Not Evenhanded, But Fair

By JOSH EAGLE

THE CASE FOR ISRAEL
By Alan Dershowitz
264 pages. Wiley. $19.95.

When I think or read about Israel lately, I feel angry, frustrated, and bewildered.

I consider myself a Zionist, but the last thing I want to be is a right-wing reactionary, callous to the sufferings of Palestinians. Israel is accused of being an expansionist, racist state that sadistically tortures and kills Palestinians; these claims are made vocally and repetitively on college campuses, in the U.N., on the European and Arab streets, and throughout the world.

Constant exposure to this anti-Zionist rhetoric affects those, like me, who are liberal supporters of Israel. Why would intelligent academics, reasonable news reporters, and many prominent Israeli citizens criticize Israel so vehemently if it weren't guilty?  It's easy to begin feeling worn down by these arguments and lulled into a state of confusion when it comes to such basic propositions as, say, Israel's right to exist and defend itself.

Alan Dershowitz's new book, The Case for Israel,is a slap to the face of those who perpetuate this rhetoric, and a call to action for those of us who fall victim to it.

A concise, lawyerly-yet-approachable defense of the state of Israel’s right to exist, The Case for Israel presents a balanced and well-argued counterpunch to 32 of the most aggressive attacks being lobbied against Israel. The claims Dershowitz most capably refutes include: “Did European Jews displace Palestinians?”, “Did Israel Create the Arab Refugee Problem?”, and “Was Arafat Right in Turning Down the Barak/Clinton Peace Proposal?”

Dershowitz admirably exposes the double standards used against Israel by world organizations such as the U.N. and Amnesty International. At the same time he argues that Israel’s repeated steps towards peace are met mostly by a policy of terrorism as negotiation because the recognized Palestinian leadership has been bent on the destruction of Israel, and nothing less, since its founding.

Dershowitz contends that Israel’s neighbors aren’t interested in peace and never have been. A two-state solution to the Israel/Palestinian problem has been presented four times (in 1917, 1937, 1948, and 2000). Four times, Israel agreed to terms as mandated by world leaders and/or the U.N., and four times, the Palestinians have said no. How can one make peace with an entity that will not rest until its neighbor is destroyed?

In chapter 29, “Is There Moral Equivalence Between Palestinian Terrorists and Israeli Responses?”, Dershowitz sheds light (perhaps unintentionally) on a recent fumble by the Howard Dean presidential campaign while illustrating the touchiness and importance of the relationship between Israel and the United States.

In August, Dean was quoted as saying that were he elected President, his administration would take an “even-handed approach” to the Israeli/Palestinian issue. On the face of it, the quote seemed quite harmless to many, myself included. But American Jewish leaders and politicians quickly took Dean to task for his comment, suggesting it called for a major policy change in U.S./Israel relations.

What was the big deal in Dean’s comments? Weren’t our Jewish leaders overreacting just a bit? Don’t we, as Jews and Americans, value evenhandedness in our business dealings and from our government?

Yes, writes Dershowitz, evenhandedness is usually a policy to be espoused, “but [it] is not automatically a desirable criterion for dealing with nations or groups that have behaved quite differently—some far better than others—as judged by universally accepted moral criterion.” Would we expect evenhanded treatment of the Japanese or Germans after World War II? How about the Ku Klux Klan? Al-Qaeda?

In thoroughly documenting the case that Palestinian leadership has missed multiple opportunities to make peace with its neighbor Israel for the past 30 years, The Case for Israel asserts that now is not the time for an evenhanded approach to the Middle East. “We should favor those who seek peace over those who have shown a preference for war. We should favor those who are not seeking to destroy a U.N. member state over those who are,” he writes.

While it achieves its goal of presenting a steady defense of Israel, the book sometimes is tripped up by the simplicity that works mostly to its advantage.

In addressing what must be done to one day reach peace, Dershowitz argues that the Muslim world must first give up its claim that the existence of a Jewish state on “sacred Muslim land” is a violation of Islamic law; and that “the Palestinians who support …the destruction of Israel must become convinced that it is not only impossible to achieve, it is also wrong.” Easier said than done. How, exactly, might one go about convincing Islamic Jihad that Israel is here to stay?

Educated defenders of Israel will find relatively little original material in Dershowitz's book. The strength of this work is in its succinct and well-formulated counters to each and every argument from today’s critics of Israel. It should and will be used by college kids on their campuses, and, hopefully, it will spur the average Diaspora Jew to think more clearly on the issues facing Israel, and perhaps advocate on behalf of the Jewish State.