Dershowitz calls Beinart a Nazi
JVL Introduction
In an extraordinary – and hate-filled – escalation of language Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz has accused Peter Beinart of advocating a Final Solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
This allusion to the Nazi endgame is not accidental, repeated again and again by Dershowitz in recent weeks.
Jonathan Ofir dismantles the weaknesses and distortions of Dershowitz’s arguments against Beinart, particularly those which claim to present a continuous and relentless Palestinian undermining of peace talks over the decades.
He concludes: “Zionists need this fear mongering – the one that Dershowitz provides. It doesn’t need to be real, it just needs to manufacture consent for maintenance of the status quo, which is Israeli expansionism.”
This article was originally published by Mondoweiss on Mon 20 Jul 2020. Read the original here.
Dershowitz calls Beinart a Nazi
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A very well informed article. Peter Beinart’s decision to abandon the two state position is ruffling some feathers in the USA.For the right to call him a Nazi is shocking and shows they will do anything to discredit any version of the one state solution which is based on equality for all of its citizens. It would interesting to know how this is playing out in the very large US Jewish diaspora. How many are moving in the same direction as Peter Beinhart?
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Maybe those calling for the final solution of the Palestinian problem are the real Nazis.
I remember the days – which I bet most people can’t- when Dershowitz was a civil liberties lawyer! Always keen to promote himself, but nevertheless, a good lawyer and campaigner.
The factual stuff in this article is very useful. I just want to question some of the discussion about bi-national states. There is loads of evidence that these are problematic. Or that they do well in particular circumstances (e.g. Yugoslavia was a success when strong man Tito ruled over it, and built in checks and balances to protect the smaller and weaker groups. But the basic idea was flawed and fragile and it all fell apart when the strong man died). Northern Ireland, which I know a lot about, is indisputably a vastly better, happier, kinder, safer place – especially for Catholics – than it was during the Troubles (when I lived there). But its problems are being contained and managed, rather than addressed and resolved. The NI peace process simply didnt include any educative truth and reconciliation, because it would have required a political reckoning with decades of unionist oppression, which nobody was in a position to impose. But at least with mostly peace, there is a chance in N Ireland that one day, that truth will be sought. So I think everyone who refers to examples – either with or against Beinart – needs to be careful how far to take the comparisons.
The other thing with Dershowitz which has got him really crazy is that Beinart has taken the moral high ground. Many (most?) readers and commentators have focused on his one state/two state discussion. But much more important is that he has succeeded in shifting everything for Diaspora Jews into a debate about morality! And about human rights. And about democracy. And whatever the speculative stuff about eventual state formation, Beinart is onto a winner when he asks liberal Diaspora Jews to ask themselves honestly, whether what they want in any part of that land between the river and the sea, is what they see today.
I agree with Naomi Wayne that more discussion of bi-national states would have helped. To unequivocally call Belgium and Canada successes is simplistic.
The form of any future single state would have to be jointly hammered out by the palestinians and the israelis.Given the uniqueness of the circumstances I’m not convinced there is a ready made model that could be copied from elsewhere.Having said that I see no alternative to seeking a model which enables the two communities to share the territories .
New Zealand is a binational state that is managing to move forward in an inclusive way. So the idea that it is impossible looks flawed.
The similarity between Israel and Ireland until 1999 is significant, the Israeli government ‘claim ‘ sovereignty over the whole Land of Israel, including the West Bank [they call it Judea and Samaria] similarly the Republic of Ireland claimed sovereignty over the whole Island of Ireland and its territorial waters in their 1937 constitution [articles 2 and 3] The Good Friday Agreement [GFA] between the UK and Irish government [including Sinn Fein] recognised that the people of Northern Ireland have the right to self determination when the Republic changed its constitution from a ‘claim’ to an ‘aspiration’ and confirmed that there can be no constitutional change in NI without the majority agreeing to it.
The result of the Irish Republics referendum in 1999 was 94.39% for constitutional change to 5.6% no change. This complemented the 1973 border poll in Northern Ireland which was 98.8% to remain part of the UK to 1.2% for a united Ireland. on a 58% turnout [Sinn Fein told their supporters to boycott the poll]. The GFA could not have happened without the Republic and Sinn Fein recognising that the people of Northern Ireland have the right to self determination. When a majority in NI vote for a united Ireland, negotiations between all parties concerned can take place in order to bring it about in an amicable way. All perfectly democratic, with no need for violence.
The Israeli government do not recognise that the Palestinians have the right to self determination, therein lies the problem, for any peace agreement, the Israelis will need to do as the Irish did when they renounced their claim to the whole Island. I suspect the Israelis will double down and try to either transfer the Palestinians or put them in Bantustans, neither will work of course, unfortunately we will have much more bloodshed.
Dershowitz has a lot on his mind at the moment as we await more revelations in the Epstein case. Robert Maxwell was said to be an Israel asset and there are murky circumstances surrounding his death which my yet come to light as his daughter is investigated.
His commentaries have become increasingly deranged over the past few years, as he visibly ages.
Nothing new as detailed above, see what works for Israel
In mean time concentrate minds, war crimes combined with economic sanctions and reparations against individuals and the state should do it
Publish list that is being drawn up by ICC, let their partners, friends and families do the rest
By this time next year !
I think everyone is being unfair to Alan, he only has suspects in the hands of the security services and their welfare in mind when he advocates for ‘torture warrants’ to enable the authorities to extract information by using only sterile needles to be inserted under the fingernails of suspects, see how caring he is.
DERSHOWITZ: “Well, we don’t know, and that’s why [we could use] a torture warrant, which puts a heavy burden on the government to demonstrate by factual evidence the necessity to administer this horrible, horrible technique of torture. I would talk about nonlethal torture, say, a sterilized needle underneath the nail, which would violate the Geneva Accords, but you know, countries all over the world violate the Geneva Accords. They do it secretly and hypothetically, the way the French did it in Algeria. If we ever came close to doing it, and we don’t know whether this is such a case, I think we would want to do it with accountability and openly and not adopt the way of the hypocrite”. https://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/03/cnna.Dershowitz/
An interesting whine from Dershowitz, given that (as has been pointed out in other articles here), it is the current dominant form of apartheid zionism that has effectively killed any possibility of a ‘two state solution’ – not opponents to it.
Rationally, of course, it has long been a dead duck in both practical and moral terms – but that’s beside the point. There is no such thing as a state at ease with itself based on the cultural dominance of one group.
Israel has de-facto rejected the two state solution with its continuous expansion into the areas where the other state would have to go.