The Case for (Despising) Dershowitz :: Book Review ::

Attorney and alleged civil rights advocate Alan Dershowitz can be a persuasive fellow. If one hears his arguments and does not perform effective fact checking, one can easily be led to believe that Zionists are victims and that criminals are innocent and that torture is good and self-defense is evil.

A new book, "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History" [1] by Professor Norman G. Finkelstein, published by the University of California Press in 2005, reveals the truth about Alan Dershowitz.

Professor Finkelstein is a noted scholar, with the discipline, moral and intellectual honesty and rigor required to evaluate the writings and the philosophy of a super salesman like Alan Dershowitz. In his book, Professor Finkelstein examines in close detail the obfuscations, the mis-statements, the fabrications, the deceptions and the lies that are routine in Professor Dershowitz’ writings, including books such as "The Case for Israel" and "Chutzpah". The facts that emerge from this close examination are not only revelatory, but also shocking. We find that Dershowitz not only distorts facts and truth, but despises it. We find that Dershowitz not only victimizes innocent Palestinians, but he seems to revel without repentance even when his lies and distortions are exposed. We find in Alan Dershowitz a man to be despised, to be shunned, to be defeated in all his objectives related to Middle Eastern politics and the total destruction and permanent dispossession of the Palestinian people, which is a goal that Professor Dershowitz clearly is fighting for.

Finkelstein writes with clarity, with brutal candor, with thoroughness, and with relentless scholarship. No misstatement, fabrication, error, false testimony appears to escape his attention. This is a book that requires much of the reader. To attain maximum benefit from this book, the reader must assume the same mentality, the same thoroughness, the same quest for truth that motivated Professor Finkelstein in researching and writing this book. The reader must check the footnotes thoroughly, which is no mean feat, as the references are copious and seemingly exhaustive.

Professor Finkelstein has done the difficult part — he has done the homework, the seeking and establishment of facts, the spending of probably countless hours in libraries and other data sources. Professor Finkelstein has laid out the facts in clear fashion, and anyone with normal human intellect can grasp the facts from the evidence presented.

The result of reading this book ought to be a feeling of outrage towards the deliberate demonization of a whole nation of people (Palestinians) by another group (Zionists) who clearly intended to promote a violent, sadist, greedy agenda based on lies, deceits and deception from the very start of the Zionist program. Alan Dershowitz is a poster boy for this denomination, and a cheerleader for injustice and injury to those who have been violently and brutally and relentlessly uprooted from their homeland and who continue to be subjected to brutal mistreatment to this very day.

Reaching "Beyond Chutzpah" means attaining a sense of justice and honest candor that nullifies the lies and machinations of Alan Dershowitz and his allies and collaborators within the Zionist movement both in America and in Israel. It allows a basis for an equitable settlement of a complex history in which individuals on both sides of the basic confrontation have suffered and been victimized. Professor Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors from the Nazi era, seeks an honest and just settlement of the quandary of a violent episode of Middle East history since the middle of the last century. By traveling "Beyond Chutzpah" under the leadership and direction of Professor Finkelstein, an opportunity or a vision of an opportunity emerges in which eventual justice can be attained.

Note:

[1]. "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History"
by Norman G. Finkelstein
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0520245989/mmn-20/