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38 of 55 found the following review helpful:
 Biased in presenting information, but conclusions are reasonableNov 22, 2010
By R. Im
From the outset, it should be noted that Alan Dershowitz is a lawyer and not a historian. He does not present information from a disinterested perspective as respected historians (e.g. Shlomo Ben-Ami and Benny Morris) do. Although I myself strongly support Israel's existence and the right of its people to live in peace and security, it is difficult to ignore the "blame-it-on-all-the-Palestinians-and-the-Arabs" tone of Professor Dershowitz's book. In Professor Dershowitz's presentation of the Israel-Palestine conflict, almost all wrongdoings on the part of the Israelis are sheerly coincidental, unintentional, or accidental while almost all wrongdoings on the part of the Palestinians are unequivocally malicious and motivated by extremism or anti-Semitism. Although he correctly points out that Jews throughout history have faced disproportionate criticism, unforgivable pogroms, and unjustified discrimination (which are my main reasons for supporting a state in which Jews can live in security and peace), Professor Dershowitz's overly broad and extremely biased assessment of the Arabs and the Palestinians fails in substantiating his case. For one, recycling the same argument spewed out by Daniel Pipes, he writes that all or most Palestinians supported the "losing side" during World War I and World War II (and vis-à-vis the latter, he outrageously claims that all or most Palestinians supported Hitler either explicitly or implicitly during the Holocaust). This is one of several instances in which Professor Dershowitz interprets the decisions and stances of Arab leaders (most of whom are/were corrupt, unpopular, and/or unelected) as being representative of the entire Palestinian population (e.g. "Palestinians rejected peace"; "When Palestinians want a Palestinian state more than they want to see the destruction of the Jewish state, they will have a state of their own"). He does not take into account the serious pro-peace endeavors of the Arabs (most notably, the Arab Peace Initiative, which includes the recognition of and the opening of diplomatic relations with Israel) while he bemoans the Arab world's "refusal" to recognize Israel. In another case, Professor Dershowitz appears to contradict himself as he rightly paints Yassir Arafat as an extremely corrupt and avaricious opportunist who was not representative of the Palestinian people (Professor Dershowitz goes on further to quote an Arab prince who called Arafat's rejection of the concessions offered by Barak a "crime against the Palestinian people") while accusing all or most Palestinians of not wanting peace because of the anti-peace actions of Arafat.
One particular annoyance was Professor Dershowitz's incessant attacks against persons who have a different view of the Israel-Palestine conflict, namely Norman Finkelstein, Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, Nelson Mandela, Christopher Hitchens et al. Professor Dershowitz, for reasons I do not know, appears especially hell bent on wanting to discredit Professors Chomsky and Said. He paints Professor Said as a radical academic who supported Palestinian terrorism against the Israelis (and anyone who is familiar with his work knows this is untrue), and Professor Dershowitz portrays Professor Chomsky as an extreme left wing, anti-Israel fanatic, quoting Mr. Chomsky's support for Robert Faurisson's (a Holocaust denier) right to free speech. Despite his own background as a criminal appellate lawyer, Professor Dershowitz ludicrously questions whether Professor Chomsky is even qualified to professionally participate in the Israel-Palestine debate, using the example of Professor Chomsky's teaching a course on the Israel-Palestine conflict at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University because of his background as a linguist. In sum, Professor Dershowitz's borderline ad hominem attacks against his opponents were a frequent distraction. He also dismisses prominent and credible international organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations because of their critical assessments of Israel.
However, notwithstanding Professor Dershowitz's migraine inducing bias against the Palestinians and what I see as an unfair characterization of respected scholars such as Professors Chomsky and Said, he nevertheless raises some excellent points for going forward in his book. He demands the renouncement of terrorism by Palestinian militants (a point which no reasonable and credible scholar on either side opposes). He - at least ostensibly - advocates for a peaceful two state solution in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace with each other (whether he actually believes in a peaceful two-state settlement in accordance with UN Resolution 242 is questionable based on his remarks elsewhere). He writes that he supports an economically viable and contiguous Palestinian state in which the Palestinians will control the Arab dominanted portion of Jerusalem and the Israelis will control the Jewish dominated portion of Jerusalem. He correctly states that extremists on both sides (Christian Zionists who support a Greater Israel on one end and the Muslim fundamentalists who support the destruction of Israel on the other end) present an obstacle in the peace process. He criticizes the building of new settlements in the Occupied Territories although Professor Dershowitz appears to believe (as he stated on a Crosstalk debate against Gideon Levy) that the freezing of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories shouldn't be a precondition for peace.
In sum, Professor Dershowitz's book, despite being riddled with bias, some factual and typographical errors, and personal jabs against his opponents, nevertheless makes important points for achieving a lasting peace between the two peoples. The solutions delineated by Professor Dershowitz are quite reasonable and deserve serious attention. However, if one wishes to read a more balanced account of the Israel-Palestine conflict, I would strongly recommend Benny Morris's Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001, which has received praise from Palestinian and Israeli scholars alike.
On another note, this book has stirred controversy within academic circles due to accusations of plagiarism by Norman Finkelstein. I want to briefly address this issue. Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard, conducted an investigation on the charges and concluded that no plagiarism had occurred, and James O. Freedman, the former president of Dartmouth, has stated that Dershowitz had correctly followed the Chicago Manual of Style in citing his sources. However, on the other side, journalist Alexander Cockburn and Oxford academic Avi Shlaim have supported Dr. Finkelstein's charges - the latter saying that Dr. Finkelstein has delineated the charges "in a manner that would stand up in court." Although I believe that plagiarism is a serious charge, I do not think, at least in regards to the arguments and conclusions presented by Mr. Dershowitz, that it's an issue worth fussing about (although I am very puzzled as to why Professor Dershowitz mentions "Orwellian turnspeak" twice in his book). Joan Peters (whose work, From Time Immemorial, is the book from which Professor Dershowitz allegedly plagiarized) has not raised a complaint in regards to Professor Dershowitz's improperly citing her work, and Noam Chomsky himself has said that it was much more important to focus on the arguments presented by Professor Dershowitz than the charges of plagiarism. If the reader wishes to conduct his or her own investigation, I would advise the reader to look at Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Updated Edition and Professor Dershowitz's response in The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved. The reader who wishes to conduct an even more nuanced investigation can view the Democracy Now! debate between Dr. Finkelstein and Professor Dershowitz, which is available on YouTube and on the Democracy Now! website. (Also, the reader may want to take a look at the articles by Frank Menetrez and Alexander Cockburn in regards to the plagiarism issue and Professor Dershowitz's responses to the former two). I'll leave it to the reader to come to his or her own conclusion.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Don't Get Caught Reading This on a Train in LondonMay 17, 2012
By B. Wolinsky
"Ben's Reviews"
Alan Dershowitz is probably the Howard Cossel of the era; either you love him or you hate him, no in between. He defends the kind of people that the bookies would bet against and end up winning. In this case, he puts up a defense for Israel and wins.
Dershowitz is not an authority on Israel. Or the Middle East. Or foreign policy. So why would he be able to defend Israel's actions? The answer may be that he's just another Jewish American. We have a fondness for Israel, not for religious reasons, but because after 2,000 years of being kicked around, we were overjoyed to see our people win a war.
Since 1967, the mass media has either loved Israel or hated her. She's admired for her lush farms and happy kids, and at the same time is loathed for the Palestinians who languish in refugee camps, bored, angry, and hungry. The BBC views Israel as an evil empire, while at the same time ignoring Britain's abuses of Northern Ireland. Spanish media blame the suicide bombings on Israel's rigidity, while expressing outrage every time ETA bombs a train station. Perhaps Israel is a "protean" nation; it can be everything you don't want to be?
Dershowitz' argument for Israel is somewhat biased, yet everything he says makes sense. Israel was founded on wasteland, purchased from absent Arab landowners. The farmers from Germany, Russia, and Lithuania plowed the land with the most primitive tools, and turned deserts into fields of fruit. As for Palestine, it lost every chance of winning. Arafat took all the money the UN gave him and wasted it; on multiple houses for himself, a useless airport, enough weapons to overarm every man in Palestine.
The Palestinians have never had a leader that didn't mess up.
98 of 147 found the following review helpful:
 Read beyond chutzpah as a follow up to this bookMar 08, 2008
By Informed reader
When you first read this book a lot of the claims made seems convincing, but if you read another side of the argument his argument begins to fall apart. First his heavy reliance of Joan Peters "From Time Immemorial" speaks volumes about the sources he uses. Joan Peters book has been regarded by most serious scholars as a hoax. It was initially reviewed well but after some time (specifically after the doctoral thesis of NOrman Finkelstein) The book was denounced as nothing more than a threadbare hoax. But dershowitz regards Peters book as the rule of law.
Secondly Dershowitz claim that during the 1948 war most refugees left at the exhortations of Arab leaders is simply false. For example he quotes BEnny Morris extensively during this chapter, but Benny Morris was actually one of the New Historians and the central thesis of his book runs counter to dershowitz's claims. Specifically the New HIstorians came out to refute what dershowitz actually said. Read The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe (a fellow new historian) to find out what really happened during the 1948 war. Third Dershowitz claims that Israel has never been accused of war crime by human rights organizations, but infact they have been accused of that many times. If you read beyond Chutzpah it reveals all of the war crimes committed by Israel. Even Btselem the Israeli human rights group is highly critical of Israels record. BUt according to dershowiz he believes that those reports aren't true. COuld n't he have stated that they are accused of war crimes then proceed to say why he believes all these mainstream human rights organizations are false, instead of simply denying it altogether without giving the reader an informed view. Another point related to this is that he says more noncombatants have been killed on the israeli side since 2000 but when you check the ststistics this turns out to be false. He responds to this by stating that these humans rights organizations should redefine the concept of civilianality. I think that is being extremely disingenuous to distort the records and then claim that the statistics dont fit your definition of a war crime. One should report all these war crimes and the number of noncombatants killed by humans rights organizations and then if you dispute them go on to say why. Frankly i dont know how he can dispute the allegations of a consensus of humans rights groups and claim they are false, and in his book act as if these groups never existed. So these concerns raise questions about dershowitz's ability to produce a non biased piece of work on such a contentious issue.
Update: Ok, there still seem to be some people that this book is worth reading. First thing i'd like to add is that Dershowitz essentially subscribes to the Peter's thesis that Palestine was essentially an empty land with a decreasing population. The fact is that Peter's thesis is thoroughly discredited absolutely no one even cites the book not even scholarly pro israeli works. See Professor Peroth's review called Mrs. Peter's Palestine in the NYRB to find out why. Unlike Peters Professor Peroth is a leading expert on the Palestinian National movement. Second really important issue i would like to point out is that Dershowitz absolutely misrepresents the refugee problem especially Israel's role in it. The statistic he uses to say that 68 percent of palestinians left without seeing a soldier, the poll was taken by the institute of Palestinian studies. This would seem to be a crucial piece of evidence he adduces to support his case about the 1948 exodus. But the poll was about the 1967 exodus and not the 1948 exodus. Another example is that he says Deir Yassin was an abberation and it was the only Jewish atrocity that took place. Well Benny Morris explicitly states in the Birth and Righteous victims and maybe also in the book 1948 that the Zionist forces committed far more atrocities than the arab side. That was one of the core findings of his research. Another example is worth noting is the example of Jaffa. Dershowitz says the residents left and Ben Gurion was surprised and commented why the inhabitants left. He cited Morris for this assertion but unfortunately for him MOrris paints a different picture. The Irgun militia basically let loose on the town turning hotels into hosptitals with their indiscriminate Mortar fire. This is what Morris wrote
" [T]he objectives of the mortar barrage, which went on without respite for three days, with nine tons of explosives being delivered on day two of the attack, were clear, as described by IZL OC operations, Amihai Paglin, in his pre-battle briefing to his troops: "To prevent constant military traffic..., to break the spirit of the enemy troops, [and] to cause chaos among the civilian population in order to create a mass flight."
Then Morris introduces Ben Gurions surprise to the as clearly ironic but dershowitz skips over the paragraph i just quoted and mentions Ben Gurion's surprise as if Morris agrees with him. I could go on and on but i think these examples should suffice.
128 of 195 found the following review helpful:
Buyer BewareSep 07, 2005
By Jeffrey A. Leib
"Jeffrey Leib"
Professor Dershowitz has written an apology for Israeli politics designed to lend credibility by means of his pedigree to mainstream Zionist opinion in this country. The typical reader, I suspect, agrees with Dershowitz and relies upon the author's academic credentials to lend credibility to his/her opinion. However, Dershowitz's academic credentials apply only to his ability as a professor of law and not as an historian, and this is all too obvious. His book deliberately ignores an international consensus about human rights abuses committed by the IDF against Palestinians in the occupied territories. Unfortunately for Professor Dershowitz, historians actually exist and have read his book. The most damaging expose comes from Norman Finkelstein who reveals point by point Professor Dershowitz's wanton misuse of Israeli history and the record on Israel's human rights abuses. More damaging to Dershowitz's argument is his extensive and unattributed borrowing from Joan Peter's book, From Time Immemorial, which is a well-documented fraud. While I don't necessarily agree with Finkelstein assertion that the book is a plagiarism (though it appears to be based upon Harvard's own plagiarism guidelines), it is striking that Professor Dershowitz would be so lazy in his research that he would cite such an unreliable source so often. It is also striking that he would publish such a book and not foresee the justifiable criticisms that would inevitably follow in response. The only thing that Professor Dershowitz has going in his defense is the source of the criticism: Finkelstein is easy to ridicule and Professor Dershowitz does just that in The Case for Peace. But Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah really nails the peculiar ahistory of Dershowitz's work. Finkelstein may be crazy but he is also correct. For those of you who want to see Finkelstein lay waste to Dershowitz, check out the Democracy Now website ([...]) to watch a debate between the two. Dershowitz is really out of his league and in the debate it is all too obvious.
59 of 90 found the following review helpful:
Read this book if you are neutralOct 26, 2003
By Andrew Gross
In The Case for Israel, Alan Dershowitz addresses the numerous accusations made against Israel, and responds with facts and context. He shows that many of Israel's opponents who "can see no right on the side of Israel and no wrong on the side of those who would seek to destroy the Jewish state" are either ignorant of the Middle East or malevolent in their intentions.The theme pervading throughout this book is introduced on page 11: Israel is subject to a unique double standard of judgment and criticism for its actions in defending its very existence. If the Jewish state were judged by the same standard as every other nation, Israel would be at or near the top of the list in terms of civil liberties, human rights, and every other test of morality and justice. One example of this double-standard is the inordinate scrutiny by the United Nations regarding Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza. The Tibetans, the Kurds, the Basques, and dozens of other stateless peoples have much stronger claims to statehood than do the Palestinians. The Tibetans and Kurds have been treated far more brutally by their occupiers than have the Palestinians. The Tibetans have never resorted to terrorism. The UN has never condemned China or recognized the rights of Tibetans, Kurds, Basques, or the others. Only the Palestinians have resorted to terrorism as a primary method for seeking independence. Only the Palestinians have been offered a state (three times) and only the Palestinians have rejected a state (three times). Dershowitz provides extensive documentation for the facts, with over 500 footnotes - many of them from pro-Palestinian and other Arab sources, or American and international media sources. One of the subjects that I wished Dershowitz had addressed is the security barrier being built in the West Bank. Also the United Nations bias against Israel, a bias discussed in various sections, would seem to merit its own chapter. Some of the chapters are quite short, although the short replies may be necessary since the book covers so many issues. Most readers agree that Israel's supporters will enjoy this book. Far more important, I believe, is that if you are neutral to the Israeli-Arab conflict, if you have little background in the Middle East, then you owe it to yourself to read this book in order to understand the reasons why Jews, Christians, and every American President has and continues to support the only democracy in the Middle East and the only Jewish state in the world.
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