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By: Lieba Nesis
The Greater Miami Jewish Federation welcomed Alan Dershowitz on February 25th 2024 to Temple Emanu-el at 1701 Washington Avenue Miami Beach Florida at 5:30 PM to address the question “Can Israel Recover?” The answer is a resounding yes as Dershowitz heralded the extraordinary achievements of the IDF in Gaza which has deterred Hezbollah from attacking Israel with its 150,000 expertly crafted rockets which would overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome.
Born in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn to an Orthodox Jewish couple Dershowitz had his first job at a deli factory in the Lower East Side at the age of 14. After attending Yeshiva University High School and Brooklyn College Dershowitz went to Yale Law School where he graduated in 1962 first in his class after serving as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. He joined the Harvard Law School faculty as assistant professor in 1964 and was the youngest full professor in 1967 at the age of 28 all the while maintaining his criminal and civil law practice.
His clients have included Patty Hearst, Leona Helmsley, Claus von Bulow, Julian Assange, and most famously O.J. Simpson. Despite Dershowitz’s Democratic leanings he joined Trump’s legal team in January 2020 to successfully defend him against impeachment charges without compensation. Since stepping down from Harvard in 2013 Dershowitz has devoted all his time defending Israel in the media and the courtroom a practice the 85-year-old said he would continue until his last breath.
The level of his devotion would have him serving in Gaza if he was 25, he remarked, as all his charity dollars goes to support the state. “Im Ein Ani Li Mi Li”-if I am not for me who will be for me? is his guiding principle as he has ceased donations to the opera and all non-Jewish causes. Part of Dershowitz’s brilliance lies in his ability to distill the essence of an argument to make it digestible to the masses.
On Sunday night, he was in top form in a no-holds barred interview where he bravely tackled the most pressing issues facing Israel since the Hamas massacre of October 7th. He called out the Black community for their abandonment of Israel as the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s top officials have called for the US government to withhold funding to Israel and demand a ceasefire without any mention of the release of hostages. Dershowitz decried the Black community for its anti-Israel views promulgated in the 1960s by Malcolm X whom Dershowitz met at Harvard, and said he would not have voted for a second term President Obama due to his anti-Israel stance.
Dershowitz isn’t afraid to tell it like it is which is why there were 50 supporters from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) aggressively opposing his appearance as anti-riot police stood outside Temple Emanuel. Dershowitz called “JVP” a non-Jewish organization pretending to be self-hating Jews. Dershowitz’s past controversial calls for a Palestinian state have been reversed since October 7th as he stated nothing good should happen to the Palestinians for at least another 5 years until they earn it.
In fact moderator Ezra Katz pointed out that 70 percent of Israelis are currently against a Palestinian state since the atrocities of Hamas. Palestinians already have the state of Ramallah, said Dershowitz, in the central West Bank which has become a center for economic and political activity in the territories. Rewarding terrorism is always a bad idea as he called the release of 1100 terrorists for Gilad Shalit in 2011 a terrible mistake that led to October 7th.
With 132 hostages now held in Gaza, Dershowitz said Israel had no choice but to negotiate with Hamas due to the screams of grieving parents despite the negative repercussions of doing so. Dershowitz said Israel must plan for the day America abandons it as he worries Biden will turn against Israel in order to attain the votes of 250,000 Arabs in Michigan-a critical state for the Presidency.
Dershowitz visited Gaza when the tunnels opened and remarked on their depth and width saying the 300 mile network had to have been known by the “innocent” Gaza population as even Sderot inhabitants heard incessant digging. Dershowitz refuted claims of genocide as Palestinians were being killed as collateral damage since Hamas uses them as human shields. He then went on to explain that of the 30,000 Gazans killed by Israel 10,000 were Hamas fighters and 10,000 were complicit by either being in a house with weaponry or killed by misfired Hamas rockets which number 20 percent. 10,000 innocents killed is a one to one ratio between civilians and enemies which is the lowest ratio of civilian deaths in any war ever conducted-kudos to the IDF.
Darfur and Syria have been incomparably barbarous and yet the world remains silent. He decried organizations UNRWA, the International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders who are Hamas proponents and members. Dershowitz acknowledged the Republican Party is far more pro-Israel than Democrats and if that was one’s only criteria a vote for a Republican candidate was far more judicious as evidenced by leftist Brazilian president Lula da Silvia calling Israel genocidal and Hitlerian while right wing Argentinian president Javier Milei recently visited the Western Wall.
As for anti-Semitism in universities Dershowitz said it was time for universities and schools to get out of politics akin to the University of Chicago which maintains a politically neutral stance. While acceding that your child should attend the best school they get into, he said teachers just like doctors and lawyers should do their job which is to teach children to read and write, not what opinions to espouse.
The crowd comprised of right wing stalwarts including Bryan Leib and others who applauded the heroically outspoken Dershowitz who has been embraced by the Orthodox Jewish community while simultaneously alienated from his liberal academic cronies.
