Special Isracampus Report
29/4/2012
On April 27, 2012 the Right-leaning daily Makor Rishon ran an extensive in-depth interview with the legendary professor of law Alan Dershowitz. The interview covers two full newspaper pages in the “law supplement” of the weekend edition of the paper. In the interview, Dershowitz is asked about and speaks freely about a wide number of subjects, from Israel’s own Supreme Court, to the Obama Presidency, to the Goldstone Commission, to the so-called “BDS or Boycott-Divest-Sanctions movement, which he considers to be anti-Semitic. He denounces J Street as an anti-Israel propaganda group.
But Dershowitz fires his most devastating ammunition in the interview against three anti-Semitic Israelis. They are Neve Gordon from Ben Gurion “University,” Ilan Pappe, once at the University of Haifa but today a full-time Israel Basher in Britain at the University of Exeter, and the demented Holocaust Denier, ex-Israeli sax player Gilad Atzmon.
In the interview, Dershowitz is asked about a comment of his cited last year in Globes in which he said that some of the worst enemies of Israel are themselves Israelis. Dershowitz responds by saying that not only are these anti-Israel Israelis among Israel’s worst enemies, but also they are among Israel’s most dangerous enemies. He then says that he has in mind (in this order) Neve Gordon, Ilan Pappe and Gilad Atzmon. In spite of the fact that the last two have emigrated from Israel, Dershowitz says that these three and people like them are “People who wrap themselves in the Israeli flag only for the purpose of burning it. The only time these people claim to be Israelis at all is when they wish to wave this as a certificate to legitimize their own malicious and unreasonable attacks against Israel.” While insisting that criticism in and of itself is something positive, Dershowitz says that these people are not “critics” but rather are seeking the demonization and delegitimization of all of Israel in the most hypocritical manner.
Dershowitz is then asked about the ulterior motive of these people. He replies: “Most anti-Israel Israelis are fifth rate academics incapable of finding themselves professionally or academically in Israel. Hence they try to find themselves positions in Europe, even though they generally are also too inferior to get work there. But they believe if they market themselves as anti-Israel Israelis, the novelty will boost their standing and they just might find jobs. I realize this may sound like I have a personal grudge against them, but in fact this is the simple truth.”
It is notable that Dershowitz lumps Neve Gordon (and Pappe) together with Gilad Azmon, an open Holocaust Denier as well as someone who has called for burning down synagogues (see
http ://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/26/1068563/-Faux-Progr essive-Holocaust-Denier-Gilad-Atzmon-Tours-U-S-
and
http ://articles.nydailynews.co m/2012-01-13/news/30626127_1_ semitic-jews-students ).
Neve Gordon of course cannot play the saxophone.