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Dershowitz's proposal stimulated much criticism at Harvard University and beyond.<ref>David Villarreal, '']'' March 18, 2002. Retrieved January 25, 2007.</ref> ], a columnist with '']'', argued that "] of innocent relatives of those involved in ]," which Dershowitz "analyzed" in that book, is "a practice outlawed under international law."<ref name="Bamford"/><ref name="LewinGreen"/> ], in his book '']'', went even further, commenting that "it is hard to make out any difference between the policy Dershowitz advocates and the Nazi destruction of ], for which he expresses abhorrence-except that Jews, not Germans, would be implementing it."<ref>], ''Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History '' (University of California Press, 2005) 176.</ref> Dershowitz's proposal stimulated much criticism at Harvard University and beyond.<ref>David Villarreal, '']'' March 18, 2002. Retrieved January 25, 2007.</ref> ], a columnist with '']'', argued that "] of innocent relatives of those involved in ]," which Dershowitz "analyzed" in that book, is "a practice outlawed under international law."<ref name="Bamford"/><ref name="LewinGreen"/> ], in his book '']'', went even further, commenting that "it is hard to make out any difference between the policy Dershowitz advocates and the Nazi destruction of ], for which he expresses abhorrence-except that Jews, not Germans, would be implementing it."<ref>], ''Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History '' (University of California Press, 2005) 176.</ref>

==== Noam Chomsky====
In 1972, Dershowitz commented on a civil case involving ] (1933–2001), then president of the ], who was critical of Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Shahak was in the process of challenging election results for the chairmanship of the Israeli League in a civil action. Dershowitz said that Judge Lovenburg, the judge presiding in Shahak's civil suit, had ruled that Shahak was properly unseated. In response, ] argued that the court had ruled that the elections had not been held properly, that no conclusions or actions were to be drawn from it, and that Shahak and his colleagues were to continue to function as "those who now direct" the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights.<ref>Dershowitz, Alan M. , '']'' May 10, 2002, accessed October 28, 2006.
*Also see Chomsky, Noam. . Black Rose Books, 1999, pp. 142–143.</ref> The dispute fueled personal animosity between Dershowitz and Chomsky for over 35 years, both of them outspoken academics holding opposite positions on the ].<ref>] in ''Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent''. MIT Press, 1997.</ref>


==== Norman Finkelstein ==== ==== Norman Finkelstein ====

Revision as of 22:49, 19 November 2010

Alan Dershowitz
Born (1938-09-01) September 1, 1938 (age 86)
Brooklyn, New York
NationalityAmerican
EducationBA, LL.B
Alma materBrooklyn College
Yale Law School
OccupationFelix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
SpouseCarolyn Cohen
Websitealandershowitz.com

Alan Morton Dershowitz (born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history. He has held the Felix Frankfurter professorship there since 1983.

Dershowitz is known for his involvement in several high-profile legal cases, and as a commentator on the Arab–Israeli conflict. As a criminal appellate lawyer, he has won 13 of the 15 murder and attempted murder cases he has handled. Notable cases include his role in overturning the conviction of Claus von Bülow for the attempted murder of Bülow's wife, and as the appellate adviser for the defense in the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson.

He is the author of a number of books about politics and law, including Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case (1985), the basis of the 1990 film starring Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons; Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case (1996); The Case for Israel (2003); and Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights (2004).

Early life

Dershowitz was born to Orthodox Jewish parents, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and grew up in Borough Park. His mother, Claire, died on August 12, 2008. His father, Harry Dershowitz (May 8, 1909 – April 26, 1984) was a founder and president of the Young Israel Synagogue in the 1960s, served on the board of directors of the Etz Chaim School in Borough Park, and in retirement was co-owner of the Manhattan-based Merit Sales Company. His paternal grandfather, Louis Dershowitz, was an immigrant from Pilzno, Poland. His brother Nathan, was counsel for the American Jewish Congress when their father died, and is a partner in the New York City law firm Dershowitz, Eiger & Adelson.

Dershowitz's first job was at a deli factory on Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1952, at age 14. He recalls tying the strings that separated the hot dogs and once getting locked in the freezer. He attended Yeshiva University High School, where he played on the basketball team. He was a rebellious student, often criticized by his teachers. The school's career placement center, however, told him that he had talent and was capable of becoming an advertising executive, funeral director, or salesman. In a video interview on Leadel.NET, a Jewish media portal, Dershowitz later said that his "teachers said I should do something that requires a big mouth and no brain ... so I became a lawyer."

After graduation from high school, he attended Brooklyn College and received his BA in 1959. Next he attended Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. He graduated first in his class with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) in 1962. He has been a member of a Conservative minyan at Harvard Hillel, but is now a secular Jew.

Career

After being admitted to the bar, Dershowitz served as a law clerk for David L. Bazelon, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He said that "Bazelon was my best and worst boss at once...He worked me to the bone; he didn't hesitate to call at 2 a.m. He taught me everything–how to be a civil libertarian, a Jewish activist, a mensch. He was halfway between a slave master and a father figure"

During the 1963–1964 term, Dershowitz served as law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg. Dershowitz said that "getting a Supreme Court clerkship" was "probably" his second "big break". He joined the faculty of Harvard Law School as an assistant professor in 1964. He was made a full professor in 1967 at the age of 28, at that time the youngest full professor of law in the school's history. He was appointed the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law in 1993, succeeding Abram Chayes.

Much of Dershowitz's legal career has focused on criminal law, and his clients have included high-profile figures such as Patricia Hearst, Harry Reems, Leona Helmsley, Jim Bakker, Mike Tyson, Michael Milken, O.J. Simpson and Kirtanananda Swami. While representing Claus von Bülow he had the conviction overturned on appeal; in a retrial, von Bülow was acquitted. Dershowitz told the story of the case in his book, Reversal of Fortune. In the movie version, Dershowitz was played by actor/activist Ron Silver, and Dershowitz himself had a cameo role as a judge. Regarding the O.J. Simpson murder case, about which he wrote the book Reasonable Doubts, Dershowitz evaluated the importance of the case for jurisprudence and for his own overall career: "the Simpson case will not be remembered in the next century. It will not rank as one of the trials of the century. It will not rank with the Nuremberg trials, the Rosenberg trial, Sacco and Vanzetti. It is on par with Leopold and Loeb and the Lindbergh case, all involving celebrities. It is also not one of the most important cases of my own career. I would rank it somewhere in the middle in terms of interest and importance."

Recognition

Dershowitz was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1979, and in 1983 was a recipient of the William O. Douglas First Amendment Award from the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai Brith for his work in civil rights. On November 18, 2007, he was awarded The Soviet Jewry Freedom Award by the Russian Jewish Community Foundation. He has been awarded honorary doctorates in law from Yeshiva University, the Hebrew Union College, Monmouth College, University of Haifa, Syracuse University, Fitchburg State College, Bar-Ilan University, and Brooklyn College. He has been described by Newsweek as America's "most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights," and by Corriere della Sera as "America's most famous progressive lawyer."

Cases

Pornography (1976)

In 1976, Dershowitz handled the successful appeal of Harry Reems, who had been convicted of distribution of obscenity resulting from his acting in the pornographic movie Deep Throat. In public debates, Dershowitz commonly argues against censorship of pornography on First Amendment grounds and maintains that consumption of pornography is not harmful. For several years, Dershowitz has written the monthly column "Justice" and related articles in the pages of Penthouse magazine and testified on legal issues pertaining to pornography.

Józef Glemp (1989)

In 1989, Dershowitz filed a slander suit against Józef Glemp, then the Archbishop of Warsaw, on behalf of Rabbi Avi Weiss. Glemp had accused Weiss and six other New York Jews of attacking nuns at a much-disputed convent on the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Two Polish courts rejected Rabbi Weiss’ claim that the speech at issue “caused serious harm” to his reputation. Cardinal Glemp's statement about Rabbi Weiss, made in July 1989, was coupled with suggestions that Jews control the world's news media--a common antisemitic canard--and, according to Roger Cohen of the New York Times, "was widely viewed as anti-Semitic in tone". Dershowitz's account of the lawsuit appears in his 1991 bestseller, Chutzpah, in which Dershowitz also accused Robert K. Lifton and Henry Siegman, leaders of the American Jewish Congress, of "sycophantic behavior" for meeting with Glemp. The two contested Dershowitz's account. In 2007 Dershowitz accused Polish cardinal Józef Glemp in The Jersalem Post of antisemitism: "Cardinal Glemp has made a career out of blaming the Jews for all of Poland's ills, including 'spreading communism,' 'plying peasants with alcohol' and even anti-Semitism."

Mike Barnicle (1990)

In 1990, Dershowitz sued The Boston Globe over an alleged quotation that Mike Barnicle had attributed to him in that newspaper. Dershowitz allegedly said he preferred Oriental women because they are deferential to men. Dershowitz and The Boston Globe settled the suit out of court, and, reportedly, Dershowitz was awarded $75,000 as a result of the out-of-court settlement. Barnicle wrote his essay in response to Dershowitz's public feud with Massachusetts Senate President William M. Bulger (see below).

Views

On Israel

Dershowitz is an outspoken commentator on the history and politics of Israel. He has engaged in highly publicized media confrontations regarding torture and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict with Rabbi Meir Kahane, Norman Finkelstein, and former President Jimmy Carter, among others. Dershowitz's frequently positive comments on Israel's actions have earned him a reputation as a vocal supporter of that nation.

Harvard-MIT divestment petition

In spring 2002, as reported later by the Harvard Crimson, a "petition, which calls for Harvard and MIT to divest from Israel and from American companies that sell arms to Israel, also calls for the U.S. government to stop supplying weapons until four specific conditions are met by the Israeli government," gathered over 600 signatures, including 74 from the Harvard faculty and 56 from MIT faculty members. Among the signatures was that of Harvard's Winthrop House Master Paul D. Hanson, who "signed the petition as a professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations" and whom Dershowitz "publicly challenged...to a debate over the Israel divestment petition." But "saying Hanson had turned down his offer, Dershowitz staged a solo debate in the Winthrop Junior Common Room . Standing beside a chair with a copy of the petition taped to it, he said students and professors who had signed the petition were antisemitic and knew 'basically nothing about the Middle East.'" According to Adams, "'Your House master is a bigot and you ought to know that,' he told the crowd of about 200 students. 'Everyone else who signed that petition is also a bigot.'" In his presentation to the students,

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."

According to Adams, "Many members of the audience, which generally supported Dershowitz and applauded for him several times, said they appreciated the presentation.... 'I thought it was great,' said Rachel S. Weinerman ’03, a student in Dunster House. 'This type of honest sentiment about the divestment petition has long been warranted.'" However, many other students thought the attacks were simply offensive and without academic merit, 'It’s an offensive thing for a professor to say about a House master for a large number of Harvard students,' ... adding Dershowitz's agenda 'clearly overstepped his bounds as a professor."

"New Response to Palestinian Terrorism" (2002)

On March 11, 2002 Dershowitz published an article in The Jerusalem Post entitled "New Response to Palestinian Terrorism." In it, he says that "to succeed , Israel must turn the Palestinian leadership and people against the use of terrorism and the terrorists themselves." He proposed that "Israel should announce an immediate unilateral cessation in retaliation," which would be a short moratorium "to give the Palestinian leadership an opportunity to respond to the new policy." Further:

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.

He goes on to add that "urther acts of terrorism would trigger further destruction of specifically named locations. The 'waiting list' targets would be made public and circulated throughout the Palestinian-controlled areas."

Dershowitz's proposal stimulated much criticism at Harvard University and beyond. James Bamford, a columnist with The Washington Post, argued that "demolishing the homes of innocent relatives of those involved in suicide bombing," which Dershowitz "analyzed" in that book, is "a practice outlawed under international law." Norman Finkelstein, in his book Beyond Chutzpah, went even further, commenting that "it is hard to make out any difference between the policy Dershowitz advocates and the Nazi destruction of Lidice, for which he expresses abhorrence-except that Jews, not Germans, would be implementing it."

Norman Finkelstein

Main article: Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair

Shortly after the publication of Dershowitz's 2003 book The Case for Israel, Norman Finkelstein said the book was "a collection of fraud, falsification, plagiarism and nonsense." He offered several examples, one of which was a quote from Mark Twain appearing on pages 23–24 of The Case for Israel, which he said was "an identical quote ... With the ellipsis at the same places" to one on pages 159–160 of From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters. Frank J. Menetrez identified what he said were 20 errors in Peters' quotation from Twain which were reproduced in Dershowitz's quotation. Dershowitz argued that the quote was from Mark Twain, to whom he gave credit. Harvard's president, Derek Bok, investigated the charge and was said to have determined that no plagiarism occurred. Dershowitz responded that what Finkelstein called plagiarism was in fact standard scholarly practice.

Dershowitz confirmed in April 2007 that he had written to DePaul University faculty members, where Finkelstein worked, lobbying against Finkelstein's application for tenure. The university's Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty voted to send a letter of complaint to Harvard University. In June 2007, DePaul University denied Finkelstein tenure.

Mearsheimer and Walt

Main article: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

In March 2006, John Mearsheimer, Wendell Harrison Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, and Stephen Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and author of Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy, co-authored a controversial working paper entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," about which an extensive debate was subsequently published in The London Review of Books. In their working paper, Professors Mearsheimer and Walt criticize what they describe as "the Israel Lobby" for influencing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East in a direction away from U.S. interests and toward Israel's interests. They refer to Dershowitz specifically as an “apologist” for the Israel lobby. In an interview conducted on March 20, 2006, cited in The Harvard Crimson, Dershowitz "vehemently disputed the article’s assertions, repeatedly calling it 'one-sided' and its authors 'liars' and 'bigots.'” In an appearance on MSNBC's Scarborough Country televised the next day, Dershowitz suggested that the working paper was plagiarized from various hate sites: "every paragraph virtually is copied from a neo-Nazi Web site, from a radical Islamic Web site, from David Duke’s Web site." Subsequently, Dershowitz wrote an extensive report challenging the factual basis of their essay, calling into question the motivations of the authors and their scholarship. His report claims that the "paper contains three types of major errors: quotations are wrenched out of context, important facts are misstated or omitted, and embarrassingly weak logic is employed."

In a letter published in the London Review of Books in May 2006, Mearsheimer and Walt responded to Dershowitz's contention that they used racist sources for their article, stating that "Dershowitz offers no evidence to support this false claim."

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

In July 2006, Dershowitz wrote a series of articles defending the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict against the international outcry regarding escalating Lebanese civilian deaths and the destruction of Lebanese civilian infrastructure resulting from Israel's stated attempt to weaken or to destroy Hezbollah which wields considerable political power and influence in Lebanon. After the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour indicated that Israeli officials might be investigated and indicted for possible war crimes, Dershowitz labeled Arbour's statement "bizarre" in an editorial, calling specifically for her dismissal and inveighing more generally against the "absurdity and counterproductive nature of current international law."

In an editorial published in The Boston Globe several days later, Dershowitz argues that "the international community, the anti-Israel segment of the media, and human rights organizations" should not blame Israel for any dead civilians. "Israel has every self-interest in minimizing civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists have every self-interest in maximizing them– on both sides. Israel should not be condemned for doing what every democracy would and should do: taking every reasonable military step to stop the killing of their own civilians."

Iran and Israel

In his appearance at the Truth, Light and Freedom Rally at Beth Tzedec Synagogue in Toronto, Canada, "a rally...organized by the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, Canadian Jewish Congress Ontario Region and the Holocaust Centre of Toronto," on December 21, 2006, Dershowitz spoke "about the danger Iran poses to Israel and the rest of the world" at this "held at the Beth Tzedec Synogogue in Toronto, Canada, Alan Dershowitz accused "Iran...of incitement to genocide," according to Sheri Shefa, a staff reporter for The Canadian Jewish News:

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....

Jimmy Carter

Main article: Palestine Peace Not Apartheid

In his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, argues that "Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land." Carter states in Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid that Israel's current policies in the Palestinian territories constitute "a system of apartheid, with two peoples occupying the same land but completely separated from each other, with Israelis totally dominant and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights." Carter's self-defined purpose in writing the book is to "present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors."

In an op-ed, some newspaper articles, media appearances, and blog posts at The Huffington Post, Dershowitz has taken issue with President Carter's points of view and has challenged him to debate the matters in public at Brandeis University. Carter has publicly declined to visit Brandeis to discuss the book due to the request that he debate Dershowitz as a condition of the visit:

"I don't want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz," Carter said in Friday's 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. . . .

He reiterates:

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."

Subsequently, Brandeis University and President Carter came to an agreement about his visit, which they said would have no pre-conditions. The event, which occurred on January 23, 2007, was open only to Brandeis students, faculty, and staff, and the university refused to make an exception allowing Dershowitz to attend the speech, although he was invited to present a response after Carter's speech concluded. The day after the speech, on January 24, 2007, The New York Times reported on Carter's speech in "At Brandeis, Jimmy Carter Responds to Critics":

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.”

During his response, Dershowitz stated that, "if" he had "been allowed to be in the audience" of Carter's speech to ask a question or offer a rebuttal, he would have asked one question of Carter: "...were you ever asked to give your advice to Arafat as whether to accept or reject an offer at Camp David?" Dershowitz went on to assert that, had President Carter done so, and had Arafat rejected such an offer on Carter's advice, Carter himself would have been responsible for the situation of the Palestinians today.

The Doha Debates

In April 2009, Dershowitz participated in the Doha Debates at Georgetown University in Washington DC, where he debated against the motion "this house believes that it is time for the USA to get tough on Israel" with fellow speaker Dore Gold, President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Speakers for the motion were Avraham Burg, former Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and former Speaker of the Knesset and Michael Scheuer, former Chief of the CIA Bin Laden Issue Station. He lost the debate, with 63% of the audience voting for the motion.

Animal rights

Dershowitz is one of a number of scholars at Harvard Law School who have expressed their support for limited animal rights. In his Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights, he writes that, in order to avoid human beings treating each other the way we treat animals, we have made what he calls the "somewhat arbitrary decision" to single out our own species for different and better treatment. "Does this subject us to the charge of speciesism? Of course it does, and we cannot justify it, except by the fact that in the world in which we live, humans make the rules. That reality imposes on us a special responsibility to be fair and compassionate to those on whom we impose our rules. Hence the argument for animal rights."

Second Amendment and the U.S. Constitution

Dershowitz is strongly opposed to firearms ownership and the Second Amendment, saying that it is "an anachronistic drafting disaster that does not belong in any constitution or bill of rights." However, he is opposed to repealing the amendment because he feels doing so would open the way for further revisions to the Bill of Rights and Constitution. In a telephone interview with reporter Dan Gifford, he stated that:

"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

While William ("Bill") M. Bulger served as Massachusetts Senate President (and afterwards), Dershowitz was a prominent critic. Dershowitz and fellow attorney Harvey Silverglate attended a Governor’s Council hearing on a Bulger associate, Paul Mahoney, who was nominated for a District Court judicial appointment. Bulger appeared at the meeting and questioned the integrity and motives of Dershowitz and Silverglate."

"Want to Torture? Get a Warrant" (2002)

Main article: Ticking time bomb scenario

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Dershowitz published an essay in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled "Want to Torture? Get a Warrant," in which he advocates the issuance of warrants permitting the torture of terrorism suspects if there were an "absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives coupled with probable cause that the suspect had such information and is unwilling to reveal it."

Dershowitz says that he is personally against the use of torture, yet he argues that authorities should be permitted to use non-lethal torture in a "ticking bomb" scenario, regardless of international legal prohibitions; that it would be less destructive to the rule of law to regulate the process than to leave such permission to the discretion of individual law-enforcement agents. He favors preventing the government from prosecuting the subject of such torture based upon information revealed during such an interrogation. Moreover, he argues: "If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice."

Criticism

Some other civil libertarians are "not persuaded" by Dershowitz's rationalization for the sanctioning of torture to extract information from uncooperative captured suspected terrorists in such a hypothetical "ticking bomb" scenario. For example, Harvey A. Silverglate, co-founder (with Alan Charles Kors) of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), asserts that because, in such cases, jury nullification and executive clemency could protect law enforcement; "our legal system is perfectly capable of dealing with the exceptional hard case without enshrining the notion that it is okay to torture a fellow human being."

William F. Schulz, the Executive Director of the U.S. section of Amnesty International, finds Dershowitz's "hypothetical" ticking-bomb scenario unrealistic because, Schulz counters, it would require that "the authorities know that a bomb has been planted somewhere; know it is about to go off; know that the suspect in their custody has the information they need to stop it; know that the suspect will yield that information accurately in a matter of minutes if subjected to torture; and know that there is no other way to obtain it." Bill Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights, debating Dershowitz on CNN, argues that Dershowitz's proposal would create a "very slippery slope" and that torture would "happen under more than those exceptional circumstances. It's going to start becoming the regular, rather than the unusual."

James Bamford, in his column for The Washington Post of September 8, 2002, reviews Dershowitz's "idea of torture" and describes "ne form of torture recommended by Dershowitz --'the sterilized needle being shoved under the fingernails'" as "chillingly Nazi-like."

Response by Dershowitz

In a debate with David D. Cole, professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Dershowitz stated: "I want to make sure that if my government ever does this horrible, terrible, extraordinary thing, that somebody takes responsibility for it and that it be out there in the open and subject to accountability,” ... “Though I understand the danger of legitimating something that should not be legitimated, on balance in a democracy, I prefer accountability".

The "ticking time bomb scenario" is subject of the drama The Dershowitz Protocol by Canadian author Robert Fothergill. In that play, the American government has established a protocol of "intensified interrogation" for terrorist suspects which requires participation of the FBI, CIA and the Department of Justice. The drama deals with the psychological pressure and the tense triangle of competences under the overriding importance that each participant has to negotiate the actions with his conscience. The play is directly linked to the debate caused by Dershowitz' article.

Selected bibliography

  • 1982: The Best Defense. ISBN 978-0-394-50736-1.
  • 1985: Reversal of Fortune: 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: Supreme Injustice: 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: The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved. ISBN 978-0-471-74317-0); Template:PDFlink.
  • 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.

Notes

  1. ^ Dershowitz, Alan. "Biographical Statement". AlanDershowitz.com. Retrieved January 25, 2007.
  2. "Alan Dershowitz". The Huffington Post. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
  3. Pollak, Joe. "Dershowitz wins 13th murder case", Harvard Law Record, January 22, 2009.
  4. ^ Jonathan Rosen (March 30, 1997). "Abraham's Drifting Children". The New York Times Books. Retrieved November 28, 2007.
  5. ^ Dershowitz, Alan M. Chutzpah. Touchstone Books, 1992, pp. 35, 41.
  6. "Harry Dershowitz", "Social Security Death Index Search Results," n.d.. Retrieved November 1, 2006.
  7. Louis Dershowitz WWII Draft Registration Card and 1930 Census, Ancestry.com
  8. "Obituary: Harry Dershowitz", The New York Times April 26, 1984; Nathan Z. Dershowitz, FindLaw.com, last updated December 31, 2005; both accessed November 1, 2006.
  9. ^ Tom Van Riper, "First Job: Alan Dershowitz," Forbes May 23, 2006. Retrieved November 1, 2006.
  10. Stull, Elizabeth. "Son of Brooklyn Brings Home Legacy of High-Profile Trials: Alan Dershowitz Donates Archives to Brooklyn College," Brooklyn Daily Eagle September 25, 2003. Retrieved August 12, 2006.
  11. Spero, Josh. "No stranger to controversy, Dershowitz remains unapologetic", The Times, March 14, 2006.
  12. "Looking back at the OJ trial", Time, June 9, 1999.
  13. Dershowitz cited for Soviet Jewry efforts | JTA - Jewish & Israel News
  14. "Alan M Dershowitz," Crystal Reference Encyclopedia.
  15. Charles McGrath, "An X-Rated Phenomenon Revisited," The New York Times, February 9, 2005 (TimesSelect subscription required), accessed December 17, 2006.
  16. Alan Dershowitz, "Saluting the Enemy: Alan Dershowitz responds to Anita Diamant," Boston Phoenix June 7, 2006, accessed December 17, 2006.
  17. See photograph caption in "Photographs," Edwin Meese, Attorney General's Commission on Pornography Final Report (Meese Report), U.S. Department of Justice, July 1986, accessed April 12, 2006.
  18. Rabbi loses round in campaign against cardinal
  19. ^ Cohen, Roger (July 17, 1991). "Jewish Group Attacks Author of 'Chutzpah'". The New York Times. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
  20. Double Standard Watch: The new blood libel | Blogs & Columns | Jerusalem Post
  21. Dan Kennedy, "Barnicle's Game: Why He Should Have Been Fired – and Why He Wasn't," Boston Phoenix August 13–20, 1998. The ombudsman for the Globe supported Dershowitz and questioned Barnicle's credibility. In 1998 Barnicle was "forced to resign" from the paper as a direct result of later controversies (See Mike Barnicle).
  22. ^ "'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 (incl. links to five-page transcript of full interview and to audio excerpt).
  23. Michelle Goldberg, "Mau-mauing the Middle East." Salon.com September 30, 2002, accessed February 17, 2007, cites Dershowitz's perspective on his own support for Israel and Israeli-sponsored terror in the context of what some regarded then as a "chilly" academic environment for doing so in 2002: "'I'm one of the very, very few professors around the United States that vigorously speaks up on behalf of Israel, and I have gotten e-mails and calls from all over the world from students who feel chilled because no one speaks up for them.'" (page two of three pages).
  24. What is anti-Semitism? (Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2009) ("vehemently pro-Israel")
    Legal giants take on Israel boycotters (The Times, June 14, 2007) ("vocal supporter of Israel")
  25. ^ Randall T. Adams, "Dershowitz: Divestment Petitioners Are 'Bigots,'" Harvard Crimson October 8, 2002. Retrieved September 8, 2006.
  26. Alan M. Dershowitz, "New Response to Palestinian Terrorism."
  27. David Villarreal, "Dershowitz Editorial Draws Fire," The Harvard Crimson March 18, 2002. Retrieved January 25, 2007.
  28. ^ James Bamford, "Strategic Thinking: A year After Sept. 11, Students of U.S. policy Still Disagree about What Went Wrong and How to Fix It." The Washington Post September 8, 2002: BW03. Retrieved January 25, 2007.
  29. Cf. Nathan Lewin, "Detering (sic) Suicide Killers" (Reply to Arthur Green), Sh'ma May 2002, accessed January 25, 2007.
  30. Norman Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (University of California Press, 2005) 176.
  31. Menetrez, Frank J. "Dershowitz v. Finkelstein: Who's Right and Who's Wrong?" Epilogue to Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Verso 2005, pp. 379–384)
  32. Bombardieri, Marcella. "Academic Fight Heads to Print: Authorship Challenge Dropped from Text," The Boston Globe, July 9, 2005.
  33. Dershowitz, Alan. "New Challenge to Columbia and to Chomsky, Finkelstein, and Cockburn," FrontPagemag.com July 13, 2005, accessed September 10, 2006.
  34. Zhou, Kevin. "Feud Weakens Prof's Tenure Bid" Harvard Crimson April 4, 2007
  35. "Harvard Law Professor Works to Disrupt Tenure Bid of Longtime Nemesis at DePaul U."], Chronicle of Higher Education, April 5, 2007.
  36. "DePaul denies tenure to controversial professor", The Associated Press , June 11, 2007.
  37. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," as linked in "The Israel Lobby," The London Review of Books, March 23, 2006. Retrieved February 2, 2007.
  38. Paras D. Bhayani and Rebecca R. Friedman, "Dean Attacks ‘Israel Lobby’: Article co-authored by KSG’s Walt stirs uproar; Dershowitz responds," The Harvard Crimson March 21, 2006: "In interviews with The Crimson yesterday , Dershowitz took issue with this characterization, stating that he does not consider himself a member of a monolithic lobby and that he has criticized Israel on several occasions in the past.... Dershowitz, who is one of Israel’s most prominent defenders, vehemently disputed the article’s assertions, repeatedly calling it 'one-sided' and its authors 'liars' and 'bigots.'.... He criticized three piece on three grounds, alleging parallels with neo-Nazi literature, saying that Walt and Mearsheimer’s characterization that Israeli citizenship is based on 'blood kinship' is a 'categorical lie,' and taking issue with the representation of the lobby as all-encompassing."
  39. Alan Dershowitz, transcript of "'Scarborough Country' for March 21," MSNBC, updated March 22, 2006. Retrieved September 8, 2006.
  40. Alan Dershowitz, Template:PDFlink A Reply to the Mearsheimer Walt 'Working Paper,'" John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Law School, April 6, 2006. Retrieved April 6, 2006.
  41. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby," London Review of Books May 11, 2006. Retrieved September 8, 2006.
  42. Alan M. Dershowitz, "Arbour Must Go," National Post July 21, 2006. Retrieved September 7, 2006.
  43. Alan M. Dershowitz, "Blame the Terrorists Not Israel," The Boston Globe July 24, 2006. Retrieved September 7, 2006.
  44. Sheri Shefa, "Iran Accused of Incitement to Genocide," The Canadian Jewish News, online posting, January 25, 2007, accessed January 24, 2007. Other "peakers at the rally, hosted by author and National Post columnist Linda Frum Sokolowski, included Canada’s minister of intergovernmental affairs Peter Van Loan; Ontario Attorney General Michael J. Bryant; Father Raymond De Souza, a Catholic priest, and Holocaust survivors Martin Maxwell and Max Eisen.
  45. "Excerpt: Carter's 'Palestine Peace Not Apartheid,'" , ABC News November 27, 2006. Retrieved December 23, 2006.
  46. "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid...Jimmy Carter in His Own Words," interview conducted by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! November 30, 2006, accessed December 23, 2006; incl. audio link to interview and "rush transcript."
  47. "Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine," Los Angeles Times January 8, 2007.
  48. "Carter Nixes Debate with Outspoken Prof," Yahoo News December 15, 2006. Retrieved December 22, 2006.
  49. Alan Dershowitz, "Why Won't Carter Debate His Book?" (Op-Ed) The Boston Globe December 21, 2006. Retrieved December 23, 2006.
  50. Pam Belluck, "Jimmy Carter Responds to Critics at Brandeis," The New York Times January 24, 2007. Retrieved January 24, 2007.
  51. "Alan Dershowitz's Question to Jimmy Carter," video clip, online posting, YouTube January 23, 2007. Retrieved January 24, 2007.
  52. "This House believes it's time for the US to get tough on Israel – Transcript". The Doha Debates. March 25, 2009. Retrieved April 7, 2009.
  53. "Darwin, Meet Dershowitz: Courting Legal Evolution at Harvard Law", The Animals' Advocate 21 (Winter 2002). Retrieved November 19, 2010.
  54. Dershowitz, Alan. Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights. Basic Books, 2004, pp. 198–199.
    • Also see his Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age. Little, Brown, 2002, chapter nine, particularly pp. 84–85.
  55. Dershowitz, Alan. Jungle Law. Archived 2006-11-05 at the Wayback Machine
  56. Gifford, Dan. "The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in Religion and Reason" Tennessee Law Review. Vol. 62, No. 3, 1995: 759.
  57. "Editorial: Speak Up: Memo to John Kerry: Be Bold. Plus, What Goes Around Comes Around. Just Ask Billy Bulger," Boston Phoenix December 5–12, 2002; cf. "Billy Bulger's Obstruction of Justice," Boston Phoenix December 10, 2002, as posted online at the Harvard Law School.
  58. Seth Gitell, "Bulger's Denouement (Continued)," Boston Phoenix December 12–19, 2002, News & Features, accessed September 6, 2006. (3 pages)
  59. Howie Carr, "The Brothers Bulger" The Brothers Bulger (New York: Warner Books, 2006) 323.
  60. Alan M. Dershowitz, "Want to torture? Get a warrant," San Francisco Chronicle January 22, 2002.
  61. "Dershowitz: Torture could be justified", CNN March 4, 2003. Retrieved August 12, 2006.
  62. Harvey A. Silverglate, "Torture warrants?" Boston Phoenix December 6?"13, 2001. Retrieved August 12, 2006.
  63. William Schulz, "The Torturer's apprentice: Civil liberties in a turbulent age," The Nation May 13, 2002.
  64. Transcript, Anderson Cooper 360° November 8, 2005.
  65. Walsh, Colleen (Harvard News Office) (2007). "Pre-emption: Preventive, coercive, or both? Dershowitz of Harvard debates Cole of Georgetown about legitimacy of tactics". Harvard University Gazette. Archived from the original on January 16, 2008. Retrieved October 4, 2007. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
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Further reading

Articles about Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz and Noam Chomsky
Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein
Main article: Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair
Alan Dershowitz and Jimmy Carter
Miscellaneous

External links


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