2002 Harvard-MIT divestment petition

Dershowitz reviewed the four conditions demanded by the petition and argued Israel was already in compliance," saying "It’s a little bit strange that there should be such a huge debate about four issues which have already been resolved".... He said he personally supports a Palestinian state but argued that, compared with other groups seeking statehood, Palestinians hold a lower "moral priority" because they rejected a U.N. proposal for dividing the Middle East after the Second World War that included the creation of a Palestinian state. Dershowitz also said Israel should not be singled out as a violator of human rights. He said Israel stands among the top ten most rights-conscious nations in the world.... "By any criteria, Israel’s record on human rights is better than any country in the Middle East," he said....He cited examples of human rights violations in countries that the U.S. supports, such as the execution of homosexuals in Egypt and the repression of women in Saudi Arabia.... Dershowitz said he distinguishes between criticizing the Israeli government and signing the divestment petition. He said criticism of the government, which he said he participates in, is not inherently anti-semitic, while signing the petition is.... He also threatened to sue any professor who votes against the tenure of another based on the candidate’s ties to Israel, calling them "ignoramuses with Ph.D.’s."

Dershowitz's 2002 article "New Response to Palestinian Terrorism"

Following the end of the moratorium, Israel would institute the following new policy if Palestinian terrorism were to resume. It will announce precisely what it will do in response to the next act of terrorism. For example, it could announce the first act of terrorism following the moratorium will result in the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings.The response will be automatic. The order will have been given in advance of the terrorist attacks and there will be no discretion. The point is to make the automatic destruction of the village the fault of the Palestinian terrorists who had advance warnings of the specific consequences of their action.

Noam Chomsky (1972—)

As he already knew the details of the Shahak affair, Chomsky wasted no time in replying to Dershowitz's letter to the Globe, which, in turn, incited Dershowitz to denounce Chomsky and ask for proof in the form of court records. Chomsky happened to be in possession of these:

:I . . . wrote a letter quoting them, which showed that he was a complete liar, as well as a Stalinist-style thug (that was implicit; I didn't bother saying it). He continued to try to brazen his way out, and was finally told by the Globe ombudsman that they would publish no more of his lies on the matter (that was after I'd sent the original Court records and a translation to English to the Globe, who had requested documentation so they could assess Dershowitz's increasingly hysterical charges). Ever since then, Dershowitz has been on a crazed jihad, dedicating much of his life to trying to destroy my reputation. (March 31, 1995)

Norman Finkelstein (2003—)

Dershowitz sent letters, which he declined to provide to the Globe, to a variety of University of California Press officials, and even to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is an ex officio member of the University of California's board of regents."I told the UC press, 'If you say I didn't write the book or plagiarized it, I will own your company,'" said Dershowitz, who argued that Finkelstein's accusations are a ploy for publicity. "The First Amendment protects mistakes that are inadvertent, but it doesn't prevent willful lies."Finkelstein, who teaches at DePaul University in Chicago, wrote in an e-mail to Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan last year that his book would document that Dershowitz plagiarized The Case for Israel, and that Dershowitz "almost certainly didn't write the book, and perhaps didn't even read it prior to publication."

Last year, Kagan asked former Harvard president Derek Bok to examine Finkelstein's plagiarism allegation. Bok determined no plagiarism had occurred, law school spokesman Michael Armini said yesterday. Dershowitz also said that he refutes Finkelstein's allegations in his own forthcoming book, The Case for Peace.

... I believe the evidence concerning the Twain quote independently establishes that Harvard did not know about the identical errors argument before conducting its investigation, because I take for granted that the Harvard administration is neither hopelessly corrupt nor intellectually incompetent. If the administration had known about the argument, they would have investigated it, because they are not corrupt. If they had investigated it, they would have found the same massive evidence that I found, because they are not incompetent. And if they had found that massive evidence, they would not have cleared Dershowitz, because they are not corrupt.

For more than 20 years the terrible triumvirate of Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and Alexander Cockburn have been falsely accusing pro-Israel writers of plagiarism and related academic offenses.[(embedded note) 2] I have been the most recent target of the selective vitriol. They have accused me of plagiarism for quoting Mark Twain and other well-known figures whose quotes appear in my book within quotation marks and properly cited to their original source. Their absurd accusation is that I should have cited these quotes not to their original source but rather to the secondary source in which they erroneously claim I first came across them. No one but anti-Israel zealots takes these biased charges seriously, as evidenced by the fact that not only was I cleared of all such charges by Harvard (after I brought them to the attention of the dean and president), but recently the dean awarded me a prize for “exceptional scholarship” for my current book Rights from Wrongs. [Italics added.]

"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" (2006), by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

Iran and Israel: 2006—2007

Speaking in response to the recent Holocaust denial conference in Iran and Iran’s goal to develop nuclear weapons, Dershowitz, an outspoken defender of Israel, said that although Holocaust denial is about the past, it is used to influence the present and the future.... “The purpose of Holocaust denial is to delegitimate Israel, to demonize Jews and to legitimate attacks on Israel and attacks on Jews,” Dershowitz said.... He added that because of the world’s obsession with Israel, Jews are not the only victims, as other issues in the world, such as the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and the current genocide in Darfur, have been largely ignored by the international community.... “Six million additional people have died since the end of the Second World War because of this obsessive focus on Israel,” Dershowitz said....

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006), by Jimmy Carter

"I don't want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz," Carter said in Friday's [December 15, 2006] Boston Globe. "There is no need . . . to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."The school's debate request, Carter said, is proof that many in the United States are unwilling to hear an alternative view on the nation's most taboo foreign policy issue, Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. . . . "There is no debate in America about anything that would be critical of Israel," he said."President Carter said he wrote the book because he wanted to encourage more debate; then why won't he debate?" said Dershowitz. . . .

Carter’s refusal to debate wouldn’t be so strange if it weren’t for the fact that he claims that he wrote the book precisely so as to start debate over the issue of the Israel-Palestine peace process. If that were really true, Carter would be thrilled to have the opportunity to debate.... When Jimmy Carter's ready to speak at Brandeis, or anywhere else, I'll be there. If he refuses to debate, I will still be there——ready and willing to answer falsity with truth in the court of public opinion."

Questions were preselected by the committee that invited Mr. Carter, and the questioners included an Israeli student and a Palestinian student... After Mr. Carter left, Mr. Dershowitz spoke in the same gymnasium, saying that the former president oversimplified the situation and that his conciliatory and sensible-sounding speech at Brandeis belied his words in some other interviews.... “There are two different Jimmy Carters,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “You heard the Brandeis Jimmy Carter today, and he was terrific. I support almost everything he said. But if you listen to the Al Jazeera Jimmy Carter, you’ll hear a very different perspective.”

The Doha Debates

Pornography (1976—)

Mike Barnicle (1990s)

Testilying

As I read about the disbelief expressed by some prosecutors... I thought of Claude Rains's classic response, in Casablanca on being told there was gambling in Rick's place: "I'm shocked...shocked." For anyone who has practiced criminal law in the state or Federal courts, the disclosures about rampant police perjury cannot possibly come as a surprise. "Testilying"...as the police call it...has long been an open secret among prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges.

Animal rights (2002)

Second Amendment and the U.S. Constitution

"Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."

William ("Bill") M. Bulger (2002)

Dershowitz's 2002 article "Want to Torture? Get a Warrant"

Criticism

Response by Dershowitz

Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal

Cardinal Józef Glemp of Poland

• 1982: The Best Defense. ISBN 978-0-394-50736-1.
• 1985: Inside the von Bülow Case. ISBN 978-0-394-53903-4.
• 1988: Taking Liberties: A Decade of Hard Cases, Bad Laws, and Bum Raps. ISBN 978-0-8092-4616-8.
• 1991: Chutzpah. ISBN 978-0-316-18137-2.
• 1992: Contrary to Popular Opinion. ISBN 978-0-88687-701-9.
• 1994: The Advocate's Devil (fiction). ISBN 978-0-446-51759-1.
• 1994: The Abuse Excuse: And Other Cop-Outs, Sob Stories, and Evasions of Responsibility. ISBN 978-0-316-18135-8.
• 1996: Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case. ISBN 978-0-684-83021-6.
• 1997: The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century. ISBN 978-0-316-18133-4.
• 1998: Sexual McCarthyism: Clinton, Starr, and the Emerging Constitutional Crisis. ISBN 978-0-465-01628-0.
• 1999: Just Revenge (fiction). ISBN 978-0-446-60871-8.
• 2000: The Genesis of Justice: Ten Stories of Biblical Injustice that Led to the Ten Commandments and Modern Law. ISBN 978-0-446-67677-9.
• 2001: Letters to a Young Lawyer. ISBN 978-0-465-01631-0.
• 2001: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000. ISBN 978-0-19-514827-5.
• 2002: Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge. ISBN 978-0-300-09766-5.
• 2002: Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age. ISBN 978-0-316-18141-9.
• 2003: The Case for Israel. ISBN 978-0-471-46502-7 (hardcover); ISBN 978-0-471-67952-3 (paperback).
• 2003: America Declares Independence. ISBN 978-0-471-26482-8.
• 2004: America on Trial: Inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our Nation. ISBN 978-0-446-52058-4.
• 2004: Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights. ISBN 978-0-465-01713-3.
• 2005: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved. ISBN 978-0-471-74317-0); .
• 2006: Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways (Issues of Our Time). ISBN 978-0-393-06012-6.
• 2007: Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence. ISBN 978-0-470-08455-7.
• 2007: Finding Jefferson: A Lost Letter, a Remarkable Discovery, and the First Amendment in an Age of Terrorism. ISBN 978-0-470-16711-3.
• 2008: Is There a Right to Remain Silent?: Coercive Interrogation and the Fifth Amendment After 9/11. ISBN 978-0-19-530779-5.
• 2008: The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace. ISBN 978-0-470-37992-9.
• 2009: Mouth of Webster, Head of Clay essay in The Face in the Mirror: Writers Reflect on Their Dreams of Youth and the Reality of Age. ISBN 978-1-59102-752-2.
• 2009: The Case For Moral Clarity: Israel, Hamas and Gaza. ISBN 978-0-9661548-5-6.

Articles about Alan Dershowitz

• Amnesty International USA. "Ask Amnesty": "Torture": "Is Torture 'Effective' and 'Regrettably' Permissible If It Is the Only Way to Obtain Life-or-death Information?" AmnestyUSA.org. Nov. 2001. Accessed October 28, 2006. [Commentary on Alan Dershowitz's editorial "Is There a Torturous Road to Justice?" Los Angeles Times November 8, 2001; cf. Haddock, as cited.]
• Atapattu, Don. "9-11 and the Rise of the Academic Redneck: The Tragedy of Alan Dershowitz." CounterPunch October 14, 2002. Accessed October 28, 2006.
• Beshara, Michael. "Dershowitz Defends Israel At Talk: Professor Condemns U.S. Divestiture Program." Ultra Vires: The Independent Student Newspaper of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law November 19, 2002. Internet Archive: The Wayback Machine. Accessed October 28, 2006. [Not currently archived on the website of Ultra Vires.]
• Boychuk, Regan. "The Case Against Alan Dershowitz: Public Committee Against Torture in Israel vs. Dershowitz". Z Magazine April 15, 2001. Alternate link accessible at Information Clearing House: "The Case Against Alan Dershowitz" Both accessed September 10, 2006.
• Haddock, Vicki. "The Unspeakable: To Get At the Truth, Is Torture or Coercion Ever Justified?" San Francisco Chronicle November 18, 2001. Accessed October 28, 2006.
• Shapiro, Bernard J. "Book review: The Case for Israel, by Alan M. Dershowitz." The Maccabean Online: Political Analysis and Commentary on Israeli and Jewish Affairs, ed. Bernard J. Shapiro, published by the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies (exec. dir. Bernard J. Shapiro), September 2003. Accessed September 10, 2006.
• Swindle Magazine Interview

Alan Dershowitz and Noam Chomsky

• Chomsky, Noam. "Comments on Dershowitz." Z Magazine, ZNet September 6, 2006. Accessed September 7, 2006.
• ———. Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. Fwd. Edward W. Said. Classics Series, vol. 3. 2nd rev. & updated ed. 1983; Boston: South End Press; Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1999. ISBN 978-0-89608-601-2. Essential Classics in Politics: Noam Chomsky. EB 0007. . ISBN 978-0-7453-1345-0. Accessed November 1, 2006.
• "Chomsky 'versus' Dershowitz" (final feature), in "Chronicles of Dissent (Excerpts), Interviews of Noam Chomsky by David Barsamian," Z Magazine October 24, 1986. Accessed October 28, 2006.
• Dershowitz, Alan M. "Chomsky's Immoral Divestiture Petition". The Tech May 10, 2002. Accessed October 28, 2006.
• "Israel and Palestine After Disengagement: Noam Chomsky Debates with Alan Dershowitz." John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, November 29, 2005. ( RealPlayer video at Harvard forum; transcript at Chomsky.info; both accessed August 13, 2006.)
• exchanged between Noam Chomsky and Alan Dershowitz. Scanned letters posted on Chomsky's website. April—June 1973. Accessed October 28, 2006.

Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein

• Bombardieri, Marcella. "Academic Fight Heads to Print: Authorship Challenge Dropped from Text." The Boston Globe July 9, 2005. Accessed September 10, 2006.
• Dershowitz, Alan M. "Is Norman Finkelstein in Tehran?" The Huffington Post December 12, 2006. Accessed February 4, 2007. (Reply by Finkelstein in "The Dershowitz Hoax: A Chronology [2003—2006].")
• ———. "Statement of Alan Dershowitz." Reply to Norman Finkelstein hosted on the website of the Harvard Law School (2005). Accessed October 28, 2006.
• ———. "Tsuris over Chutzpah." The Nation August 11, 2005. Accessed October 28, 2006.
• ———. "Why Is the University of California Press Publishing Bigotry?" FrontPageMag.com July 5, 2005. Accessed October 28, 2006.
• ———. "Would You Invite David Duke to Your Campus?" The Huffington Post March 3, 2007. Also on JPost.com BlogCentral. Accessed on March 30, 2007.
• "Dershowitz v.Desch." The American Conservative January 16, 2006, Forum. Rpt. normanfinkelstein.com. n.d. Accessed September 9, 2006. Features printable and incl. response by Finkelstein.)
• Finkelstein, Norman G. "The Real Issue Is Israel's Human Rights Record: A Statement by Norman G. Finkelstein upon Publication of Beyond Chutzpah." Posted alongside advertisements for and reviews of the book on the official website of its author, normanfinkelstein.com n.d. Accessed December 15, 2006. (Features links to documents pertaining to controversies between Dershowitz and Finkelstein. N.B.: Finkelstein's official website functions as a commercial site advertising Finkelstein's publications and as a resource of materials pertaining to controversies about this book; on this site Finkelstein includes direct links to his own and others' articles citing Alan Dershowitz; see, e.g., "The Dershowitz Hoax" [2003—2006].)
• Garner, Mandy. "The Good Jewish Boys Go into Battle." Rev. of On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, by Norman G. Finkelstein. Times Higher Education Supplement, December 16, 2005. Rpt. on normanfinkelstein.com n.d. Accessed September 10, 2006.
• Goodman, Amy. "Scholar Norman Finkelstein Calls Professor Alan Dershowitz's New Book on Israel a 'Hoax'." Democracy Now! September 24, 2003. Accessed October 28, 2006. (Incl. links to audio clip, MP3, and full "Rush Transcript" of program segment.)
• Gordon, Neve. "Dershowitz's Smear : Anti-Semitism? You Just Don't Like What I Say!" CounterPunch November 8, 2006. Accessed November 16, 2006.
• "In Praise of Smoking Guns: The Dershowitz File." The original documents from Dershowitz's 2004—2005 campaign to suppress publication of Beyond Chutzpah.

Alan Dershowitz and Jimmy Carter

• Belluck, Pam. "Jimmy Carter Responds to Critics at Brandeis." The New York Times January 24, 2007. Accessed January 24, 2007.
• Carter, Jimmy. "How I See Palestine." Los Angeles Times, Op-Ed. December 8, 2006. Online posting. The Carter Center December 8, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2006.
• "Carter Nixes Debate with Outspoken Prof." Yahoo News December 15, 2006. Accessed December 22, 2006.
• Dershowitz, Alan M. "Double Standard Watch: A Real Dialogue Would Have Been Better." Jerusalem Post January 25, 2007. Updated January 29, 2007. Accessed February 4, 2007.
• ———. "Ex-President for Sale" (exclusive six part series). 6 parts. Gather.com January 8, 2007— January 31, 2007. Accessed February 4, 2007.
• ———. "Jimmy Carter Plays the 'God Card'." The Huffington Post (blog) December 13, 2006. Accessed December 22, 2006.
• ———. "An Op-Ed by Professor Alan Dershowitz: From Jimmy Carter, a Book-length Smear on Israel." Harvard Law School December 2, 2006. Accessed December 22, 2006.
• ———. "Has Carter crossed the line?" Jerusalem Post December 24, 2007. Accessed May 19, 2007.
• ———. "Why Won't Carter Debate His Book?" The Boston Globe November 21, 2006. Accessed December 26, 2006.
• ———. "The World According to Jimmy Carter." The Huffington Post November 22, 2006. Accessed December 22, 2006.
• ———. "The World According to Carter" New York Sun November 22, 2006. Accessed March 15, 2007.
• Glenn, Malcom. "Dershowitz Lambastes Former President", The Harvard Crimson February 28, 2007. Accessed December 23, 2008.
• Goodman, Amy. "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid...Jimmy Carter in His Own Words." Interview conducted by Goodman for Democracy Now! November 30, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2006. Incl. audio link to interview and "rush transcript."
• Zeller, Tom, Jr. "Carter's Rhetoric of Apartheid." The New York Times December 13, 2006, The Lede: Notes on the News with Tom Zeller Jr. (NYT news blog). Accessed December 23, 2006.

Additional selected interviews and media programs featuring Dershowitz

• "African Americans and the United States Judicial System." A Case of Justice. Program 622 in the series Say Brother. Transcript. Online posting. WGBH Open Vault Media Library and Archives. Program first broadcast on June 29, 1979. Transcript accessed February 7. 2007. (One-min. video clip in which Dershowitz "comments on the inability for Black Americans to receive fair treatment in the United States judicial system." "Program Description: Program is the first in a two-part series discussing the harsh sentencing of African Americans in the Massachusetts court system using the Paplo case, the Hakim Jamal case, and the Willie Saunders/Brighton rape case as studies in injustice. Host Barbara Barrow-Murray speaks with individuals involved with the cases....")
• "'If Not for 9/11, Bush's Approval Ratings Would Be Very Low': Alan Dershowitz interviewed by Suzy Hansen." Salon.com September 17, 2002. Accessed March 6, 2007. (Links to a five-page transcript of full interview and to an audio excerpt.) [Cf. featured links to other versions of this interview; e.g., Suzy Hansen, "Why Terrorism Works", Salon.com September 12, 2002, accessed March 6, 2007.]
• Interview with Alan Dershowitz about the Muhammed-cartoon controversy Windows Media file of this broadcast on Danish television. Accessed August 13, 2006. (Dershowitz raises and discusses complex issues pertaining to freedom of the press, "hate speech," clashes of cultures, terrorism, what he regards as "hypocrisy" and lack of "even-handedness" in national and international editorial practices pertaining to cartoons "offensive" to various ethnic and religious groups.)
• Judaism Vs. Democracy: Debate between Professor Alan Dershowitz and Rabbi Meir Kahane. Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, June 25, 1985. Videotape posted in 4 parts on YouTube (Part 1, with additional links to Parts 2—4). September 18, 2006. Accessed December 15, 2006.
• "Looking Back at the OJ Trial." Transcript of interview with Dershowitz hosted by CourtTV, Yahoo, and Time Online (Online chat). Accessed August 13, 2006.
• "Preemption and Prevention: Alan Dershowitz discusses the balance between costs and benefits that he believes the United States must strive for and how it relates to the wartime strategies of prevention and preemption." World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, PA. February 7, 2006. Video clip ("audio only") posted on ForaTv:Idea Immersion (Beta). Accessed December 13, 2006. (See also: Forum thread.)
• "Terrorism". Dershowitz is guest in this episode of Stanford University talk radio program Philosophy Talk. Broadcast on KALW (91.7 FM), San Francisco, California on June 1, 2004. Accessed December 15, 2006.
• The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg. Documentary film about Jewish baseball star Hank Greenberg. Alan Dershowitz, credited as a "fan," discusses the significance of Greenberg and his career on Jewish society in the 1930s and 1940s.