Dershowitz supports Beck rally

Ahead of major Jerusalem event on Wednesday, US law professor says he believes controversial commentator's motives are genuine

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4112880,00.html

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""At a time when old friends and allies who should be supporting the Jewish state are abandoning it in droves, (Glen) Beck's willingness to stand up for Israel must be accepted with gratitude," Harvard law Professor Alan Dershowitz stated in a piece published in Hudson New York.

According to Dershowitz, "I, for one, do not question his motives. I believe they are genuine. One need not accept all of Beck's positions on Israel – and I certainly do not – in order to agree with him that support of Israel is one of the great moral issues of the 21st Century."

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"Dershowitz added, "I certainly admire Beck's decision to go to Israel far more than the decision of so many so-called artists and intellectuals who call for a boycott against the Jewish state without even bothering to go there and see for themselves."

"I welcome the support of religious Christians who love Israel for religious reasons. I abhor the ignorant and misguided efforts of other Christians, such as Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, who misuse their faith against the Jewish state," Dershowitz noted."

The most important one is that the actions of a decade's far right governance have put Israel solidly on a course it is very difficult to defend, a course which makes it very difficult to maintain anything but annexation of the entire Jordan valley is the policy of the Israeli state. Israel has largely thrown away its claim to moral high ground, and unfortunately Mr. Dershowitz's cry that 'support for Israel is one of the great moral issues of the 21st Century' has a pretty hollow ring....

And while I find his unquestioning acceptance of Mr. Beck's stated motives dismayingly naive, I believe his singular point is well taken, particularly in the face of the all too common attempts at claiming moral equivalence between self-defense and genocidal aggression.

Israel has chosen governments over the last decade or so which have caused it critical injury, and the present regime of Netanyahu is well on the way to putting the thing beyond repair.

If there is any fault to be found in Israel's policies it is excessive restraint and endless attempts at accommodation despite the Palestinians' cynical intransigence and the constant probing attacks by Iran's terrorist proxies.

If the situation is truly beyond repair then the fault lies with Mr. Abbas, who has made it plain that he will accept no settlement that leaves the state of Israel intact. Trying to negotiate in good faith with him is as futile as attempting a reasonable compromise with tea-baggers.

It is an unfortunate fact that annexation of the Jordan valley seems to be the policy of the right wing parties in power in Israel, and that is as illegitimate a goal for the state of Israel as any similar 'from the river to the sea' goal among the political leadership of Arab Palestine is. The placing of land enclosed by the security barrier under the same legal regime signposting confiscation that was applied to lands abandoned by Arab Palestinians in '48, and the continued flourishing of the settlers' movement, despite the blatant illegality of its actions, is enough t make it hard to argue honestly that annexation, colonization in the oldest sense, is the aim of policy, as the Israeli state is presently governed. So long as this policy is maintained, Israel has no moral claim of any significance; it is just one more expansionist state, which may, as some have in history, been called on to pay a piper, who sometimes demands an exorbitant fee.

While the expansionist philosophy you describe may be that of the most extreme elements in Israeli politics, I see no evidence that it is shared by Mr. Netanyahu, much less his coalition government as a whole.

Then again, on a somewhat less serious note, you bring to mind a statement I recently came across in an old movie remake:

"Extremism in defense of apes is no vice." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133152/quotes?qt0447067

When settlers are prosecuted for violations of Israeli law, and when an Israeli government acts to bring its behavior towards land under military occupation into line with well established international law, and when an Israeli government states unequivocally that all title to land between the security barrier and the Green Line will be upheld without change, then it would be possible to say the right-wing governments of Israel over the last decade are not embarked on an annexationist course.

Possibly the forcible expulsion of the Arab population of the West Bank into Jordan following the "Black September" massacre of 20,000 by the IDF? No, that doesn't sound quite right. Still, if their goal was to annex the entire West Bank, as you claim, one would think that in 44 years they would have found a way to do it, and perhaps go on to reclaim the historically Judean territory on the East bank as well. I must be missing something here.

Could it be the permanent occupation of Sinai, Gaza and southern Lebanon? Surely the expansionist empire you envision would never willingly retreat from such expansive territories once having taken them in battle.

Of course I can understand your outrage at the uniquely atrocious behavior of the Jewish settlers in occupied Judea; their suicide bombings of crowded marketplaces and mosques, their random murders of families in their homes and passersby on the highway, and especially their constant barrage of rockets aimed at children in Palestinian towns. It's only natural to expect a hostile backlash against such provocations.

Still, I get the feeling there's something else I'm not seeing here. Perhaps it's the unapologetic use of unrestrained military force with which any other society in human history would respond to such prolonged and vicious belligerence against their population. I guess I'll just have to pay closer attention.

May I suggest that alienating moderate supporters of Israel is not a sound strategy for the future?

It is not a question of whether other parties behave badly, or behave even worse in some regards: they certainly do.

Nor does the relinquishing of buffer territories not part of the historical heartland have any relevance; the charge is not expansionism in all directions, but a policy of annexation in a particular area.

The pattern of creeping annexation in the Jordan valley is quite clear. There is no sign of it halting, and it is reaching a point of no return, past which anything resembling a coherent state of Arab Palestine could be established. If Israel forecloses by facts of possession and habitation the path of 'two-state solution', Israel will pay a heavy forfeit, one it almost certainly cannot afford.

Plenty of blame to go around, indeed; but you can only fix the future, the past is past and done with.
:hi:

But sometimes I think that *both* sides 'never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity'.

It would be possible to reverse the policy, but there is no sign of it, and certainly no prospect of the Netanyahu government doing that.

I think that Dershowitz may be biased here by his profession as a defense lawyer. In that profession, you use whatever arguments or evidence, short of perjury, that will support your client; and you don't usually need to worry about whether providers of that evidence are spreading toxic influences in other contexts.

I doubt that Beck's motives are 'genuine' love for Israel; Israel is a useful pawn to use to (a) fulfil religious prophecy and (b) oppose Muslims. In any case, Beck is such a poisonous snake that he should not be trusted further than one can throw him.

take Beck as seriously as he takes himself:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/live-blog-glenn-beck-s-restoring-courage-rally-in-east-jerusalem-1.380474

My favourite bit: 'Glenn says evil is growing. Does that mean winter is coming too? Thank goodness, it's really hot here.'

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, says Beck is very extreme and controversial even among right-wing groups in the United States.

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"The warm welcome extreme right-wing media personality Glenn Beck has receiving in Israel has led to criticism of the American pundit by Jewish leaders in New York.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, told Haaretz he believed that Beck was very extreme and controversial even among right-wing groups in the United States. Yoffie pointed to the Fox News television network, which had canceled Beck's show and distanced itself from him.

Yoffie said that Beck had mocked the distress of hundreds of thousands of protesters in Israel, referring to the right-wing pundit's comments about the tent protests in Israel earlier this month when he compared protesters' calls for increased social benefits to those of the former Soviet Union.

According to Yoffie, Beck's comments on the protest in Israel are a slap in the face to hundreds of thousands of protesters, and expressed dismay that such a man is holding events in Israel with the participation of cheering masses.

Yoffie, who said he prefered not to speak about Beck and lend him undue prominence, said the pundit had expressed himself hatefully and rudely against President Obama, who is Israel's important and faithful ally."

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/u-s-jews-warn-israel-not-to-get-too-cozy-with-glenn-beck-1.380323

His whole agenda is to equate "support of Israel" with never criticizing anything the Israeli government ever does...other than its rare attempts to make peace.

Dersh has joined the far Right now and everyone should just finally accept that fact.

Its like the monster in horror films. You think you kill them off. The soundtrack starts playing soothing strings. Then the monster comes back even nastier than before.

Nice to know that Dearthowitz was basically a freeper all the time though.

I have a feeling he'd throw his own grandmother off a cliff if he thought it was in Israel's interest.