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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (41943)	5/3/2004 10:52:59 AM
From: rich evans	Respond to of 793651

Nadine-friend of mine sent this piece to me. I thought you would find it interesting. ----- Original Message ----- From: Leon Morse To: Undisclosed-Recipient:; Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 12:57 PM Subject: Fw: Alan Dershowitz ----- : By Alan Dershowitz March 5, 2004 > The other day, I experienced violent anti-Semitism for the first time in my adult life. It took place in front of Faneuil Hall, the birthplace of Amer independence & liberty. > I was receiving a justice award from the Jewish Council on Public Affairs & delivering a talk on "Civil Liberties in the Age of Terrorism" from the podium of that historic hall. When I left, award in hand, I was accosted by a group of screaming, angry young men & women carrying virulently anti-Israel signs. The protest was denominated a peace event & was sponsored by a group calling themselves by the vague name ACT-MA. Their website describes them as promoting peace & justice & associated with larger solidarity organizations, but there was nothing peaceful or just about this protest. > Although the signs they were carrying were not anti-Semitic, the sign carriers were shouting epithets at me that crossed the line from civility to bigotry. "Dershowitz & Hitler, just the same, the only difference is the name." The sin that, in the opinion of the screamers, warranted this comparison between me & the man who murdered dozens of my family members was my support for Israel. It was irrelevant to these chanters that I also support a Palestinian state, the end of the Israeli occupation & the dismantling of most of the settlements. They also shouted "Dershowitz and Gibbels [sic], just the same, the only difference is the name" - not even knowing how to pronounce the name of the anti-Semitic Nazi propagandist. > One sign carrier shouted that Jews who support Israel are worse than Nazis. Another demanded that I be tortured & killed. It wasn't only their words; it was the hatred in their eyes. If a dozen Boston police were not protecting me, I have little doubt I would have been physically attacked. Their eyes were ablaze with fanatical zeal. > The feminist writer Phyllis Chesler aptly described the hatred often directed against Israel & supporters of the Jewish state by some young people as eroticized. That is what I saw: passionate hatred, ecstatic hatred, orgasmic hatred. It was beyond mere differences of opinion. When I looked into their faces, I could imagine young Nazis in the 1930s in Hitler's Germany. They had no doubt that they were right & that I was pure evil for my support of the Jewish state, despite my public disagreement with some of Israel's policies & despite my support for Palestinian statehood. There was no place for nuance here. It was black & white, good versus evil, & any Jew who supported Israel was pure evil, deserving of torture, violence, & whatever fate Hitler & > Goebbels deserved. I do not believe that criticism of Israel, or even of Zionism, is tantamount to anti-Semitism & I have so written over the years. But what happened in front of Faneuil Hall went beyond criticism. To be sure, it was constitutionally protected speech, just as the Nazi march through Skokie was constitutionally protected speech. But the shouting was plainly calculated to intimidate. An aura of violence was in the air, & had the police not been there, I would not have been able to express any views counter to theirs. > As it turned out, I was not actually able to express any of my opinions, even in response to their outrageous mischaracterization of my views or their comparisons of me to the most evil men in the world. When I turned to answer one of the bigoted chants, the police officer in charge gently but firmly insisted that I walk directly to my car & not engage them. It was an order, reasonably calculated to assure my safety, & it was right. The officer got into my car with me & only got out a few blocks away. The intimidation had succeeded. I was silenced, and their horrible message went unanswered in the plaza near Faneuil Hall. > That is not the way the marketplace of ideas is supposed to work. It is not the conception of liberty for which Sam and John Adams spoke so eloquently and controversially in & around Faneuil Hall more than 200 years ago. It was far more reminiscent of rallies conducted by Nazi thugs in Berlin 70 years ago. > I will not be silenced nor intimidated. The shouters know that. Their goal is to silence & intimidate others, who do not get police protection & do not have access to the media. Let the debate about Israel & the Palestinians continue unabated. Let all views be heard. The shouters in front of Faneuil Hall wanted no views but their own to be seen & heard. They succeeded that day in front of Faneuil Hall, as they have on some university campuses, but the marketplace of ideas is far too vibrant to be shut down by a bunch of self-righteous thugs shouting ugly & bigoted epithets. > BOTTOM LINE: > THE MEDIA DID NOT REPORT THIS STORY. THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO PROF. DANIEL PIPES & NO ONE REPORTED IT. THE TRUTH WILL WIN OUT. SPREAD THE WORD.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (41943)	5/3/2004 11:00:26 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793651

Nadine, <<<They think this is a game, that it has nothing to do with WOT, that there is no WOT, even though we are fighting AQ in Iraq right now, that surrendering in Iraq wouldn't move the next round back to Riyadh and Amman and New York.>>> There is NOBODY(anybody that really matters)against the WOT. There is disagreement on the most efficient way to fight WOT. You have to admit that fighting WOT in Iraq may not be the best solution. IF it is a mistake, we have to be open to it and find another way out. IF it is a mistake, we can't just go on and on until we have no alternative but to flatten Iraq. I know you wouldn't want to see that, but a lot of people on your side would not care too deeply about that. I agree - this is a terrible situation. We have to find a solution. In an open society like ours, things get messy. We can't just let wise men go behind close doors and come out with a solution. Our founding fathers did not design the system that way. I am willing to bet that we are going to find a solution - and that solution is not going to satisfy the far right or the far left.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (41943)	5/3/2004 5:07:44 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793651

Not while pretending that it isn't a surrender and it has no costs, which is what Koppel did, and what all the cut-and-runners are doing. You've mentioned this before and I must have missed something. Was this on that show where they read the names? Re the cut-and-runners, I haven't been reading as widely as I used to. This thread is so busy I sometimes don't get to anything else. But the only discussion I have seen about getting out has been from the right. Maybe I have to tune in the BBC to get that. <g>