Case for Israel

A Good 'Case for Israel'
by Alan Dershowitz, (Wiley, 265 pp., $18.99 CA)

Alan Dershowitz’s 2003 book, The Case for Israel, now out in a slightly-updated paperback, is hardly new, but then there has hardly been much movement toward peace in the Middle East since it was written. It is well worth reading, even memorizing, because the endless, usually outrageously unfair attacks on the Jewish State can eat away at our own faith in the Israelis, like acid dripping on rock, and it’s always good to strengthen our arguments against our enemies through a better sense of history and the careful use of facts.

The book will hardly satisfy either side, since while it is a polemic, it strongly advocates “the two-state solution,” (a Palestinian state next to the Jewish one) which will never satisfy those Israelis and their supporters who feel that peace is utterly impossible, so why give even an inch of land to our enemies who are so determined to destroy the State of Israel? But at its best—and the vast majority of this often prosaic and didactic text reflects the thoughtful scholarship of a brilliant defense attorney and Harvard law professor—it can strengthen most of us in better arguing our “case.” As Dershowitz declares in his preface to the paperback edition, “I sensed declining support for the Jewish nation among many people of good will. Extremists on both the left and right. . .had long demonized Israel and its supporters, but the divestment campaign sought to mainstream this demonization by miseducating a generation of young Americans and feeding them one-sided, anti-Israel propaganda.”

This important book may appear dull, because it is little more than a collection of 32 brief essays in which its author ploddingly lists the kind of accusations against thrown at Israel (“Is Israel a Colonial, Imperialist State?” “Were the Jews Unwilling to Share Palestine?” “Have the Jews Exploited the Holocaust?” “Has Israel Made Serious Efforts at Peace?” “Are Critics of Israel Anti-Semitic?”) followed by paragraphs on “The Accusors,” “The Reality” and—longest and most historical and helpful of all—“The Proof.” Dershowitz is best at showing the utter two-facedness of the nation’s enemies: the occupation of Palestine by Jordan and Egypt has never been the subject of U.N. condemnation; there is vicious apartheid openly practised against non-Muslims in most Arab lands; the Palestinians have been cruelly used by their “Arab brothers” by refusing to let them out of refugee camps to be integrated into their respective societies, and more).

What I most appreciated in this powerful book is that Dershowitz is not a cheap apologist for all Israeli actions: he lists such horrors as the killings of Palestinian civilians at Deir Yassin and notes that—in a typically inspired statement—“Like any other democracy, Israel and its leaders should be criticized whenever their actions fail to meet acceptable standards, but the criticism should be proportional, comparative, and contextual, as it should be with regard to other nations as well.” A simple example: China’s occupation of Tibet has been far more brutal, longer, and much less justified than Israel’s of the West Bank, yet the U.N. has never condemned Tibet’s oppressor, and certainly has never recognized Tibet’s right to self-determination. The hypocrisy of the world regarding Israel is usually breath-taking.

The Case for Israel is not a must for every home, but I urge all readers of this site to take it out of their local library and read sections aloud over their dinner table to their spouses and older children. The Jewish State is far from perfect, but its accusers and haters are far from honest.

Allan Gould is a long-time Kolel student and occasional Kolel teacher. (Visit his website: http://www.allangould.com)