To a packed crowd of over 600 people at a JerusalemOnlineU fundraiser at the Palm Beach Synagogue sponsored by William K. Langfan, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, in rare form, thundered “Strength comes before peace, there will never be peace without strength. For as Bibi has said, ‘If the Palestinians give up their arms, there will be peace; if the Israelis give up their arms, there’ll be another Holocaust.'”
To further emphasize the point, Prof. Dershowitz quoted the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s timeless admonition, “Always believe the threats of your enemies, and not the promises of your friends.”
Most of Prof. Dershowitz’s talk, however, was directed at the highlighting the critical role Jerusalem OnlineU is playing in waging the battle against the anti-Israel lies that are being propagated on US campuses. He stated that the Israel bashers are violating the sacred commandment of “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” He stated the Israel haters’ goal is “to lie to the future leaders of tomorrow.” He cited, as a case in point, the New York State University of Brooklyn College’s Political Science Department which, as a department, has officially sponsored an upcoming BoycottDivestSanction “conference” at Brooklyn College which will draw as its speakers the who’s who of virulent Israel haters.
Prof. Dershowitz, himself an alumnus of Brooklyn College, asked, “Why is the public tax-payer funded political science department of the renowned Brooklyn College, itself, giving its imprimatur to such a one-sided politically charged issue? The only country targeted in the world with a boycott divest sanction movement is Israel.” And this is crazy, he said, because “Israel and its army is the most moral country and army in the world.” What’s worse is the insidious message that the “Brooklyn College’s political science department gives is that if a student takes a pro-Israel position in class or in a test answer, the student will suffer in terms of grades and graduate school recommendations.”
Prof. Dershowitz stated that “We owe it to both our grandparents, and our grandchildren to dig deep into our pockets and financially support pro-Jewish college advocacy groups like JerusalemOnlineU who talk in the modern language of social media which today’s students understand. We must fight back, and not stand idly by. For, today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders.” The talk featured a JerusalemOnlineU produced pro-Israel movie, Israel Inside, narrated by the famed Israeli “Positivist” thinker Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar.
While generally supporting a two-state solution, Prof. Dershowitz stated Israel can’t cede territory based on “parchment promises,” and Israel’s security concerns are paramount in any negotiation. Critically, Prof. Dershowitz openly admitted he “was wrong to have ever supported an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights,” and added that, at the time, he was personally “against the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza without a peace agreement.”
Prof. Dershowitz exclaimed, “can you imagine what would have happened if Israel had given the Golan Heights back to Assad in light of the recent events in Syria?” Paradoxically, Dershowitz also admitted that currently, the leading candidate for President of the entire Palestinian Authority, including Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) is the current Hamas Gaza Prime Minister Haniyeh, who along with his Hamas terror organization has vowed Israel’s total destruction, and has lobbed over 14,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip into pre-1967 Israel.
On another political hot potato, Prof. Dershowitz fumed that Chuck Hagel’s appointment by President Obama as US Defense Secretary “sends the wrong message to Iran. But it’s a hopeless battle because New York Senator Chuck Schumer is voting for Hagel. I don’t care if I ever get invited back to the White House. I will stand up for what I believe is right.”
