Lawyer attacks campus `intimidation'
Anti-Israeli dissent taken too far: Dershowitz
Says some academics `a barrier to peace'
OLIVIA WARD
FEATURE WRITER
University classrooms have become unfriendly places for pro-Israel students, says high-profile American lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
"There are intimidations on campus, including here in Canada, and in the United States," Dershowitz said yesterday at the University of Toronto. "Part of the reason is that there are not many faculty members prepared to speak up against them."
Dershowitz — a celebrity lawyer whose clients include murder suspects O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bulow, a civil libertarian accused of advocating torture and a Harvard law professor who has turned to political writing — is no stranger to controversy.
A staunch defender of Israel, he is now travelling in the U.S., Canada and Europe to express concern about "how some extreme anti-Israel academics actually have become a barrier to peace."
Two lectures at the University of Toronto and York University this week are part of that campaign. But, Dershowitz said, he will avoid Montreal's Concordia University until "they reissue invitations to both (former Israeli prime ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak) and give whatever protection they need that allows them to speak there."
At Concordia, a request by Jewish students to host a campus speech by the left-wing Barak was turned down last year because of inadequate security, following 2002 violence surrounding an appearance by Netanyahu, one of Israel's most hawkish politicians. Concordia has now boosted security and issued an invitation to Barak.
"Dissent is an important part of university life," said Dershowitz. "But there are places where things have gone beyond that."
At Columbia University in New York, Dershowitz joined battle three years ago against Joseph Massad, an assistant professor of Arab politics accused by a student of ordering her out of the classroom for refusing to agree that Israel had committed atrocities against the Palestinians, a charge Massad denied.
Dershowitz cites petitions circulating on North American campuses urging universities to end investment in companies doing business with Israel, and to boycott Israeli academics, as evidence of a growing bias against Israel.
"It's easier for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians than with academics at Columbia who don't want peace under any circumstances," Dershowitz quipped.
While campaigning for recognition of Israel's positive achievements — including the revival of its peace movement, and medical advances that save millions of lives — he admitted that there was also much to criticize.
"I've been a critic of Israel since 1967, and I don't believe that criticism of Israel should be called anti-Semitism. Criticism is the essence of any democracy, and there is no country whose government is criticized more than Israel."
But Dershowitz, author of The Case for Israel, says that a line must be drawn when critics "single out Israel, and only Israel, in a world where so much is going on elsewhere. And where Israel is held to a standard no other country is held to."
Carrying stenographers' notebooks with him on his travels, Dershowitz writes his books in pen and ink. In the latest, titled The Case for Peace, he explores "how a democracy like Israel should respond to terrorism while the peace process is going on, so as not to create a cycle of violence. Terrorists shouldn't have a veto over the peace process."
Although Dershowitz's views on Israel have been heckled on occasion, it's his post-Sept. 11 suggestion that terrorism suspects could, in cases of extreme urgency, be tortured under a special warrant that has won him most outrage.
But, he insists, "I'm against torture. I'd like to see no torture ever used. But most countries would use torture in a `ticking bomb' case (where it could stop an imminent terrorist attack). So why not let the president of the United States personally authorize it, and let us know that he has authorized it? Getting it in writing is the best protection you could have against abuses."
The Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, in which prisoners were humiliated and abused by U.S. forces, was an example of out-of-control rights violations, Dershowitz added.
"Abu Ghraib is the perfect model of everything I am against. It was torture without authorization, without a good reason, and without a ticking bomb.
"It became routinized, and it was absolutely wrong."
"There are intimidations on campus, including here in Canada, and in the United States," Dershowitz said yesterday at the University of Toronto. "Part of the reason is that there are not many faculty members prepared to speak up against them."
Dershowitz — a celebrity lawyer whose clients include murder suspects O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bulow, a civil libertarian accused of advocating torture and a Harvard law professor who has turned to political writing — is no stranger to controversy.
A staunch defender of Israel, he is now travelling in the U.S., Canada and Europe to express concern about "how some extreme anti-Israel academics actually have become a barrier to peace."
Two lectures at the University of Toronto and York University this week are part of that campaign. But, Dershowitz said, he will avoid Montreal's Concordia University until "they reissue invitations to both (former Israeli prime ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak) and give whatever protection they need that allows them to speak there."
At Concordia, a request by Jewish students to host a campus speech by the left-wing Barak was turned down last year because of inadequate security, following 2002 violence surrounding an appearance by Netanyahu, one of Israel's most hawkish politicians. Concordia has now boosted security and issued an invitation to Barak.
"Dissent is an important part of university life," said Dershowitz. "But there are places where things have gone beyond that."
At Columbia University in New York, Dershowitz joined battle three years ago against Joseph Massad, an assistant professor of Arab politics accused by a student of ordering her out of the classroom for refusing to agree that Israel had committed atrocities against the Palestinians, a charge Massad denied.
Dershowitz cites petitions circulating on North American campuses urging universities to end investment in companies doing business with Israel, and to boycott Israeli academics, as evidence of a growing bias against Israel.
"It's easier for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians than with academics at Columbia who don't want peace under any circumstances," Dershowitz quipped.
While campaigning for recognition of Israel's positive achievements — including the revival of its peace movement, and medical advances that save millions of lives — he admitted that there was also much to criticize.
"I've been a critic of Israel since 1967, and I don't believe that criticism of Israel should be called anti-Semitism. Criticism is the essence of any democracy, and there is no country whose government is criticized more than Israel."
But Dershowitz, author of The Case for Israel, says that a line must be drawn when critics "single out Israel, and only Israel, in a world where so much is going on elsewhere. And where Israel is held to a standard no other country is held to."
Carrying stenographers' notebooks with him on his travels, Dershowitz writes his books in pen and ink. In the latest, titled The Case for Peace, he explores "how a democracy like Israel should respond to terrorism while the peace process is going on, so as not to create a cycle of violence. Terrorists shouldn't have a veto over the peace process."
Although Dershowitz's views on Israel have been heckled on occasion, it's his post-Sept. 11 suggestion that terrorism suspects could, in cases of extreme urgency, be tortured under a special warrant that has won him most outrage.
But, he insists, "I'm against torture. I'd like to see no torture ever used. But most countries would use torture in a `ticking bomb' case (where it could stop an imminent terrorist attack). So why not let the president of the United States personally authorize it, and let us know that he has authorized it? Getting it in writing is the best protection you could have against abuses."
The Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, in which prisoners were humiliated and abused by U.S. forces, was an example of out-of-control rights violations, Dershowitz added.
"Abu Ghraib is the perfect model of everything I am against. It was torture without authorization, without a good reason, and without a ticking bomb.
"It became routinized, and it was absolutely wrong."
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