Dershowitz at Northwestern

I caught Alan Dershowitz’s lecture on “Defending Israel” at Northwestern’s Jacobs Center last Thursday. It’s amazing anyone else did: Northwestern’s Hillel is notoriously bad at advertising its events, and it was by a stroke of sheer luck that I found out about this one at the last minute. That the controversial polymath always manages to draw a not-so-pleasant crowd may have contributed to Hillel’s hush-hush attitude, but still: Why invite anyone to speak if he’s not going to be adequately heard?

Dershowitz lectured for about 40 minutes and then opened the floor up for questions. He asked for tough ones from people who disagreed with him, as if this wouldn’t naturally happen. In point of fact, it didn’t. His campus visits are usually punctuated by displays of anti-Semitism, but – probably because of the low publicity – none were to be found at this assembly of about hundred people.

Dershowitz began by stating his middle-of-the-ground position: “I’m pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli” and said he didn’t oppose the “theoretical recognition by Israel of some right to return” as long as it did not conflict with the security of the Jewish state, which he added, should remain exactly that. He said he was opposed to one-state solution because this would in no way be an alternative “for Israel” but rather an alternative “to Israel” given the steady growth of the Arab-Israeli population and what would certainly be the influx of Palestinian diasporists who would soon be at the head of a majority government. If unencumbered integration is the call of the hour for resolving ancient ethnic and religious feuds, then why, asked Dershowitz, does no one propose a one-state solution for Pakistan and India? Surely that would end the antagonism between Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists over the status of Kashmir…

True to his lawyerly credentials, Dershowitz proposed arbitration between “Islamic radicalism and Jewish radicalism,” acknowledging that the result of a peace may be some hatred and ignorance between the two peoples for some time, but that “settling” was always a better option than “litigation.” But while on the subject of what motivates hatred – mainly of Israel – he also noted the irony of anti-Zionist critics who wield signs that say “Gays For Palestine” or “Feminists Against Israel” – as if Hamas had any patience with group, and as if Israel were not the most liberal state in the Middle East. One wouldn’t know this, however, to judge by human rights organization’s singling out of Israel as the most grievous human rights violator. “Who supports the Kurds, the Tibetans?” asked Dershowitz. Where was their round-the-clock vigil for liberation?

In the Q&A session, he spoke critically of the current Israeli coalition government but nonetheless defended Olmert by saying that it wasn’t obvious what else could have been done last summer in the face of Hezbollah’s aggression. (Considering the blistering Winograd Report, which cited Olmert’s diplomatic and strategic failures, one could have expected some criticism from the audience on this minority position. There was none.) Dershowitz said that the prosecution of a ground war in Lebanon, as opposed to an air war, would have resulted in many more kidnappings of Israeli soldiers. According to him, while Israel and Hezbollah both stand as losers of the conflict, the clear winner is Iran.

Throughout the entire talk, Dershowitz didn’t dwell much on the increasingly farcical skirmish that has him most in the headlines these days: his years-long mash-up with Norman Finkelstein. As de rigueur talking as it is for Dershowitz to cite his continuing effort to have DePaul University deny the Holocaust Industry author tenure, I was surprised he didn’t take the occasion to castigate Northwestern’s own Arthur Butz – one of the United State’s few academically employed Holocaust deniers, as well as a dear friend of the current Iranian regime.

Northwestern’s administration is openly opposed to Butz’s scholarship but has been vigilant in to protecting his freedom of speech. (One wonders why this excuse is used to allow Butz to retain his post in the Engineering Department: Northwestern’s liberal speech codes were designed to pertain to a scholar’s field of inquiry, but Butz’s anti-historical rants are in no way connected to his.) Anyway, the students’ awareness of his case is nil. Indeed, there’s been an intramural media black-out on campus about Butz: Both the Chronicle and the Daily Northwestern have not called for his resignation or firing, or given much attention to student organizations that have. (David Irving’s grand antagonist Deborah Lipstadt proposed that Butz be removed from teaching and just paid to do nothing instead.)

I wonder how this case of academic degeneracy, much more profound than that of Finkelstein, managed to escaped Dershowitz’s attention.