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CounterPunch
October
14, 2002
9-11 and the
Rise of the Academic Redneck
The Tragedy of Alan Dershowitz
by DON ATAPATTU
America the 1960's was so much more straightforward
where the ethnic boundaries lay within the struggle for civil
rights and equality. The 'White' community in this instance had
no vested interest in changing the status quo, but many joined
the fight through a sense of justice and morality. A very substantial
proportion of 'White' liberal activists were American Jews, and
they provided crucial financial and political support. The NAACP's
first President Arthur Spingarn was Jewish, as were all his successors
until the 1970's. In those days the mainstream leadership of
both the Black and Jewish communities did not have obviously
opposing agendas. There were few progressives (Jewish or otherwise)
who could see any contradiction between being active in civil
rights in America, while supporting the Zionist enterprise in
Israel. Martin Luther King would stoutly stand by his Jewish
backers in defending Zionism, going so far as to use the familiar
libel that Zionism's critics were motivated by anti Semitism.
Today the scenario has greatly changed, with the disintegration
of that Sixties coalition, and a radical realignment of racial
politics. A well documented schism has opened up between Blacks
and Jews, which may be partly attributable to class (an obvious
disparity exists between affluent Jews and mainly working class
Blacks). Another explanation can lie with the changes in racial
dynamics and the rise of 'victim culture'. When Blacks, Jews,
Latinos and even members of the White Christian majority all
want to assert their 'victim' status, there is far less cohesiveness
in the fight for 'equality'. This struggle has now degenerated
to a fight with regard to the division of the spoils among the
competing ethnic groups. Such a conflict can only be a zero sum
game, where a victory in either material entitlement or the perceived
moral high ground for one faction is automatically a blow for
another. Consequently minorities are often opposed to each other,
and reports of Black-Jewish-Latino friction escalating to violence
are more and more familiar. However, relatively new to this picture
is the importation of the Muslim-Jewish conflict into the domestic
American situation.
Since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war the leadership
of the American Jewish organisations have found a common identity
in preserving the memory of the Nazi genocide and support for
Israel. Aside from occasional Black Muslim radicals, the only
real opposition to this was from marginal individuals on the
extreme Right. Although there has been a sizeable population
of Arabs in America for some time, in the past they were mainly
affluent, conservative and Christian. Recent immigration trends
have caused America's Arab population to become poorer, more
Muslim and less passive with regard to America's uncompromisingly
pro Israel foreign policy. African Americans have also less reason
to support Israel, with many identifying with the Palestinian
plight (Jesse Jackson once remarked that Palestinians were the
'niggers of the Middle East') and questioning why Israel was
apartheid era South Africa's most persistent ally. American Arabs
and Muslims have arguably now replaced Blacks as the most vulnerable
and most reviled of minorities. Even the conventional terms of
abuse for African Americans have been modified to apply to Americans
of Middle Eastern ancestry e.g. 'sand-nigger' and 'dune-coon'.
The old threat of a fifth column ethnic group that led to the
internment of Japanese-Americans is now firmly resurrected. Never
a favourite of Hollywood and the news media (especially when
a vocal minority espouse extreme and anti-Semitic views), after
the 9-11 atrocities Arabs and Muslims are now a particularly
unpopular and easy target for the visceral hostility of some
quarters in the US. Simultaneously, some Jewish leaders are questioning
whether to continue participating in an anti racist coalition
that includes many who have no love of Israel or Zionism. Possibly
a more appropriate alliance partner would be the conservative
Right who have no constituency among Blacks or Arabs, and whose
beliefs are more compatible with the policies of the Israeli
government. Although some Jews remain in the progressive tradition,
others in the Daniel Pipes mould have coupled an extremely chauvinistic
position on the Middle East with a conservative stand on domestic
issues. Another influential grouping is of pro Zionist Democrats
who occupy the ever less tenable position of actively supporting
'liberal' policies at home, while being uncritical supporters
of Israel repressive actions in the Middle East.
Alan Dershowitz falls squarely into the
last category. A professor of Harvard Law School since the age
of 28, he is known chiefly for his notorious celebrity clients
such as Claus Von Bulow and OJ Simpson. Despite his past activism
as a civil libertarian ('a judicial St. Jude' is how Time described
him), and his benign, slightly dishevelled appearance (something
akin to a paunchy Woody Allen), the radical policies he now sanctions
are nearer David Duke than Ralph Nader. The ongoing Palestinian
intifada and the polarisation of opinion that has accompanied
it, has provoked an ugly tribalism in him that spawned a flood
of lectures, articles and books (the latest being 'Why Terrorism
Works'), dehumanising Palestinians and criticising the Israeli
government for being too soft in their repression.
This former civil libertarian now supports torture, and urges
the Israeli government to destroy Palestinian villages in response
to terror attacks. However, Dershowitz's writings and interviews
do not focus on terrorism in general (defined here as the use
of violence against civilians for political purposes). It is
not even primarily about terrorism against America. What truly
infuriates Dershowitz is not terrorism per se, but terrorism
against people of Jewish background--particularly those who are
based in Israel.
In his new book and in interviews, Dershowitz
details the numerous atrocities committed by Palestinians against
Israelis, but fails to mention that the civilian and military
Jewish casualties throughout Israel's entire history
are equal or less than the Arab casualties of Sharon's Lebanon
invasion alone. He also conveniently sidesteps the issue of how
it was Zionist terrorism that drove the British out of Palestine,
and later expelled three quarters of the native population from
their own land (the ludicrous Israeli account that Palestinians
fled their farms and houses of their own accord is not supported
by serious scholarship). Obviously support for the 'good terrorism'
that created Israel, cannot be reconciled with the 'bad terrorism'
of the natives who want their territory back. When quizzed on
this contradiction on British television, he suggested that Menachem
Begin was punished for his terrorist activities by the fact that
it took him so long to become Israeli Prime Minister--this from
a man who endorses the torture of Arab suspects;
and who supported Nathan Lewin after his suggestion that the
relatives of Palestinian terrorists should be executed
by Israel! The blatant discrimination of this position is enlightening
on how Dershowitz views the value of Muslim and Christian Semites
(like Jews, Arabs are a Semitic people and both share a common
ancestry), vis a vis the lives of Semites of the Jewish faith.
Despite his narcissistic self image as a champion of the poor
and oppressed (see his portrayal in the movie of his book 'Reversal
of Fortune'), he effectively endorses for Arabs the status of
Blacks in the old American South, where the stronger group may
lynch and suffer no penalty, and the underclass face violent
punishment on the basis of a suspicion alone.
Inevitably, The New Republic has lavished
publicity on Dershowitz and praises him for dismissing 'silly
dogma' that Israel's policy of collective punishment against
'the innocent who are in a good position to control the guilty'
is somehow immoral. Regrettably, The New Republic does not think
it worth mentioning that this tactic is illegal under international
law, and was much employed by the Nazis. Furthermore, both Dershowitz
and his TNR admirers seem oblivious to the fact that this logic
gives credibility to Palestinian extremists who attack Israeli
civilians indiscriminately. After all if it is right to punish
Palestinians who 'cheer on or otherwise support (Palestinian)
terrorism', are not the civilians who voted for the Israeli government's
policy occupation and apartheid in the West Bank also 'sufficiently
culpable' and subsequently liable for punishment? If consistency
is to be maintained, the Palestinians are surely allowed to respond
in kind against Israeli 'targeted' assassinations (which have
also killed scores of innocent bystanders); theft of land, water,
and other resources (the internal organs of slain Palestinian
children being a particularly grisly example); daily curfews;
and the economic and social strangulation inflicted through the
closure of entire communities. Furthermore, The New Republic
applauds Dershowitz for ridiculing any explanation of the motivations
of terrorism as 'appeasement', quoting approvingly that 'we don't
address the root causes of a bad marriage that may have led a
man to murder his wife--we hunt down the murderer and punish
him'. Quite apart from the fact that his formidable skills as
a lawyer have actively prevented wealthy wife killers from facing
punishment, he fails to apply his own scenario to all sides.
Consider for example if a man breaks down your door, brutalises
and humiliates your family, and then confiscates your house while
declaring you should serve him as cheap labour. Is it right that
you should collaborate with him or should a recognised authority
arrest the perpetrator and bring him to justice? As this is what
Israel's 35 year occupation has done to the Palestinians, will
Mr Dershowitz and the TNR kindly add their voices to those demanding
the immediate arrest of Sharon, Peres etc? Once this unsavoury
double act is sharing a cell with Milosevic in the Hague, perhaps
a confession can be extracted from them with the assistance of
torture. This in turn can help facilitate a guilty verdict from
a military court and hasten the demolition of their homes and
the execution of their relatives as a deterrent to others.
What is more, Dershowitz's (and the New
Republic's) definition of 'terrorism' is predictably self serving.
By not recognising as 'terrorism' most politically orientated
violence used against civilians by states (Arab
and Islamic states obviously excepted), America and her proxies
are let off the hook. 'You can always call your enemy a terrorist'
he says in a Salon.com interview, scoffing at Muslim critics
of Israel and America's human rights records, but he is as guilty
himself. This is fine when Dershowitz is preaching to the converted,
but the wider public will be right to be sceptical. After all,
if everyone accepts that members of the French resistance who
engaged in military action against the occupying German army
were fighting for 'liberation', than Palestinian guerrilla attacks
on the occupying Israel Defence Force (IDF) must be judged likewise.
Additionally, during the British rule of Palestine former Israeli
Prime Ministers Begin and Shamir were leaders of the terror groups
Irgun and the Stern Gang respectively. Current incumbent Ariel
Sharon has never stopped being a terrorist, with a record that
stretches over 5 decades and claimed thousands of victims (for
a full history see the Counterpunch article 'The Crimes of Ariel
Sharon'). Naturally, Dershowitz denies the Israeli government
is involved in terror itself, and in a salon.com interview describes
Israel's targeted assassinations as 'the opposite of terrorism..very
precise and very specific'. Sadly, he does not seem unduly concerned
about the scores of bystanders killed in these attacks, many
of them children. Interestingly enough though, he plays down
ANC violence in the struggle against apartheid - 'The government
of South Africa was using terrorism against innocent civilians
and the ANC was using counterterrorism' he states in the same
interview. This is not a wise argument to utilise, as in virtually
every way the repression of the IDF in the West Bank and Gaza
is worse than that employed by the pre democracy Pretoria government.
As Edward Said observed: 'even under apartheid, F16 jets were
never used to bomb African homelands as they are now sent against
Palestinian towns and villages'.
Professor Dershowitz also has a great
deal to say about the immorality of the Palestinians when compared
to the Israelis. He declares that the Palestinians invented international
terrorism in 1968 (the inhabitants of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden
and Manchuria might take issue with this); and how 'Palestinians
think they're the only group that has the right to use terrorism'
(presumably the PKK, ETA, the IRA, and the Tamil Tigers are also
on Arafat's pay roll). He tells 'salon.com' that 'the Jews who
were subject to the holocaust didn't try to terrorise German
babies or children .....they had a higher moral standard'. Leaving
aside the question of whether someone who makes a living keeping
prisons free from wealthy killers is an appropriate authority
on ethics, this comparison is spurious. The Nazis (mad as they
were) were not reckless enough to build settlements of their
own civilians on the territory surrounded by the hostile natives
that actually lived there before being driven off it. Likewise,
the 'civilian' status of Jewish settlements in the West Bank
is also highly suspect, built as they are by the armoured bulldozers
of the IDF on the confiscated and ethnically cleansed territory
of its Arab owners. If these highly fortified citadels, populated
by gun toting fanatics (often American immigrants), are strategic
military installations, than the responsibility for attacks on
their residents must lie with the occupying power that built
them. Correspondingly, how was it that in 1948 three quarters
of all the Palestinians were frightened enough to be driven off
the land they had lived on for over a thousand years? A 1948
letter to the New York Times signed by Albert Einstein, Hannah
Arendt and other notables has this to say on the notorious Deir
Yassin massacre: 'terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village,
which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most
of its inhabitants - 240 men, women and children - and kept a
few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of
Jerusalem'. Eye witness accounts of this crime report dozens
of children slaughtered in front of their mothers and 25 pregnant
women bayoneted in the stomach. In the Occupied Territories today,
an investigation by Physicians for Human Rights USA concluded
that 'the pattern of injuries seen in many victims did not reflect
the IDF use of firearms in life-threatening situations but rather
indicated targeting solely for the purpose of wounding or killing'.
Last year, 'Harper's' journalist Chris Hedges reported witnessing
IDF soldiers enticing Palestinian children into a trap to 'murder
them for sport'. Is this the higher standard that Dershowitz
is talking about?
So finally, what options are available
to the Palestinians in their opposition to Israeli occupation?
Dershowitz generously accepts that they should be allowed the
right to 'passive protest'. What he does not mention, is that
civil disobedience is hardly a new idea to Palestinian leaders,
and was attempted in the 1980's during the original Palestinian
'intifada'. Although it initially caused consternation amongst
Israeli ministers, the IDF and Shin Bet eventually quashed this
through characteristic brutality, (including the now familiar
targeted culling of Palestinian leaders) while the US turned
its usual blind eye. Furthermore, Dershowitz contradicts his
position on the runaway success of Palestinian terror. He claims
to believe the Palestinians would have had a state by now had
they engaged in civil disobedience rather than violence; but
if terrorism has brought them so many benefits, why do they live
in the miserable, stateless existence they have today?
Those who are long term observers of
the disparity between the American response to Israel's violations
of international law to that of its neighbours, will not be surprised
at the double standards of either the US or Dershowitz. As Hanan
Ashrawi memorably said: 'Iraq (16 flouted resolutions)
may be outside the law, but Israel (29 flouted resolutions)
is above it'. In short, Dershowitz's only valid point is that
terrorism against civilians is morally repugnant, but this particular
nugget of reasoning is the intellectual equivalent of pointing
out that the sky is blue. No rational, moral person could disagree
with that, anymore than they could agree with Dershowitz's remedies
or analysis. In reality, the main difference between Israel and
the Palestinian terrorists is scale and what is considered tolerable
by the West i.e. Israel has a license and funding from America
for its military occupation, but the Palestinians are not permitted
the privilege to fight back. Other US client states (such as
Turkey and pre 9-11 Saudi Arabia) also enjoy immunity from any
serious repercussions despite their bloody histories of brutality,
oppression, and breaking standards on basic human rights. China
in Tibet and Russia in Chechnya have additionally operated with
impunity due to their size and military / political clout on
the World stage (though unlike Israel or Turkey, they are not
massively subsidised by the American taxpayer). Such immoral
hypocrisy although reprehensible, has long been the staple of
American foreign policy and indeed the hegemonic powers throughout
history. What is alarming today is not the clamour of mainstream
voices such as Dershowitz to import Israel's aggressive chauvinism
wholesale to America's domestic agenda, but the fact that there
is a large and growing audience willing to listen to him. To
return to the sixties parallel, the civil rights leadership in
those days would tell White America that if they were not part
of the solution to bigotry and injustice, then they were part
of the problem. What a tragedy that a former civil libertarian
has chosen to be such a big problem.
Further Reading:
The Iron Wall--Avi
Shlaim
Image
and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict--Norman
Finkelstein
Pity
the Nation--Robert Fisk
The
Fateful Triangle--Noam Chomsky
For an orthodox Zionist narrative of
the Israeli--Arab conflict see 'Empires
of Sand' by Inari Karsh, or any edition of The New Republic.
Don Atapattu lives in Manchester, England. He can be reached
at: don_atapattu@yahoo.co.uk
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