Professor Dershowitz's speech from last Thursday

UPDATE 12/5/2007 3:31 PM PST

A friend helped me summarize the text below:

My beef is that Professor Dershowitz did not say, and should have said Thursday night or in reply to my email "yes, I said those words" and then talked about the context of that section the Salon.com article - how he was trying to come up with an acceptable form of torture, and how testicles, while used by most torturers, should be completely off limits.

And now, my original post:

This post is definitely not going to make me any friends in the Jewish community, so I took a lot of time to think this over before publishing this. It's still doesn't give justice to what I'm feeling and thinking inside, but at least it'll get some of my thoughts out of my head.

Audio of the speech and Q&A

(as the content is graphic, you will need to register with LiveLeak to listen to it - sorry folks. If you know of another site online that serves up 100+ MB MP3's for free, post in the comments.)

I had been looking forward to Professor Dershowitz's speech for some time. Ask anybody who talked with me about it - I said that he wasn't Ann Coulter or Daniel Pipes. He knows how to properly phrase the facts and challenge those who need to be challenged without going over the line.

Admittedly, the event itself was a bit theatrical, making it like Professor Dershowitz and Rabbi Spitz were sitting by the fireplace in nice, upholstered chairs. But when the Q&A came on, I was impressed.

Then came the fourth and final question (which starts at time stamp 1:11 / 71 minutes on the above recording):

The questioner is a Muslim student, who begins by asking Professor Dershowitz why he said he supports legalized torture.

Professor Dershowitz denies ever saying such a thing.

The student says effectively "well I have this quote" and precedes to read the following:

"Quote. I want maximal pain, minimum lethality. You don't want it to be permanent, but you want to cause the most excruciating, intense, immediate pain."

Professor Dershowits interrupts the student at this point, stating "No, you got that from a hate web site that made it up. So let me tell you my views. Everywhere I go the same quote is read and it comes from the same place."

At this point, the student breaks in and says "let me finish" and continues: "Now, I didn't want to write about testicles, but that's what a lot of people use. Unquote." The student then says "so my question is, in the past 5 years, since this interview appeared, have you come to a clearer position on the abuse on genitalia in torture and would you be willing to practice what you preach".

Professor Dershowitz's response was first to talk about supposed urban legends about him, then he goes into what he says his beliefs are. He says he has written about torture since 1988 and "I am categorically opposed to the use of torture under all circumstances. That is my normative view," but he wants there to be what I think he would term to be a "torture warrant" should a person in a US enforcement role request the use of torture so there is accountability.

So Professor Dershowitz basically says - without explicitly saying it - that the quotation is false.

Now, you may be asking, where did this student get this quote? Salon.com - a left-of-center online news magazine which I would not consider a "hate web site" to use Professor Dershowitz's term - on September 12, 2002 published an interview by Suzy Hansen of Professor Dershowitz, supposedly interviewing him while he was at his summer home in Martha's Vineyard. The topic was his then recently published book, Why Terrorism Works.

Page 4 includes this Q&A:

Aren't there other forms of torture that would be less painful than that, that you might have considered?

But I want more painful. I want maximal pain, minimum lethality. You don't want it to be permanent, you don't want someone to be walking with a limp, but you want to cause the most excruciating, intense, immediate pain. Now, I didn't want to write about testicles, but that's what a lot of people use. I also wanted to be explicit because I didn't want to be squeamish about it. People have asked me whether I would do the torturing and my answer is, yes, I would if I thought it could save a city from being blown up.

You'll note that the wording of the answer published by Salon.com appears to more or less match the quote from the student's question.

Now several questions need to be answered here:
1) Could this be a made up quote?
Maybe, but it seems doubtful, and here's why:
I found this MP3 excerpt of the same interview on Salon's website. The questions and answers posed in this excerpt start about 4 questions after the quoted Q&A I list above. So if there is an audio recording of part of the interview, chances are the entire interview was recorded. If that is the case, why would Ms. Hansen have to make anything up for her published interview?

2) If this was a made up quote, did Professor Dershowitz, upon finding out, respond in some of his writings?
It appears not. I've checked Professor Dershowitz's website's publications page - nothing, though the Salon interview is also not listed. His blog began 3 years later, so that doesn't count.

3) What does Professor Dershowitz think about this?
I emailed him Friday morning with a brief summary of what you've read so far, asking him three key questions: If I obtained the whole interview, would I hear
something different? Is Salon.com in your view "a hate site" like you
described it last night? Did Salon.com misquote you?

Here was his response:

I stand by everything I said in context. I don't approve these methods. I approve requiring a warrant when they are used, as they will be in a ticking bomb situation. I have writen [sic] extensively and clearly about this problem yet the questioner misquoted me and wrenched my remarks completely out of context to make it sound as if I supportted [sic] these forms of torture which I do not. He got the misuote [sic] not from salon but from a hate website

It pains me that this was his response.

We've all said things in the past that we later regret. I've taken people to task in this blog for things that they've said, especially when they refuse to own up to it (for instance, Chancellor Drake's comments on May 31, 2007, denying that anti-Semitic speakers are invited to campus more than 2 to 3 weeks a year).

In addition, many of us have complained that the administration looks the other way when anti-Semitism happens on campus, ignoring documented violations of university rules. How can I then look the other way when someone from our side refuses to admit that they've said something?

Why didn't Professor Dershowitz just say "yes, I've said that, but five years later, here's what I've come to believe"?

It's estimated that 1,000 people attended that speech. Most of those people paid $18 to reserve a seat (that includes me); a large portion paid $100 for a VIP version of the event; and let's not even talk about the donors who footed the majority of Professor Dershowitz's speaker's fee, which is rumored to be several tens of thousands of dollars.

How can we now accept anything that he said as true? How can we continue to say that we have the truth on our side?

Professor Dershowitz made it clear Thursday night as well as in some of his more recent articles that he does not support legalized torture. He put on a great performance on Thursday night. I just wish he could have at least been a bit more explicit about the Salon.com article.

Dershowitz: Why won't Carter debate his book?

Hat Tip: LGF

The Boston Globe
Why won't Carter debate his book?
By Alan Dershowitz | December 21, 2006

YOU CAN ALWAYS tell when a public figure has written an indefensible book: when he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion. And you can always tell when he's a hypocrite to boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to stimulate a debate, and then he refuses to participate in any such debate. I'm talking about former president Jimmy Carter and his new book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid."

Carter's book has been condemned as "moronic" (Slate), "anti-historical" (The Washington Post), "laughable" (San Francisco Chronicle), and riddled with errors and bias in reviews across the country. Many of the reviews have been written by non-Jewish as well as Jewish critics, and not by "representatives of Jewish organizations" as Carter has claimed. Carter has gone even beyond the errors of his book in interviews, in which he has said that the situation in Israel is worse than the crimes committed in Apartheid South Africa. When asked whether he believed that Israel's "persecution" of Palestinians was "[e]ven worse . . . than a place like Rwanda," Carter answered, "Yes. I think -- yes."

When Larry King referred to my review several times to challenge Carter, Carter first said I hadn't read the book and then blustered, "You know, I think it's a waste of my time and yours to quote professor Dershowitz. He's so obviously biased, Larry, and it's not worth my time to waste it on commenting on him." (He never did answer King's questions.)

The next week Carter wrote a series of op-eds bemoaning the reception his book had received. He wrote that his "most troubling experience" had been "the rejection of [his] offers to speak" at "university campuses with high Jewish enrollment." The fact is that Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz had invited Carter to come to Brandeis to debate me, and Carter refused. The reason Carter gave was this: "There is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."

As Carter knows, I've been to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, many times -- certainly more times than Carter has been there -- and I've written three books dealing with the subject of Middle Eastern history, politics, and the peace process. The real reason Carter won't debate me is that I would correct his factual errors. It's not that I know too little; it's that I know too much.

Nor is Carter the unbiased observer of the Middle East that he claims to be. He has accepted money and an award from Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan , saying in 2001: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." This is the same Zayed, the long-time ruler of the United Arab Emirates, whose $2.5 million gift to the Harvard Divinity School was returned in 2004 due to Zayed's rampant Jew-hatred. Zayed's personal foundation, the Zayed Center, claims that it was Zionists, rather than Nazis, who "were the people who killed the Jews in Europe" during the Holocaust. It has held lectures on the blood libel and conspiracy theories about Jews and America perpetrating Sept. 11. Carter's acceptance of money from this biased group casts real doubt on his objectivity and creates an obvious conflict of interest.

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. Authors should be accountable for their ideas and their facts. Books shouldn't be like chapel, delivered from on high and believed on faith.

What most rankles is Carter's insistence that he is somehow brave for attacking Israel and highlighting the plight of the Palestinian people. No other conflict in the world -- not even the genocides in Rwanda and Sudan -- evokes more hand-wringing in the media, universities, and human rights organizations than the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Jimmy Carter isn't brave for beating up on Israel. He's a bully. And like all school-yard bullies, underneath the tough talk and bravado, there's a nagging insecurity and a fear that one day he'll have to answer for himself in a fair fight.

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.

Alan Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard University. His most recent book is "Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways."

Dershowitz: "Appropriate labeling" of "anti-Semites of Jewish heritage"

Jews for Ahmadinejad
Alan Dershowitz, THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 24, 2006

The following is the first post of a new JPost.com blog featuring leading American attorney and stalwart defender of Israel Alan Dershowitz

By this time, everyone knows that Jews for Jesus are not really Jews. They are Christians using the cover of their Jewish origin to fool people into coming to their proselytizing services. But many people still think that the seven bearded enemies of Israel - members of an extreme cult called Neturei Karta - who accepted an invitation from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come to Iran's Holocaust denial festival, are also real Jews.

Still others believe that supporters of Hizbullah and Holocaust minimizers like Norman Finkelstein - who uses his Jewish birth to cover for his anti-Semitism - are real Jews. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I now propose a new vocabulary for describing these imposters. From now on, the Neturei Karta should be known as Jews for Ahmadinejad, and Norman Finkelstein and his ilk should be known now as Jews for Hizbullah.

The Neturei Karta describe themselves as part of the "Orthodox Jews United Against Zionism." In reality, they are a tiny sect that is unwilling to recognize Israel's right to exist as a secular state. According to the Neturei Karta, Jews may not reoccupy Jerusalem until the Messiah arrives and God explicitly allows the establishment of a Jewish nation grounded in halacha, or Jewish religious law.

The Neturei Karta are so incensed by a secular Israel that their principal mission is to align themselves with people and organizations such as Yasser Arafat, Hizbullah, and Ahmadinejad in order to do whatever they can to help eliminate Israel. They number no more than a few thousand people.

Noam Chomsky probably deserves a category all his own. In light of his having written an introduction to a book by Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson - who also spoke at the Iranian hate-fest - Chomsky should now be known as a Jew for Holocaust Deniers. Chomsky has claimed that he was only defending Faurisson's freedom of speech, but that defense rings hollow.

In the first place, Chomsky is not remotely a civil libertarian. Civil libertarians defend everyone's freedom of speech and conscience, whether they agree with the content of that speech or not. Chomsky, on the other hand, defends only those with whom he agrees.

Second, Chomsky did, in fact, defend the substance of Faurisson's Holocaust denial. He called Faurisson as "a sort of relatively apolitical liberal," praised his "extensive historical research," and characterized his assertions about the Holocaust as historical "findings." He also said that he did not see any "hint of anti-Semitic implications" in Faurisson's claim that the so-called Holocaust was a fraud perpetrated by the Jewish people.

Finkelstein's wholehearted hatred of Jews and support for Hizbullah is well documented and easily accessible. He is a denouncer of all Holocaust victims -calling survivors "frauds" and "hucksters" - while appropriating Nazi language himself when he characterizes American Jews as "parasites." He wears his vileness on his sleeve. For a quick overview of his positions, please see a chapter of my book The Case for Peace.

Just like consumers of food and tobacco products must be warned by labels, so too, consumers of propaganda should be warned by appropriate labeling. And just as a person can renounce his citizenship by deed or word, so too can a person renounce his ethnicity in the same manner. I hope my labeling of anti-Semites of Jewish heritage will put to rest any misconceptions that these fringe hate-mongers are representative of or speak for anyone but themselves.

Alan Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard. His most recent book is Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways (Norton, 2006).