<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2098"><a id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2152" href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/finkelstein-dershowitzs-troubles">http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/finkelstein-dershowitzs-troubles</a></div><div><br></div><div>I prefer not to comment directly on the serious allegations being leveled against Alan Dershowitz.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2097">It appears that everyone will have their day in court, which is as it should be.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2096">However, I would want to express an opinion on the <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/24/hls-profs-support-dershowitz/"><font color="#0066cc">letter signed by 38 Harvard Law School professors</font></a> (including “radical” Critical Legal Studies professor Roberto Unger and liberal tribune Laurence Tribe) in defense of Dershowitz.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2095">They describe him as “courageous” and “outspoken” in “defending the despised, and attacking the views of important people.”</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2094">The journalist Jack Newfield memorably described former New York City Mayor Edward Koch as a “toady to the powerful and a bully to the powerless.”</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2093">If you multiply this description a thousand fold, you might begin to approach the real-life Alan Dershowitz.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2092">It is break-taking to read the Harvard statement in the context of a sexual slavery case pitting vulnerable minors against billionaires, celebrities and royalty.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2091">Of particular relevance to your website, no single person in the U.S. was more responsible than Dershowitz for whitewashing Israel’s brutal torture of Palestinian detainees. When Israel’s torture first came under public scrutiny, Dershowitz wrote (with attorney Monroe Freedman) in the <em>New York Times</em>, “Allegations of systematic torture and allegations of systematic violations of human rights by Israel must be viewed with more than a little skepticism.”</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2087">Dershowitz repeated his egregious apologetics during the first intifada (beginning 1987) when, according to B’Tselem, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Israel was “systematically” torturing Palestinian detainees, deploying methods similar to those recently recounted in the Senate Report on Torture, but on a vastly greater scale. The Torture Report documents 39-44 cases of CIA use of torture, whereas HRW estimated that during the first intifada alone, Israel tortured and ill-treated “tens of thousands” of Palestinian detainees.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2088">Indeed, Dershowitz misrepresented Israeli torture practices in testimony <em id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2089">sworn to</em> <em>under oath</em> in a U.S. extradition hearing of a Palestinian resident, Mahmoud el-Abed Ahmad, fearing torture in Israel. For example, he said that Israel’s “toughest methodology for eliciting statements” from Palestinian detainees “is to frighten the person being interrogated into believing that the situation is actually going to be worse than it would become.” Israel was at most guilty, according to Dershowitz, of “occasional pushing and shoving…physical touching.” (I go through the sordid record in detail in my book <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520245983"><em><font color="#0066cc">Beyond Chutzpah</font></em></a>.)</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2090">Is this what the Harvard Law School professors had in mind when they praised Dershowitz’s “courageous” and “outspoken” defense of “the despised”?</div>- See more at: <a id="ms__id1412" href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/finkelstein-dershowitzs-troubles#sthash.vJbp2Dt6.dpuf">Finkelstein on Joan Peters's legacy (and Dershowitz's legal troubles)</a><div class="link-enhancr-attachment link-enhancr-element" id="enhancrCard_0" style='width: 450px; 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font-family: "Georgia", "Times", "Times New Roman", "serif"; vertical-align: middle;' colspan="2"><div class="link-enhancr-text-part link-enhancr-element" style="width: 245px; height: 135px; line-height: 16.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="link-enhancr-element" style="-ms-word-break: break-all; -ms-word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="link-enhancr-element icon icon-shrink link-enhancr-toggle"></span><span class="link-enhancr-element icon icon-close link-enhancr-delete"></span><a class="link-enhancr-card-urlWrapper link-enhancr-element" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; line-height: 100%; font-size: 18px; text-decoration: none !important; display: block;" href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/finkelstein-dershowitzs-troubles#sthash.vJbp2Dt6.dpuf"><span class="link-enhancr-element link-enhancr-card-title" style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 21px; overflow: hidden !important; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; display: inline-block; max-height: 43px;">Finkelstein on Joan Peters's legacy (and Dershowitz's le...</span></a><div class="link-enhancr-card-description link-enhancr-element" style='color: rgb(153, 153, 153); line-height: 20px; overflow: hidden; font-family: "Georgia", "Times", "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13px; max-height: 81px;'>Adam Horowitz interviews Norman Finkelstein on the work and legacy of Joan Peters, the author of "From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict...</div></div></div></td></tr><tr><td class="link-enhancr-element" style="height: 4px; font-size: 0pt; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" colspan="2"><div class="link-enhancr-element" style="height: 4px; font-size: 4pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div></td></tr><tr><td class="link-enhancr-element" style='font-family: "Arial", "Helvetica Neue", "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; vertical-align: middle;'><div class="link-enhancr-element" style="font-size: 0pt;"><a class="link-enhancr-card-url link-enhancr-element" style="color: black; text-decoration: none !important; cursor: pointer !important;" href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/finkelstein-dershowitzs-troubles#sthash.vJbp2Dt6.dpuf" target="_blank"><span class="link-enhancr-element link-enhancr-view-on" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422757041205_2103" style="line-height: 11px; 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