Here's the link to latest Brandeis story.

1) It seems to me that this setup is slanted to heavily favor Dershowitz-- Since
Dershowitz can attack Carter from any direction and focus on any point whereas Carter has no right to respond. Dershowitz can make any claim confident that there's no one to challenge him.

2) My question to Brandeis is: who gets to refute Dershowitz? Why not make Dershowitz leave the building after his talk and then have Mearshimer and Walt come up and critique Dershowitz while giving Dershowitz no right to reply?

Or hey, if Dershowitz can speak then why can't MJ? Or myself?

Why not let the janitor give his two cents while we're at it? After all, it is probably the janitor's son who will be sent to the Middle East to die in order to accomplish Alan Dershowitz's goals.

Come to think of it, why not invite the parents whose children have died in Iraq so those parents can ask Alan why their children died to defend Israel just because Israeli billionaires like Haim Saban throw $Millions into US political campaigns.

3) Why does Brandeis care what Dershowitz thinks?

In the OJ Simpson trial, Dershowitz argued that society must leap through multiple hoops to respect OJ's constitutional rights -- in spite of OJ's dead wife.

A few years later, that same Dershowitz was arguing that that same justice system should give the Bush administration the right to torture people. Possibly because some of Alan's wealthy friends were wondering if Al Qaeda's crosshairs were on their backs because of their responsibility for US Government acts in the Middle East.

4) Does Brandeis really think Alan is committed to the Socratic method and to Truth -- as opposed to whatever deceitful sophistry and cheap rhetorical tricks are most expedient?

If Brandeis wanted to give their students multiple viewpoints of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, then why not at least invite a reputable person with knowledge?

Someone from the State Department who can discuss the multiple considerations that going into forming US foreign policy -- who can identify concrete US national interests
and tradeoffs as opposed to mere political pressure from domestic special interests with selfish axes to grind.

Instead, Brandeis invites Alan Dershowitz -- a LAWYER. Someone with NO competence, standing, or authority on this issue that I can see.

Carter is getting everything he deserves. He clearly, on at least two separate occasions, defended palestinian terrorism against Israel. In his book he stated that the palestinians should make it clear they will give up terrorism when Israel concedes to their demands. And the other day on al jazeera, he said that he doesn't believe the firing of missiles at Israel amounts to terrorism.

It's not just former presidents who shouldn't be treated like this. As you point out, MJ, even the lowest ranked visiting colloquium speakers are not subjected to this sort of disrespectful treatment.

You know, by helping to negotiate the Israeli-Egyptian peace, Jimmy Carter might have saved the lives of more Jews than 100 bloviating Dershowitzes have saved in a career. You would think that even people with a serious substantive beef over Carter's book would accord some sort of respect to that achievement, and let him say his piece in a non-circus environment.

Brandeis students and faculty can then go on to spend semesters or even years bringing in all sorts of other speakers with contrary positions. They can schedule special undergraduate and graduate seminars. They can hold pro-Israel rallies. They can publish articles in the student newspaper. It's not like Carter's words will be chiseled in stone at Brandeis and allowed to endure unchallenged into eternity unless the mighty Dershowitz is their to rebut them the moment they come out of Carter's mouth.

This undecorous and anti-academic behavior really makes Brandeis look bad. And aside from that, given the fact that one of the criticisms of Carter is that he accords too much weight to the existence of the "lobby" and pro-Israel media bias, it makes Carter's antagonists look stupid, since the college is clearly caving to the very kind of media and pressure group agitation that the critics claim does not exist.

Yes MJ, and I think that's sort of the heart of the matter. It's not about how UN resolution XX is being totally misconstrued in Carter's flawed analyis or something.

It's just a matter of decorum and politeness. Maybe Carter can be pedantic or preachy, but he is genteel and polite - I don't think he's going there to point the finger.

And I do think that this points to what I see as the 'blind spot' in US discussions about this contentious issue - and in fact what Carter is trying to say - namely that there isn't really a big group of Palestinians involved in the US debate. Maybe the Palestinians get some proxy - in this case Carter. But then Carter is just sort of a crusader speaking for people who likely think he has no right to speak for them in the first place. I think for Jews there is visceral connection with Israel - almost like an extended family, but when 'nice' US speakers get up to defend Palestinans, it's sort of an abstract connection like "ain't it a shame - fewer people should be killed" but it comes down to abstractions about 'generic fairness' for 'generic people.'

As for Dershowitz, it is safe to say that he never saved a single Israeli life.

Not unless Klaus von Bulow was a secret Mossad agent - which seems somewhat unlikely.

Correction: Above data is from Dunnigan's book "How to Make WAR"

As the New York Times reported on Sunday, it was not the ADL that caused the Poles to cancel Judt, it was the American Jewish Committee.

Dear Victor Lazlo,
You have it exactly right. Thank you for yourheroic resistance activities. MJ

"But now this. Dershowitz will immediately take to the stage as soon as Carter leaves, keeping Carter's audience to give his own take on what the President had to say."
Come on guys,
When President Bush will give his State of Union speech next week, somebody will follow him to rebuff this speech.
Last week Bush gave an interview to News Hour. Immediately, Brooks and Shield stated dissect Bush’s every word and give own take on what the President had to say.

And, if there is anyone left for Dershowitz to lie to....then they are welcome to him.

I certainly don't believe that it's terrorism... Israel wants to be the big bully on the playground and the Palestians are a little divided over how to hold their ground.

I certainly think that Israel has its share of bigots and I don't think I'd worship that country because doesn't the Bible warn us about false Gods?

I don't think Israel will be confused with Mother Theresa any time soon and neither will the Palestinians.

I tend to blame Israel because, amoung other things, they had the audacity to blow up oil tanks recently and create the largest oil spill in the history of Mediterranean and, oh my!, Israel has nukes too...

The leaders of Israel seem clearly racist, just like the ones in the US: they hate muslims, palestinians, anyone with oil they want or social security entitlements, health care entitlements-- etc... but embrace those who want to shoot guns, make bombs and believe it's glorious to kill those "pesky terrorists."

Moshe Dayan, who was Foreign Minister then, said "all credit for this success goes to President Carter."
The fact is that he flew over to Israel and Egypt when the whole deal was falling through and saved it.
He is responsible for that treaty more than anyone else.

I wonder if Brandeis would let Dershowitz share the stage with someone who has, roughly, the same positions as Carter?  Nawwww probably not.  It would be too "fair"...instead, unbeknownst to Carter, they are going to host a debate where one side is barred from rebuttal.  It gives me the faux intellectual warm fuzzies... 

and with your support, this time I know we will win.

Except of course that that is NOT what Dershowitz said in his book. 

It is a fact that the Palestinian leadership during the 30's and 40's were Nazi sympathizers and the Mufti of Jerusalem was Hitler's honored guest on a number of occasions.  Dershowitz's point is that in most circles that alone would be enought to discredit you.

Here are some choice bits from the Wikipedia biography of the Mufti:

Husayni collaborated with Nazi Germany, becoming a resident in Berlin during World War II, where upon being granted a rank of SS Gruppenführer by Heinrich Himmler, he helped recruit Muslims for the Waffen-SS.

...

In 1933, within weeks of Hitler's rise to power in Germany, al-Husayni sent a telegram to Berlin addressed to the German Consul-General in the British Mandate of Palestine saying he looked forward to spreading their ideology in the Middle East [citation needed], especially in Palestine and offered his services.

...

Adolf Eichmann's deputy Dieter Wisliceny testified during his war crimes trial in 1946 that ... "The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan... He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chambers of Auschwitz."

The Mufti, of course, is a hero to Palestinians.

Yes, but your analogy is not a match with this situation.

For one thing, Brooks and Shield have opposing positions on many political issues -- so a discussion between them has some balance. For another thing, both of them are professionals -- in the sense that they have enough pride in their intellect, knowledge and command of the facts that they don't frequently lean on sophistry as a prop. Especially when they know their opposite number will call them on it.

The Brandeis situation is more like having Hillary Clinton speak and then giving Rush Limbaugh the mike for a long , unchallenged monologue/critique.

If you dig deeply , you might hear a fact or even a semi-reasonable piece of logical reasoning. The odds aren't high, however.

I agree the Dersh rebuttal is exceptionally poor protocol on the part of Brandeis.

However, and I'm not an expert, but let's be careful not to get too teary eyed over just what keeps the Camp David accord is: A Mexican standoff fueled in large by just over $4 billion in annual US foreign aid, largely in the form of military aid, divvied between the two of them.

When the US is not running around reconstructing countries it recently bombed back into the stone age, aid to Israel and Egypt represent the lion's share of annual US foreign aid spending since, well, 1978!

In my simple mind, where everything is explainable as a quick one act play, Carter negotiated a peace that works the following way, with Al Pacino in his Scarface character playing the role of Israel, and Robert deNiro in his Taxi Driver character playing Egypt:

Isreal: If you cross that line I'm gonna blow chour head off wit dis gun, and I got's plenty more where dis comes from. Do you know what I mean?! Do you know what I mean?!?

Egypt: Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me? Do you think this is the only gun I have? Do you really want to take that chance?

David Harris of the American Jewish Committee called the Polish Embassy to complain but the Poles chose to cancel the talk.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Geez, rather one-sided article. Thank you for giving us a fuller perspective in your post.

The big problem is that it's set up with Carter as the voice of the Palestinians, which he is clearly not, and Dershowitz as the voice of the Israelis, which he is also clearly not. Neither one of these communities speaks with one voice, and neither of these men represents the average viewpoint.

Dershowitz is such a terrible choice for a rebuttal. First of all, he doesn't even teach at Brandeis, so it makes it seems as if they have to go find someone from outside to handle their arguments for them b/c there is no one up to the task on their campus, which is obviously not the case.

Secondly, he has basically become a self-parody with his self-promotion and pedantic rhetoric. I think to many people he has lost his credibility. So why cave in to his demands to be allowed to have an instant rebuttal of Carter and give him this stage to further self-promote, rather than inviting someone more interested in a serious discussion of the issues? I agree that it's a slap in the face to Carter, and I concur that he should just avoid this set-up altogether.

This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

To have Alan Dershowitz follow president Carter is in my opinion a slap in the face,out of all people Dershowitz is the one they could find to offer up a rebuttal,surely they could of found a more qualified person?. Dershowitz is a blatant and intellectually dishonest apologist for Isreal,plagiarizer (see his book the case for isreal),and he has contributed nothing of any academic significance to this issue. The fact that this is going on in addition to the venomous reaction to carters valiant book as well as other similar works, gives credence to one of his his central claims! namely that Isreal lobby and its agents have a significant strangle hold on debate about the Isreali/palestinian conflict within american media.

When will this veil of ignorance, intellectual dishonesty, and outright blatant intimidation stop so we can have an honest and balanced debate about issues pertaining to Isreal/Palestine and American complicity?

I praise Carter and others like him for stepping from behind this veil and speaking their minds!

Thus they should be exterminated?

Ohiomeister, you got it. That's how it went down.

1) Brandeis is also hurting its reputation in ways it may not appreciate yet.

People don't spend $40,000 /year just so their child can read books or be a stenographer creating a transcript of a professor's monologue.

They pay to have their children EDUCATED. To gain an understanding of the world's complexity --include the complex nature of human societies.

2) We could save $160,000 by having our children stay at home and read the Great Books. Instead, we send our children to universities because what they gain at university is encounters with great minds -- from a wide variety of backgrounds and beliefs, both student and professors. Our child engages in debate and seeking of truth with those minds and comes to understand that the exchange of information within a community creates something greater than its parts.

Because if a child's worldview is based solely upon that child's personal experiences and family upbringing then that worldview is severely limited -- and hence false. A severe handicap in the decision-making needed to survive the real world.

The university student learns how to deal with people different from himself --to understand them so that he can lead them, can negotiate with them, can do business with them, can work with them, and ,in some cases, so that he can fight with or against them.

3) Brandeis's pandering to Alan Dershowitz hurts Brandeis in three ways.

One , it tells the world that Brandeis itself has a poor opinion of Brandeis's intellectual competence.

That the Brandeis community feels it lacks the intellectual capital to deal with a gentle challenge from a humane ex-President who has been one of Israel's greatest friends.

Hence, the need to let an outsider like Dershowitz shove his way into Brandeis's conversation with Jimmy Carter.

What Brandeis is admitting is that Dershowitz must defend Brandeis's Jewish students from Carter's aggressive and formidable intellect because Brandeis's students and faculty cannot defend themselves.

4) Two, Brandeis's choice of champion speaks badly of Brandeis's judgment and committment to scholarly integrity. Alan Dershowitz is not an expert on the Middle East. He is not a former President who was briefed daily for 4 years by the US intelligence community. Alan Dershowitz has never experienced the President's awesome duties, powers and responsibilities. To the best of my knowledge, Alan Dershowitz has never been within 1000 miles of an active battlefield, much less ordered American citizens into combat or faced nuclear-armed Russia and China.

No, Alan is merely a lawyer. Someone who uses cheap tricks --like ad hominems --to avoid losing oral arguments. Someone who criticized Mearshimer and Walt by suggesting they got their information from Neo_Nazi sites. Which conveniently ducked the question of whether Mearshimer/Walt's statements are true or false.

People send their children to Brandeis to be educated, not to be indoctrinated. What do you think is Dershowitz's goal?

5) Third, Brandeis's pandering to Dershowitz speaks badly of Brandeis as a university.
The Jewish community produces some great intellects but those intellects are still a minority within the US intellectual community as a whole. It can not be otherwise, given that America's 6 million Jews live within a nation of 300 million people.

To provide a quality education to its students, Brandeis must compete with Harvard, Princeton,etc in recruiting great intellects (both student and faculty, both Jewish and Gentile) to join the Brandeis community.

6) That recruitment will be difficult if America's most brilliant minds get the impression that Brandeis is not a real university but is rather an overblown
Jewish Studies program.

What real intellect -- what real Jewish intellect for that matter -- wants to join a community ruled by a hidden party line?
What brilliant gentile intellect will want to enroll at Brandeis if he wonders whether Brandeis's faculty will punish him with low grades for robust, well-argued, well-evidenced papers which do not hew to the community view?

A young mind can only develop by thinking -- by challenging and being challenged. Unreasonable Shackles on that thinking can only cripple its development.

7) If Brandeis had any sense, it would welcome people like Jimmy Carter and Juan Cole. It can yell at them and call them putzs. But it should then hug them and make them welcome. Because an inbred community afraid to face challenges from outsiders is weak.

In the same way that some Southern girls colleges have not prospered in the last 30 years.

Yes I think many schools might do just that. And would oppose such and invitation?

Also despite all the whining here the original invitation to Brandeis was for Carter to debate Dershowitz and Carter refused. It is likely that most people at Brandeis understand Carters anti-Semitism and wanted someone from the area, he is at Harvard, to address the issues.

The notion that a former president is so meek or his arguements are so poor that he cannot deal with a law professor, admittedly a very good lawyer,is most strange but may explain why Carter was defeated by Reagan. Daniel A. Greenbaum

"Also despite all the whining here the original invitation to Brandeis was for Carter to debate Dershowitz and Carter refused. It is likely that most people at Brandeis understand Carters anti-Semitism and wanted someone from the area, he is at Harvard, to address the issues."

lol Are you serious my friend? this is a textbook example of the intellectual dishonesty and venomous spewing of the anti-semitic canard, you in fact do it so recklessly and cavalierly it amazes me . "someone from the area" what a great qualification........... and when did being a "good" lawyer automatically qualify a person to be an expert on middle east affairs? step from behind the veil my friend

"Not to reduce ourselves to hysteric name calling and intimidation as has been the case with this issue"
I agree, this why we all need to reject Carter attacks on American Jews:
"The premise of exchanging Arab territory for peace has been acceptable for several decades to a majority of Israelis but not to a minority of the more conservative leaders, who are unfortunately supported by most of the vocal American Jewish community."
It's a Bush speak. He likes to say
"Some democrats say but I disagree with them. We just have HONEST difference of opinions
and so on. I guess Bush learned this trick from Carter

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011701712.html

I can see Carter described as opposed to Israel's government, although I'm less clear that he is opposed to the nation of Israel or to Zionism. He certainly isn't anti-Jewish, regardless of how much you may want to equate Israel and Judaism.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I think that your point isn't useful because there are no conditions on Carter. He is being given the space and can control the presentation; when he leaves, he's gone.

I assume that Carter doesn't have an inferiority complex so, most likely, he's not going to get an anxiety attack over Dershowitz doing his dog and pony show afterwards.

It's not like Carter can or should impose the condition that nobody speaks against him or his book for 5 years after he gives his talk.

For all we know, Carter fans will leave with Carter, Dershowitz fans will enter after Carter leaves and another group will want to hear both.

The initial situation was having a debate and Carter just didn't want someone continually in his face, I imagine and Carters getting older and should probably avoid a high octane, adreniline pumping situation.

ohiomeister,

Thus they should be exterminated?

That was neither Brad the Dad's conclusion nor Dershowitz's.  It was only hass' presumption supported by decontextualized quote marks.

I think Carter made a mistake by not sharing the platform with Dershowitz. Carter knew full when he wrote his book that it would provoke an uproar in some quarters and he should follow up on his plan to create a public discussion, polite or otherwise.

I just read what Dershowitz has been up to lately and I think he would set on Carter like a pit bull. I'd like to see Dershowitz tear Carter to shreds in front of the entire world as if Carter were on trial. Dershowitz has an enormous ego and is sure to overplay his hand.

From the Forward on the 19th: "I think the people who brought Carter to the campus are very anxious about having me speak, Dershowitz told the Forward. He added, Brandeis will have to make the decision to exclude me [from the Carter forum], because I'm going to come. I'm not going to make it easy for them."

Dershowitz was in Houston the other day for a speech arranged by the Houston Holocaust Museum entitled, "Is There a New Anti-Semitism?", according to Houston Chronicle. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that Dershowitz's answer is yes and Jimmy Carter is helping to promote it.

The Gather.com website has an opinion piece by Dershowitz entitled "Ex-President for Sale". Dershowitz claims that Carter has been bought and paid for by Arab interests. He rails about the tens of millions of dollars donated to the Carter Center by Saudi royalty and other Middle East sultans and follows up with "And these are only the confirmed, public donations."

Dershowitz calls for Carter to make full disclosure of all of his and the Carter Center’s ties to Arab money and if he doesn't, Dershowitz wants the media (that is not controlled by Jews) to "probe deeply into his, his family’s, and his Center’s Arab ties so that the public can see precisely the sources and amounts of money he has received and judge whether it has corrupted the process of objective reportage and politics by Carter..."

I'd go for that if the other presidents also agree to disclose how much Arab money they have taken in and how much Arab money is commingled with their investments. I suspect Carter is not the only former president who has accepted "dirty blood-money from dictators, anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and supporters of terrorism."

The Chronicle article was somewhat humorous in that Dershowitz met with the Chronicle editorial board and explained to the board members that terrorists have a "new" way of fighting. According to Dershowitz, the wily terrorists now hide out in civilian populations which makes them hard to catch without killing civilians if you are a democracy with an army, navy and air force. I guess that's why Israel lost the war and here I thought Dan Halutz was merely incompetent.

The Jerusalem Post has wall-to-wall Dershowitz coverage. On the 17th, the Post credited Dershowitz along with Elie Wiesel, Irwin Cotler and Dore Gold for pushing an initiative begun last fall to hold President Ahmadinejad accountable. This was in an article about a nonbinding Congressional resolution to charge Ahmadinejad with inciting genocide against Israel proposed by Steve Rothman (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL).

Also on the 17th, the Post ran an article about Dershowitz's Harvard research assistant, William Charles Gray, who tracks Nazis using "modern methods". Gray used "simple database programs such as LexisNexis Westlaw and New Detective that lawyers have at their disposal and searched voting records land transfer documents professional licenses property sales and death records". How innovative. I wonder why the Israelis never thought of Lexis-Nexis.

The Post reported that "On Gray's first day, he was handed a name and they told me to see what I could do. Within the hour I located the suspect." Gray not only located the suspect's home he found how much he paid for it previous residences and the identities of his children. In his first month, Gray located four suspected Nazis living in America!

Dershowitz's credentials as an anti-semitism expert are obviously impeccable and I bet he could nail Carter to the wall, given half a chance. I'd really, really like to see Dershowitz rip Carter a new asshole for being a Jew-hater. The media (which is not controlled by Jews) will have a field day covering this story and everyone in America will then feel sorry for the Jews because the despicable Jimmy Carter picks on them.

And how about that new revelation by a knowledgable unnamed source and Israeli ambassador, Danny Ayalon, that Sharon warned Bush not to invade Iraq and forget about democracy in the Middle East? Gee, I wonder where Bush got the idea to sell the Iraq war by claiming that Iraq had WMDs and that democratizing the Middle East was a great idea?

From a March 2001 address by Sharon to AIPAC (which has no influence in Washington DC):

"Regional security is eroding in the wider Middle East, as well. Iraq has not been under UN monitoring for more than two years and sanctions have been increasingly ignored. There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein is seeking to restore his mass destruction weapons capability and his quest for long-range missiles....

Iran is already testing missiles that can strike Israel. But it is planning to produce significantly longer-range missiles that will put the Middle East, Western Europe, Russia and even parts of the U.S. itself at risk.

Much of this ballistic missile technology comes from North Korea, but it is also emanating from the Russian Federation...

Syria is looking east to its ties with a resurgent Iraq and Iran, instead of better relations with the West....

The current situation in the Middle East can be reversed. Strong democracies determined to protect themselves can restore stability and build the foundations for a lasting peace..."

Must have been the other Sharon who made that speech.

BTW, anyone have an update on the investigation of Israeli Prime Minister Olmert on corruption charges?

But Nudnik, he's putting himself out there as an admitted advocate for the Palestinian point of view, which is all but unheard. He's not there to give a 'balanced' speech - he would tell you that himself I think.

Mrs Cecelia Panstreppon, now residing around Ronkonkoma, could she soon be a new Israeli West Bank 'settler'? She has the attitude!

Mrs. P's My GOP website which seems to have died sometime around the 2006 elections.

Maybe the US and the Middle East need a few less folks who want to 'rip new assholes' in other people, Cecelia...

The people who throw the word anti-semite around at everyone they disagree with, or who disagrees with Israel, are robbing the word of any meaning.
If Jimmy Carter is an anti-semite, what is Ahmadinejad? What was Goebells? Stalin? Are they all the same?
The name-callers do not believe Carter is an anti-semite nor is their concern anti-semitism.
They are simply people who believe that the policies of the government of Israel are always right and must never be criticized (except, of course, when Yitzhak Rabin was in power).
Frankly, I don't think they give a damn about Israel. For them, it is always 1942. There is always a Holocaust going on. And the open secular liberal Israel of Tel Aviv and Haifa is an utterly unreal concept.
They are pre-1948 Jews. Always scared. Always paranoid. Never understanding that there is a Jewish state now and it's the 4th strongest country in the world.
Zionism was born so that Jews could escape the ghetto. But some Jews choose to live in mental ghettos anyway, hovering in fear over imaginary threats.
Meanwhile the Jews of Israel are living their lives, dancing at the clubs by the sea, hoping for an end of this damn occupation that is the bane of both the Israeli and Palestinian people.
The name-callers ("anti-semite!" "self-hating Jew!") are alot of things.
Pro-Israel is not one of them.

Except of course that that is NOT what Dershowitz said in his book.

What? One person quotes Dershowitz and cites sources. Someone responds to them by saying "that's not what he said," then talks about the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. There are people who end up disliking Israel because they dislike the way some of its supporters argue. This would be exhibit A.

Daniel, I don't know your area of expertise, but just say for the sake of arguement, that you are a scientist, working on stem cell research. Let's say that you have spent your life on this research, and that you have written a book about this controversial, but very scientific area of knowledge.

Let's say that you are invited to speak at a prestigeous University. Only thing is that you have to debate:

1. A right-wing lawyer who opposes any stem-cell research, and who has no scientific credentials, but who says that once a sperm has connected with an egg it is more prescious --for example -- than all our 19 year-olds who are cannon fodder in Iraq...

...or

2. Pat Robertson, a religious maniac who says that 911 and Katrina were caused by the wrath of god...

...or

3. Any other opinionated but uncredentialled blowhard who can outscream you.

Would you consider yourself "so meek, or your arguments so poor" if you felt it was beneath you to debate them?

Carter was defeated by Reagan because Reagan was in cahoots with the Iranians; that is why he was able to announce the hostage release as soon as he was sworn in.

Dealing with a law professor like Dershowitz is an unpleasantness that anyone who is Carter's age has come to realize: IT ISN'T WORTH IT! Why should he bother? Life is too short to debate all the bloviators who want to say they debated a president.

Jan Knaus

Welcome to Bush speak. SOME unmamed people.
Who are people who believe that the policies of the government of Israel are always right and must never be criticized.
Israel in a way is blessed and cursed with it's enemies.
Somehow they just can't be reasonable. They always go overboard. So it's not that Israel is always right, but it's critics ouside Israel are almost always wrong.
Just read comments to your blog.

I have, carefully, read and reread this post, and I can't discover your point.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

You speak of "intellectual honesty", yet the book that Carter wrote is completely intellectually dishonest. The errors in it are not made by someone who doesn't know the issues. He purposely changes the facts to make them agree with his opinion. That is the very definition of intellectual dishonesty.

Carter is certainly entitled to his opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts.

All of your quoted statements are still irrelevant. Yes, there were Nazi sympathizers in Israel during World War II. There were Nazi sympathizers in America and England during World War II. Except maybe the Danes, no nation really comes out of the Holocaust era looking good. America could have saved a lot more lives if we had allowed reasonable amounts of Jewish immigration. The Allies could have shut down the concentration camps by bombing the railway lines and gas chambers, but we didn't.

The fact is that the Palestinian guilt is peripheral at best. The Holocaust would still have happened, and been just as devastating, if there had been no Grand Mufti. The primary responsibility rests with Hitler, his cronies (Eichmann, Himmler, Goebbels, et. al.), and the German people who allowed them to come to power. Compared to the German guilt and the deadly Allied indifference, the Palestinian guilt is insignificant. Yet Germany got the Marshal Plan while the Palestinians were forced to pay the full price for Europe's atrocities against the Jews. How is this just? The fact is that the Palestinians had land the Zionists wanted and the charge of Holocaust guilt was just a convenient excuse to take it. They would have been on much firmer moral ground carving a Jewish state out of Germany or Poland.

By the way, I'd like to know on what grounds Ragout and Zionista assigned a "1" rating to my previous post.

The more assertions you make the more ridiculous you seem. If Carter "changes the facts," would you mind giving MORE THAN ONE example.  (Not that you have given ANY yet.) Cite the page and quote the error. Then cite the correct fact. Give us some reason to believe you have it right, rather than Carter does. If you can do this only once or twice for the whole book, unless the facts are very critical, you don't have much of a case. As far as I can tell, you are into wild and unsubstantiated accusations because you don't like what Carter has to say. By now, we all know you don't like what Carter has to say, but we are all suspicious that you are all bluster. If you are all bluster, please stop blathering on.

I think he's saying that there really aren't any prominent people like this:

"who throw the word anti-semite around at everyone they disagree with, or who disagrees with Israel"

If there really were such people, Rosenberg would have named them.

English is not Dan's first language. That's not his fault but he is hard to fathom.

Dershowitz has been waging a much more destructive campaign than the one against a viable Palestinian state. He has been successful in pushing the narrative of Liberal PC, of the Leftist takeover of the American University to the point where we are all now held hostage to any of his demands.Refuse to allow his circus into your town and he and Limbaugh scream "I told you so",let them in and serious academic discourse is mocked.

Carter is very pro-Israel and acknowledges as much. The peace he is working towards is very much in Israels interest even if their leadership is to blinded by greed and hate to see it.

I recall my discussion with a friend. He: "Bad English is the language of the future." Me: "English originated as bad French (or bad Saxon)".

The point is that bad English is already the official language of the scientific community and it can be used with clarity, as I strive to do it myself. For example, there are some tenses in English that I cannot fathom. so I simply avoid them.

I’ve been amazed to read this blog today and see the amount of theories and anger that posters have built on nothing more than speculation. As a current Brandeis student significantly immersed in the details of the various controversies surrounding the upcoming visits I want to set the record straight. The most important thing that everyone in this debate should understand is that President Carter’s visit to Brandeis, and the rebuttal by Professor Dershowitz have been arranged by independent groups of students and faculty, operating on their own as members of the Brandeis community. It makes no sense to talk about Brandeis inviting carter and then having Carter give a rebuttal as if you were referring to a singular actor. For the most part, the individuals responsible for inviting Dershowitz to give a rebuttal have no involvement in the groups responsible from bring President Carter

Initially President Carter was asked to speak at the university by an individual professor who serves as chair of the faculty senate. Carter responded warmly to the request, but before committing to an appearance at Brandeis asked for advice from a friend who serve’s on the university’s board of trustees. The board member made the suggested that Carter request an official invitation from the university’s president, just in case the professor making the invitation had some sort of agenda. At that time the board member raised the idea of debating Dershowitz for the first time, and idea the university’s president embraced. Carter was strongly opposed to debating his book and as a result it seemed that the visit was dead in the water.

With Carter and the university’s administration at an apparent impasse an ad hoc committee of students and faculty formed with the goal of bringing carter. After collecting signatures from a number of students and faculty members, and raising the ire of countless others, the committee sent an invitation to carter which was later accepted. The administration responded by agreeing to provide the security personnel and other resources needed for the visit. About a week ago a student who believes Carter’s scholarship to be misleading invited Dershowitz to give a speech following carter’s in rebuttal. As a student of this university he too had every right to invite a speaker, and when Dershowitz accepted the University once again agreed to provide the necessary resources for the event.

I think that this whole experience, while trying at times, has exemplified the values of liberal arts education. It has granted every interested member of the Brandeis Community the opportunity to have their voice heard on these controversial issues and invite speakers that they felt would contribute to our educational experience. Furthermore I personally take great umbrage at the notion that Dershowitz’s invitation is somehow a statement that the university doesn’t think it’s own faculty are capable of debating Carter. The reason Dershowitz was invited because a group of students knew of his desire to respond to Carter and because they felt his prominence would help give a rebuttal more coverage in the media.

OK. What about Dennis Ross's article in the Times on 1/9/07

[http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30617F63E540C7A8CDDA80894DF404482]

in which he shows that Carter's book distorts the very maps that Ross drew for the 2000 proposed settlement:

The problem is that the ''Palestinian interpretation'' is actually taken from an Israeli map presented during the Camp David summit meeting in July 2000, while the ''Israeli interpretation'' is an approximation of what President Clinton subsequently proposed in December of that year. Without knowing this, the reader is left to conclude that the Clinton proposals must have been so ambiguous and unfair that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was justified in rejecting them. But that is simply untrue.
In actuality, President Clinton offered two different proposals at two different times. In July, he offered a partial proposal on territory and control of Jerusalem. Five months later, at the request of Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, and Mr. Arafat, Mr. Clinton presented a comprehensive proposal on borders, Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and security. The December proposals became known as the Clinton ideas or parameters.

I was trying to say that Rosenberg's comment:
"They are simply people who believe that the policies of the government of Israel are always right' is straw man argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man_argument#rhetorical_use
A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.

I've noticed that president Bush uses this rhetorical technique
in every speech.

sorry, no straw man there. try again.

Oops! I mistakenly took Dershowitz's comparison of Carter to Hitler fans in the '30s and his conclusion that Jimmy Carter of the twenty-first century has become complicit in evil to mean Carter was anti-semitic.

Dershowitz charges that Carter brings up a number of canards about Jews in his book. If someone makes a lot of false or baseless claims about Jews, it seems like anti-semitism to me.

When I read "As noted above, the most perverse aspect of Carter’s foray into bigotry...", I thought intolerance and prejudice against Jews sounded like anti-semitism.

I gather that,in your opinion, if Dershowitz does not actually use the word "anti-semite" to describe Carter, he is not saying that Carter is an anti-semite.

Not to split hairs or anything but I never said that Dershowitz called Carter an anti-semite. I guessed that Dershowitz might charge Carter with promoting anti-semitism and that he might characterize Carter as a Jew-hater but I did not use the word, "antisemite" or any variation thereof.

If you would be so kind, please explain to me why Carter is not considered anti-semitic under rule #7 on Dershowitz's checklist of factors that tend to indicate anti-semitism:

#7 - Emphasizing and stereotyping certain characteristics among supporters of Israel that have traditionally been used in anti-Semitic attacks, for example, “pushy” American Jews, Jews “who control the media,” and Jews “who control financial markets.”

Dershowitz is quite adamant that Carter's contention is that Jews control the media:

"Carter is lecturing The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, and the major networks about how they are incapable of reporting the news objectively because they are beholden to some Jewish cabal."

"Referring to U.S. policy and the “condoning” of Israel’s actions, Carter says: “There are constant and vehement political and media debates in Israel concerning its policies in the West Bank but because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the U.S., Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem dominate our media, and most American citizens are unaware of circumstances in the occupied territories.” In other words, the old canard and conspiracy theory of Jewish control of the media, Congress, and the U.S. government is rearing its ugly head in the person of a former President."

Carter would seem to be anti-semitic under rule #11, according to Dershowitz.

#11 - Accusing Jews and only Jews of having dual loyalty.

Alan Dershowitz:

"It is particularly disturbing that a former president who has accepted dirty blood-money from dictators, anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and supporters of terrorism should try to deflect attention from his own conflicts of interest by raising the oldest canard in the sordid history of anti-Semitism: namely, that Jews have dual loyalty and use their money improperly to influence the country they live in, in favor of the country to which they owe their real allegiance."

What I don't get is why rule #2 only applies Israel. (I'm not Jewish so bear with me here.)

#2 - Comparing Israel to the Nazis or its leaders to Hitler, the German army, or the Gestapo.

Dershowitz compared Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan of the UAE to Hitler even though the sheik, as far as I know, hasn't murdered nearly as many Jews as Hitler. Doesn't seem fair to me but keep in mind that I never likened Saddam to Hitler because Saddam's numbers just weren't there.

This is all very complicated. If I say that many American Jews fervently support Israel's right to exist, am I accusing them of having dual loyalties? When does fervent support veer into the dual loyalties category?

Maybe the Jews could set up a "Consult a Jew" website so these sorts of questions can be answered by experts in such matters.

Mrs. Panstreppon writes:

"Those six million hooknosed, pushy Jews got what was coming to them."

So it certainly should be clear where Pannstreppon is coming from.

I COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER:

Jimmy Carter's Jewish Problem

By Deborah Lipstadt
Saturday, January 20, 2007; A23

It is hard to criticize an icon. Jimmy Carter's humanitarian work has saved countless lives. Yet his life has also been shaped by the Bible, where the Hebrew prophets taught us to speak truth to power. So I write.

Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," while exceptionally sensitive to Palestinian suffering, ignores a legacy of mistreatment, expulsion and murder committed against Jews. It trivializes the murder of Israelis. Now, facing a storm of criticism, he has relied on anti-Semitic stereotypes in defense.

One cannot ignore the Holocaust's impact on Jewish identity and the history of the Middle East conflict. When an Ahmadinejad or Hamas threatens to destroy Israel, Jews have historical precedent to believe them. Jimmy Carter either does not understand this or considers it irrelevant.

His book, which dwells on the Palestinian refugee experience, makes two fleeting references to the Holocaust. The book contains a detailed chronology of major developments necessary for the reader to understand the current situation in the Middle East. Remarkably, there is nothing listed between 1939 and 1947. Nitpickers might say that the Holocaust did not happen in the region. However, this event sealed in the minds of almost all the world's people then the need for the Jewish people to have a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland. Carter never discusses the Jewish refugees who were prevented from entering Palestine before and after the war. One of Israel's first acts upon declaring statehood was to send ships to take those people "home."

A guiding principle of Israel is that never again will persecuted Jews be left with no place to go. Israel's ideal of Jewish refuge is enshrined in laws that grant immediate citizenship to any Jew who requests it. A Jew, for purposes of this law, is anyone who, had that person lived in Nazi Germany, would have been stripped of citizenship by the Nuremberg Laws.

Compare Carter's approach with that of Rashid Khalidi, head of Columbia University's Middle East Institute and a professor of Arab studies there. His recent book "The Iron Cage" contains more than a dozen references to the seminal place the Holocaust and anti-Semitism hold in the Israeli worldview. This from a Palestinian who does not cast himself as an evenhanded negotiator.

In contrast, by almost ignoring the Holocaust, Carter gives inadvertent comfort to those who deny its importance or even its historical reality, in part because it helps them deny Israel's right to exist. This from the president who signed the legislation creating the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Carter's minimization of the Holocaust is compounded by his recent behavior. On MSNBC in December, he described conditions for Palestinians as "one of the worst examples of human rights deprivation" in the world. When the interviewer asked "Worse than Rwanda?" Carter said that he did not want to discuss the "ancient history" of Rwanda.

To give Carter the benefit of the doubt, let's say that he meant an ongoing crisis. Is the Palestinians' situation equivalent to Darfur, which our own government has branded genocide?

Carter has repeatedly fallen back -- possibly unconsciously -- on traditional anti-Semitic canards. In the Los Angeles Times last month, he declared it"politically suicide" for a politician to advocate a "balanced position" on the crisis. On Al-Jazeera TV, he dismissed the critique of his book by declaring that "most of the condemnations of my book came from Jewish-American organizations." Jeffrey Goldberg, who lambasted the book in The Post last month, writes for the New Yorker. Ethan Bronner, who in the New York Times called the book "a distortion," is the Times' deputy foreign editor. Slate's Michael Kinsley declared it "moronic." Dennis Ross, who was chief negotiator on the conflict in the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, described the book as a rewriting and misrepresentation of history. Alan Dershowitz teaches at Harvard and Ken Stein at Emory. Both have criticized the book. Because of the book's inaccuracies and imbalance and Carter's subsequent behavior, 14 members of the Carter Center's Board of Councilors have resigned -- many in anguish because they so respect Carter's other work. All are Jews. Does that invalidate their criticism -- and mine -- or render us representatives of Jewish organizations?

On CNN, Carter bemoaned the "tremendous intimidation in our country that has silenced" the media. Carter has appeared on C-SPAN, "Larry King Live" and "Meet the Press," among many shows. When a caller to C-SPAN accused Carter of anti-Semitism, the host cut him off. Who's being silenced?

Perhaps unused to being criticized, Carter reflexively fell back on this kind of innuendo about Jewish control of the media and government. Even if unconscious, such stereotyping from a man of his stature is noteworthy. When David Duke spouts it, I yawn. When Jimmy Carter does, I shudder.

Others can enumerate the many factual errors in this book. A man who has done much good and who wants to bring peace has not only failed to move the process forward but has given refuge to scoundrels.

The writer teaches at Emory University. Her latest book is "History on Trial: My Day in Court With David Irving."

Thank you, mrs panstrepoon, for laying bare the Jew-hating that underlies too much of the criticism of Israel and its American supporters, here and elsewhere in the left field of netdom.
How refreshing to see it stripped of cant and artifice!

MJ,

I think this whole discussion is very interesting. However, I don't think resorting to the f-word is the best way to keep an interesting discussion going.

Tom

No, thank you, Sage, for repeating the same old bullshit that to have sympathy for Palestinians is to be crypto-Nazi and maybe no so crypto.

This is a debate in which every agency is wrong unless it is pressing balls to the wall in an effort to discover and dispense peaceful, bilateral justice, eschewing the easy religiously-inspired pattern of oppression, murder, and revenge.

Apparently you have chosen your nom de plume after another odiferous vegetable, because there is no connection between your spew and wisdom.

Uh-oh. I feel one of mjrosenberg's patented anti-anti-semitic rants coming on.

Thank you. I really appreciate the clarification, and I'll try to respond specifically rather than with strawmen. In this blog, I have raised criticism of certain Israeli military acts, and gotten back, from certain posters, suggestions that because of things Palestinians do, any Israeli response is justified.

In international law, saying an act is authorized because the [prosecuting] side does it is called tu quoque (Latin for "you, too!"] It rarely works, although perhaps the most significant success was a letter to the Nuremberg tribunal from Chester Nimitz, US Commander-in-Chief Pacific and Pacific Ocean Areas, that German submarines under Karl Doenitz did not do anything that American submarines did not do against Japan. That letter, and a brilliant defense attorney, probably saved Doenitz from the noose.

In the recent fighting between Israel and Lebanon, two Israeli practices appear either to violate bilateral agreements or the accepted laws of land warfare. Now, does this defend Hizbollah or the Lebanese government? Absolutely not. At best, Hizbollah can claim the questionable doctrine of "military necessity": they used what weapons they could, rather than the ideal.

Israel, I believe, hurts itself by extreme censorship of its military tactics. Where there actually might be justification, there isn't enough information for outside observers to judge. In many cases, since Israel is using US weapons, I can only fall back on what I know of the capabilities of those systems and US doctrine for their use.

The first questionable area involved airstrikes on the Lebanese civilian electrical power grid, essentially made a conditional ultimatum that it would stop if the Lebanese Army stopped Hizbollah. I would note that the US attacked the Iraqi electrical system in 1991, but used many specific techniques intended to make repair as easy as possible. Iraq's air defense system apparently depended on civilian power more than its own generators, and the attacks on electricity were part of the Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) operation.

Hizbollah had no significant air defense, or even command and control, networks dependent on civilian power. Aside from any question of sympathies, the reality was that the Lebanese Army was not strong enough to control Hizbollah.

The other area was the nature of the weapons used to fire back at suspected Hizbollah launch sites for single GRAD rockets. Given that the Israelis made urgent requests for resupply of M26 rockets for the (US) M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), it can reasonably be assumed that the Israelis were using the M26.

The US has withdrawn the M26 from service, because its cluster munition warhead produces enough duds such that it effectively lays an antipersonnel minefield. M26 and MLRS were sold to the Israelis with the understanding they would be used only against troops away from civilians. A single MLRS launcher firing M26 from all its tubes delivers 7728 cluster bomblets, while a battery fire delivers 46368. US doctrine for counterbattery fire against individual rocket launchers is to fire six M107 unitary shells, fuzed for airburst, from M109 155mm howitzers. 6 vs. 46368? Israel also used aerial bombs against these targets.

Both Israel and the US use US-made AN/TPQ-36 or -37 Firefinder radars to track the rockets and give counterfire coordinates. Both countries have the M270 and M109 systems. Israel was using these with much less concern over civilian casualties than the US uses. I would note the reality that while I would not want to be around the explosion of a GRAD rocket, it carries about 4 times the explosive of a single M107 shell. The lesser payload of the M107 is more than compensated by its accuracy and airburst.

Now, is this a strawman or a specific criticism? What I regard as the defensive statements to which I refer is an assumption that Israel can use any weapons and tactics it chooses against guerillas. I believe that by doing so, it may violate the Laws of Land Warfare, and, given that more accurate systems less risky to civilians are available, the tu quoque defense does not hold.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

NONSENSE! If you ACTUALLY READ Dershowitz's book, you'll see PRECISELY that he argues that since the Mufti had pro-Nazi tendencies, therefore all Palestinians are responsible for the holocaust and so should accept "transfer" (aka ethnic cleansing).

I'm not making this up. Dershowitz explicitly says all all Palestinians should accept "transfer" because "their leaders" (reference to the Mufti) was pro-Germany.

If my quotes were "decontextualized" I hereby CHALLENGE YOU to show the "context" thereof. I have his book sitting in front of me RIGHT NOW.

(As a side not: also that pretty much most of the people under the former British Empire were pro-German because they were happy to see a counter-balance to their oppressors. Reza Shah I, the father of the last Shah or Iran, was also removed by the British and forced into exile because of his perceived pro-German - or at least neutral - position. King Edward of the UK had pro-german views, and there was a pro-German lobby active in the US too.)

What is the page number?

By the way the Mufti was a Nazi ally. He did not just have pro-Nazi tendencies. It was why when the Palestinians rioted in 1936-1939 the British crushed the revolt.

Those in the British empire who sided with the Nazis are fortunate that they did not suffer greater retaliation than they did.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I agree with you that apartheid is not an analogy.  It is a fact.

The concrete wall thing seems trivial.   And, in any case, it is the barrier itself, in whatever form, that is the problem.

Perhaps Carter knows better than you what he did in 1990.  You have given no reason to believe you are the expert.

After reviewing the post above, you are left with item #6.  Eliminate the apartheid and this problem goes away.

I don't care where Deborah Lipstadt teaches, this post is utter nonsense.

Hey, I read the Khalidi book and the Carter book within a month of each other and I see no gaping gulf between them. Essentially, they report the same history. Does Khalidi cover the Holocaust in more depth than Carter? Sure. Does he use that to offer a different conclusion than Carter does? No way.

I would submit that Carter skimps on coverage of the Holocaust because it's well-known to his readers, a given, if you will. Whereas Khalidi gives more coverage of it because he aims for an Arab readership that he thinks is in more need of understanding it.

Where Carter fails in the eyes of Lipstadt is that he fails to make the logical leap of apologists for Israel who would use the Holocaust to justify its every action.

I am quite sure that Rashid Khalidi is not viewing Jimmy Carter as an antisemite because he doesn't talk enough about the Holocaust.