Dershowitz Defends Israeli Prisoner Exchange

Dershowitz Defends Israeli Prisoner Exchange

By GINA K. HACKETT, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Published: Friday, October 28, 2011

Harvard Law School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz defended on Thursday Israel’s decision to secure the return of captured soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for the release of around 1,000 Palestinian prisoners as part and parcel of Israeli democracy, something that he said Western observers do not take sufficient care to understand.

Dershowitz made the remarks at a talk alongside Rabbi Jonathan H. Sacks, the chief religious leader of British Jews, and said that Israel’s decision to agree to a swap represents a vital democracy insofar as the movement to secure Shalit’s freedom was a popular one that was led by his family and carried out in the court of public opinion.

“No matter what we may think in the halls of academia ... ultimately, the decision has to be made by Israelis,” Dershowitz said.

Many observers have criticized Israel’s choice to release a large number of prisoners in exchange for Shalit’s return, a decision that many say will lead to further kidnappings of Israeli soldiers to be used as bargaining chips. Dershowitz pushed back against American criticism of Israeli policy by saying that American critics of Israel do not adequately take into consideration Israel’s status as a democracy, which he said entitles it to a greater degree of independence than some of its critics grant.

In the wake of the exchange, Dershowitz and Sacks both said it was important for Israel to retain its Jewish identity even in the hailstorm of conflict, adding that the long-standing tension between Israelis and Palestinians should, in principle, be able to lead to a sense of understanding between the two peoples.

“If there is anyone on earth who should be able to understand Jewish struggles, it’s Palestinians,” Sacks said. “And if there is anyone on earth who should be able to understand Palestinian struggles, it’s Jews.”

Dershowitz said that while the conflict is headed in the wrong direction politically, it is moving in the right direction intellectually.

“It can’t be based on ‘it’s our home’ or ‘it’s your home,’” Dershowitz said. “It’s the home of both people and both people have to live in peace with each other.”

Both Sacks and Dershowitz, two highly vocal advocates for a Jewish state, recognized the difficulty of the conflict. For all their expertise on the matter, neither Sacks nor Dershowitz had a clear view of whether the effort to achieve peace is progressing in the right direction.

Both men said that there was an inevitability to the tie between the Jewish people’s history and today’s Israel. Because Jews are unique in their perpetual homelessness, Israel remains a product of Jews’ history of trauma and expulsion, Sacks said.

“Jews discovered that there was not one inch on the face of the planet that they could call home,” Sacks said.

“It’s hard to see how, in a world in which there are 56 Islamic states and at least 82 Christian states, there isn’t room for one Jewish state,” Sacks added. “Whatever criterion you use, Jews have a right to this very small space.”

God Said to Abraham "Kill Me A Son"

I think I can state with some certainty that my friends on the right are thrilled with the prospect of Herman Cain’s denouement.

Last night the lovely, but possibly insane Ann Coulter said, “Our blacks are better than their blacks.”

Democrat party spokesmen announced, “We don’t own any blacks. Ann Coulter is speaking for the Republicans.”

The women that Cain allegedly harassed  (three at latest count)are asking to be relieved from the confidentiality clause, so they can counter Cain’s claims that the charges were false.

At any rate, after Cain’s early denials, “I know nothing about these allegations,”

Then “I remember there were allegations, but I know nothing about the particulars”

Then later “I don’t know if there was a settlement” then “There was a settlement, but it was called an agreement, that’s different.”

And so on, ad nauseam, it appears that his campaign is effectively over, although he is still raking in the gifts, which is probably the reason for his campaign to begin with.

For Democrats this is not good news, we like blacks, we liked Cain, he was entertaining, and he would have been easy to beat.

For Republicans, who probably put out the story in the first place, this is wonderful.

Republicans don’t care for blacks or other minorities, and the thought of having a black President NO MATTER WHO WON, kept neocons up at night, drenched with cold sweat.

Now the race is Romney’s to lose.

Can he do it?

a thousand people turned out for high holiday services organized for the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

The “few Jew-baiters,” wrote Michelle Goldberg, “are marginal, particularly compared to the large numbers of Jewish activists taking part.” She wrote that ECI’s accusation was “dishonest and deceptive.” It’s worse: If it weren’t such a serious subject — Marc Tracy calls the accusation “highly irresponsible” — labeling the whole movement as “anti-Semitic” would be laughable. Dan Sieradski of Occupy Judaism, which is seeking to rally Jewish supporters to the 99 Percent movement, dismissed the “couple of jerks and idiots” and noted that a thousand people turned out for high holiday services organized for the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

By Ali Gharib on Oct 19, 2011 at 9:00 am

Protester with 'hashtag' symbol

The attack unleashed mostly by the neoconservative right on the 99 Percent Movement for alleged pervasive anti-Semitism reached absurd new heights over the weekend and early this week. An ad launched last week by the Bill Kristol-led Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) — whose hedge fund bankroller happens to really hate financial regulation reform— made the rounds of the mainstream media, getting picked up by Politico‘s Ben Smith and the Washington Post‘s neoconservative blogger Jennifer Rubin.

The ad, which was largely ripped off from a pseudonymous Israeli neocon blog (whose author proclaims to be a “friend” of ECI’s executive-director-in-title-only Noah Pollak), portrayed anti-Semitic sentiments in videos of two people — one of them an admitted petty thief and apparent camera-hungry provocateur — and a photograph of a sign-holder. And other websites posted a woman expressing anti-Semitic sentiments on a Reason video apparently at L.A.’s protest. That’s four people out of hundreds of thousands worldwide that have participated in 99 Percent protests. The “few Jew-baiters,” wrote Michelle Goldberg, “are marginal, particularly compared to the large numbers of Jewish activists taking part.” She wrote that ECI’s accusation was “dishonest and deceptive.” It’s worse: If it weren’t such a serious subject — Marc Tracy calls the accusation “highly irresponsible” — labeling the whole movement as “anti-Semitic” would be laughable. Dan Sieradski of Occupy Judaism, which is seeking to rally Jewish supporters to the 99 Percent movement, dismissed the “couple of jerks and idiots” and noted that a thousand people turned out for high holiday services organized for the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

Despite the seriousness of the charge — and the consequences of deploying it frivolously — it’s difficult not to snicker at the continuing far-right attacks on the 99 Percent Movement as anti-Semitic. Commentary launched a factually-challenged attack on New York’s Occupy Wall Street protest movement. And Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government site said that staunch Israel supporter Rep. Steve israel (D-NY) supported an “anti-Israel/anti-Semitic” cause.

But the most ridiculous attack, by far, came from the far-right Pajamas Media website. A writer going by the name “Zombie” — whose put up some of the most raucously funny attacks on the 99 Percent Movement (“Commies and Kooks,” etc.) — had a doozy of a post on Monday.

Organizers at Denver’s 99 Percent Movement rally had taped a hashtag symbol — the pound signwhich is now used in Twitter to tag a word — on their shirts. The mark was supposed to make the organizers easy to identify in a crowd, but Zombie saw a much more nefarious force at play: National Socialism!

"Zombie" wrote:

Don’t these people see an echo of the swastika in their new power symbol? Don’t they realize that the early Nazi Party was (among other things, obviously) also overtly anti-capitalist?… Don’t they know that the early Nazis tried to garner sympathy with street rallies and marches?

When informed in the comment section of the post that the symbol was merely a Twitter symbol — and not a “bizarre neo-swastika” — Zombie continued to insist the 99 Movement has Nazi tendencies:

As a commenter notes, the symbol may have derived originally from the Twitter “hashtag,” but that in no way diminishes its creepiness. It may “just” be a rotated hashtag, but that doesn’t lessen its significance as a power symbol.The swastika, after all, was “just” a Buddhist good luck marking before the Nazis adopted it and started using it to indicate something else.

Jeffrey Goldberg, the mainstream media’s self-appointed final arbiter of who is and isn’t a Nazi and what is and isn’t anti-Semitic, has proclaimed that “Occupy Wall Street Is not anti-Semitic.” The mainstream media should take heed of his judgment and let the meme die, leaving it to the far-right symbologists and conspiracy theorists.

Tags:

·                   99 Percent Movement

·                   Nazis

·                   Noah Pollak

·                   Politico

·                   The Washington Post

Stick a Fork In the GOP, They're Done

Today on a panel of talking heads, including the Ron Reagan that thinking people like (his son), the pundits could not guess why the Republicans have such a weak field.

It’s actually fairly simple.

The Republicans have no workable solutions for the problems our country is having.

Their entire platform is; more tax breaks for the rich, cuts in social programs for the poor and working people, and outlawing birth control.

Here is their problem; 70 percent of Americans support tax increases for the rich, not reductions.

People don’t want Social Security or Medicare gutted, and most Americans support birth control.

So, when Perry is not appearing to be insane, and Cain isn’t lying for 12 straight hours, all they have left is a platform that no one but the few scattered tea baggers support.

Who will inherit the GOP mantle after Bachmann’s and Perry’s and Cain’s fall?

You got it,  "the luckiest Mother**cker in the GOP, Mitt Romney."