endangers other Jews.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
No, no, no. The Jewish homeland belongs in Sitka Alaska. (”There’s definitely something funny about that cow…”)
July 28th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
“Jewish homeland” is an oxymoron. Ethnic groups don’t have “homelands”, they may happen to reside in one state, or be scattered over several different states. They don’t own states, not in the 21st century. “Jewish homeland” like “Aryan reich” is already a Nazi concept.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
John I wins the thread.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Apparently, Professor Dershowitz is unfamiliar with the Book of Joshua.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I don’t think any of this is relevant to contemporary Israel/Palestine issues, but for an Indian leader and Nazi collaborator, see:
Subhas Chandra Bose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhas_Chandra_Bose
Also see the Indian Waffen SS unit (which, I believe, was largely a propaganda tool for the Nazis):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indische_Legion
July 28th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
John/Comment #35:
Exactly right, brother, exactly right.
Peace,
newhavendan
July 28th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Something strikes me as rather curious.
The Japanese have apologized, to some degree, for their sordid atrocities against China and Southeast Asia.
The Soviets (under Khrushchev) disavowed and expressed regret for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and of their two year collaboration with the Nazis.
The French sentenced the collaborator Marshal Philip ‘P*ssy’ Petain to death (later commuted) and carried out 10,000 executions of collaborators after the war.
The Catholic Church has apologized for not doing more to combat the Holocaust.
The Bulgarian military overthrew their government and switched sides in the middle of the war, hardly a safe or easy thing to do.
The Germans made denying the Holocaust or flying the swastika serious crimes.
Many nations and movements which were implicated to some measure (great or small) in the Holocaust made an effort to make reparations, in some cases by apologies and soul searching and in other cases by imprisoning, executing and purging from power the men responsible. Yet the Mufti of Jerusalem not only never apologized, but he remained a popular and respected figure after the war, helped to inspire and recruit soldiers in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and died in comfortable exile instead of at the end of a rope. Why? Why would it be so hard for the Palestinian ruling authorities to thoroughly disavow this man and apologize for his crimes?
I think the Palestinians, too, have been deeply wronged. They need their state as much as the Jews need theirs, and they should have claim to at least a chunk of Jerusalem. But it would be nice to see the Palestinians collectively acknowledge that their hands aren’t clean, either. An apology would be nice.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I think the Palestinians, too, have been deeply wronged. They need their state as much as the Jews need theirs, and they should have claim to at least a chunk of Jerusalem. But it would be nice to see the Palestinians collectively acknowledge that their hands aren’t clean, either. An apology would be nice.
I see Hector is unfamiliar with the Book of Joshua.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Right Hector. It’s also disappointing that Jews in the Warsaw ghetto never found it in their hearts to apologize for Yakov Sverdlov murdering the last Russian czar and his family. It would’ve been nice if they did.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
“An apology would be nice.”
Oh, goody, one more sticking point.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
“I don’t think any of this is relevant to contemporary Israel/Palestine issues, but for an Indian leader and Nazi collaborator, see:
Subhas Chandra Bose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhas_Chandra_Bose
Also see the Indian Waffen SS unit (which, I believe, was largely a propaganda tool for the Nazis):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indische_Legion”
And, correctly, it seems (from the little I’ve gathered from those wiki articles) that Indians do, in fact, regard Bose’s playing footsie with the Nazis in a generally negative light, and regard it as a stain upon the rest of his career.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
So I guess Dershowitz has dug up some kind of evidence in a archive about the presence of an unknown Palestinian Einsatzgruppen unit at Babi Yar? Or maybe Palestinians sent care packages to the guards at Treblinka?
And to think that I respected this man in the 1990s before he went completely off the edge with the pro-Israel and pro-torture crap.
Sick.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Heh. If no one has a homeland, then no one can be occupied becuase the foreign forces have just as much of a righ to this non-homeland. Hell, guess they can’t even be foreign because there’s no such thing as a native.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
P.S. And if anyone should be resettled to Kaliningrad, it should be descendants the of East-Prussians who were evicted from there by the Red Army and have a rightful claim to former East Prussia.
July 28th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Re: P.S. And if anyone should be resettled to Kaliningrad, it should be descendants the of East-Prussians who were evicted from there by the Red Army and have a rightful claim to former East Prussia.
The East Prussians will get back Kaliningrad when Hell freezes over. It was the spoils of war, taken in revenge for the horrible barbarism that the Nazi hordes wreaked on the Russian people. If you don’t like it then go f*ck a goat.
July 28th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
@64 Hell, guess they can’t even be foreign because there’s no such thing as a native.
How do you figure that, Einstein? If states don’t belong to ethnic groups then they can’t belong to anybody, is that it?
Is it what the world is to you: a bunch of ethnic tribes fighting each other? Fucking savage.
July 28th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I want the Jewish homeland here in the US and the Holy Sites to be placed under international administration. It’d be safer and Jews (soon to be citizens) and Americans would prosper. And Arabs (soon to be citizens) currently living in Israel could come, too, so we wouldn’t be abandoning them.
The city on the hill. That’s us.
July 28th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
@63: And to think that I respected this man in the 1990s…
Ah, but that’s because he’s good at self-promotion. If you tried to read any of the books he published back in the 80s, you would’ve immediately realized that the guy is an idiot.
July 28th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Pop quiz: who thinks that George Washington would have sought an alliance with Hitler against Britain, had they coexisted in time?
July 28th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Sure: “coalition of the willing”; whoever is willing…
July 28th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I visited the West Bank in person last March and it became obvious to me that Israel has no interest in peace and is aggressively appropriately land in the West Bank. I should mention that I was pro-Israel before traveling to the West Bank and realizing that my previous understanding of the Israel/Palestinian issue was totally messed up was one of the most traumatic intellectual experiences of my life.
Anyway, I now know that the main goal of Israeli foreign relations is to wage a PR campaign that stalls for time while the settlement activities play out in the West Bank. So that’s why we have discussions about Nazis and Muftis and Indians and yadda, yadda, yadda. Anything other than an honest discussion about Israel’s depredations in the West Bank.
By the way, if you don’t realize that what I’ve written above is taken for granted by _everybody_ who knows what’s actually going on in the West Bank, regardless of whether they celebrate or loathe these activities, then you’re terribly ill-informed (as I was before my trip). You should understand that U.S. coverage of the Israel/Palestine issue is really, really bad (as in, borderline lying). You should also understand what Hasbara is so that you’re not a victim of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_diplomacy_(Israel)
July 28th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
It occurs to me that the formidable Henry Siegman has already articulated my view (better than I can). Everyone should read this article:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/sieg01_.html
Key truth:
“The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history. Since the failed Camp David summit of 2000, and actually well before it, Israel’s interest in a peace process – other than for the purpose of obtaining Palestinian and international acceptance of the status quo – has been a fiction that has served primarily to provide cover for its systematic confiscation of Palestinian land . . .”
July 28th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Uganda was the nation initially offered for the site of Israel. Just think how different history might have been for Idi Amin Dada had this taken place.
July 28th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Re: I want the Jewish homeland here in the US and the Holy Sites to be placed under international administration. It’d be safer and Jews (soon to be citizens) and Americans would prosper. And Arabs (soon to be citizens) currently living in Israel could come, too, so we wouldn’t be abandoning them.
The city on the hill. That’s us.
Jeffrey Davis,
You’ll have to try again. Most Jews have no desire to share a nation with antisemitic pigf*ckers like Mr. Abb1, Mr. Fareed, Mr. Steve Sailor, and other assorted yahoos.
The Jewish national home should be a Jewish State, not a state where a large number of Jews happen to live. Just where do you want that state to exist? It’s fine if you suggest that Israel should relocate itself to some other part of the world, but you need to suggest where. Mere burblings about America and the City on a Hill do not cut it.
July 28th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
As someone of Native American descent, I know that the Spirit gave the continents of the Americsa to us more than ten thousand years ago. Our claim is older than anyone else’s, especially a bunch of immigrants from only a few hundreds of years ago. We want to hire Dershowitz to argue our case as he obviously has respect for the powers of Spirits to stake claims in perpetuity. Oh, Dersh, we never gave any of you palefaces permission to live here. Make like a tree and leave.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Mr. D:
Hi!
You’ll notice I didn’t actually participate in this threa, as is typical for me, because I just find the subject depressing and confusing, the more so the more I learn about it. Now, again, please fuck off. I’m asking nicely.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Though as long as I’m here, I will say this: I don’t have any problem sharing a country with pigfuckers, and I personally haven’t found antisemites to be a huge problem. On the other hand, I have no desire to live in Israel, and I believe the majority is with me on that.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:56 am
I firmly support Birthright paying for me to visit Kant’s grave, if nothing else.
July 29th, 2009 at 6:45 am
Wow, one Palestinian helped train 1 SS division…therefore, ALL Palestinians share the guilt!
What next? Dershowitz discovers some random Lebanese farmer who helped 10 wounded Nazi soldiers, and uses that fact to argue that Israel should have half of Lebanon’s territory?
July 29th, 2009 at 8:11 am
The Jewish national home should be a Jewish State, not a state where a large number of Jews happen to live.
Bad conclusion. There should be no religious states.
July 29th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Re: Bad conclusion. There should be no religious states.
Wrong, Jeffrey Davis. There should be tons and tons of religious states. And Judaism should be the state religion of any purportedly Jewish state.
It’s interesting that hipsters purport to be liberal, but when it comes to the freedom of a nation state to dissent from the Gospel as Revealed to Thomas Jefferson- secularism, capitalism, liberal democracy- the hipsters are suddenly very illiberal indeed.
July 29th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Hector,
You should be very happy that this is a liberal democracy. Else monsters like you would be slaughtered like rabid dogs. Be glad I’m not in charge, as that would surely by my policy as president.
July 29th, 2009 at 10:04 am
So Hector, man, what’s the value of a religious state, as opposed to the religion itself. Tell me, I’m curious. What would Jesus, Moses, and Mohammad do as Commanders In Chief that they can’t do as private citizens.
July 29th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Having read through this thread and some of it’s admittedly facinating digressions I can only conclude that as long as people like Mr. Dershowitz continue to stir the pot there will be no resolution to the Israeli(sp?)/Palestinian issue(s). Horrible things happened in the past and many people and states played a shameful role in these events. Continuously reminding us of them is less then productive. Israel has a right to exist in whatever form they chose to, as does a yet to be defined Palestinian state. Everything else is crap. Move on.
July 29th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Hector apparently yearns for the happy days when the Israelites popped out the desert to slaughter every man, woman, and child in Jericho.
Gotta start your religious state someway. You gotta break a few yeggs to make an omelet.
July 29th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
And all their pets and farm animals too, IIRC? I remember there was something more freaky in that story than just slaughtering every man, woman, and child; that’s pretty standard for The Book.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Jeffrey Davis,
I’m not Jewish, dunce. My support for Israel is that the Jews have as much right to a Jewish state as the Greeks do to a Greek Orthodox state.
As to the major advantages of a state with an official religon, one of the biggest advantages is that they would keep pigf*cker nihilist yahoos like Mr. Abb1 firmly in their place.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Dershowitz: from a highly respected lawyer and academic to this – an oily, prevaricating shill for a truly vile state.
July 29th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Hector,
what is my place and how exactly would they keep me in it? Could you elaborate, please; an example maybe?
It would be really helpful if you could give some illustration; you mentioned Greeks, so maybe you could link some news item from Greece, demonstrating how they keep nihilist yahoos firmly in their place there; you know, by the virtue of them being what you call “a Greek Orthodox state”.
Thanks Hector.
July 29th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Re: what is my place and how exactly would they keep me in it?
Some place with no access or influence over the seats of power, and no chance of ever attaining it.
July 29th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
So, how do the Greeks keep me in my place?
Or the chief state rabbi in Israel, for that matter. The religious parties in Israel have something like 10% in the Knesset (off the top of my head), so, obviously they failed to keep the infidels away from the seats of power.
July 29th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I’m not Jewish, dunce. My support for Israel is that the Jews have as much right to a Jewish state as the Greeks do to a Greek Orthodox state.
We don’t disagree on that. The exact same amount. Nil.
Religious states always haul God in to do justify their dirty work.
July 29th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Jeffrey Davis’ ignorance of the state of Israel is not surprising given as his comments suggest that what he is really more interested in is the fact that Israel is Jewish, not just that it is (supposedly) religious.
But as Jeffrey Davis’ ignorance is apparently not uncommon, it is worth clarifying the following point: ISRAEL IS NOT A RELIGIOUS STATE. There are Israeli citizens of every religion including Arab Christians and Muslims. The reason for there to be a Jewish state originally had nothing to do with religion. Were Jeffrey Davis less of an ignoramus he would know that the first Zionist leaders were all a-religious (sometimes militantly so). Rather, the reason for there to be a Jewish state was initially because the Jews have been persecuted and slaughtered every where else they lived in Europe and the Middle East for the previous 2000 years merely for wanting to live their lives just like everyone else.
July 29th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
I cannot find the source at the moment. . . but wasn’t Palestine one of the few places in the world to offer Jews refuge during the Holocaust?
July 30th, 2009 at 5:15 am
the Jews have been persecuted and slaughtered every where else they lived in Europe and the Middle East for the previous 2000 years
This is misleading. If Jews were slaughtered in the Middle East (prior to Zionist colonization), they were slaughtered by Christians, by Europeans.
July 30th, 2009 at 10:21 am
If Scott Correa isn’t too miffed, he can write me at
at_home@windstream.net
Once the epithets start flying, take it offline.
I am not picking out Judaism for special treatment. My current feelings are that religions are horror shows. As for the idea that Israel is Not a Religious State, I just see that as a convenience and an unconvincing rationalization as much as anything. The original Zionists wanted a cubbyhole in the desert, too, and took pains to avoid their neighbors. So it goes. Who is a Jew and who isn’t has a Biblical provenance, and the “it was given us by the Lord” settlers have us hostage.
July 30th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
“abb1″: That’s an interesting assertion. But unremarkably, it has no basis in fact, just like the rest of the manure you have been spewing. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_around_the_world#Asia
Jeffrey Davis: Again your ignorance of history is appalling. Zionism emerged as a movement at the end of the 19th century organized by non-religious highly assimilated German Jews. Ever heard of Theodor Herzl?
And arguing that the Jews as an ancient tribe shared a religion, therefore the modern Jewish state is a religious state is ridiculous. That’s like arguing that because there is a traditional Japanese religion, the state of Japan is a religious state.