In Print

Question Period: Alan Dershowitz

By Kevin Steel ⋅ August 14, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Born Sept. 1, 1938, Brooklyn, New York. Lawyer, professor at Harvard Law School, author. Analyst of civil liberties issues and Middle East affairs.

Kevin Steel: You have written about the “arithmetic of pain,” in which terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah calculate that civilian casualties amongst their countrymen benefit their cause. How can Israel cope with an enemy that deliberately wants to provoke it into killing innocent civilian?

Alan Dershowitz: Israel must continue to use pinpoint intelligence, smart bombs and make every effort to avoid civilian casualties. But it must also convince the world that every unintended civilian casualty resulting from Israeli efforts to destroy rocket launchers aimed at its civilian population is the moral and legal responsibility of Hezbollah and Hamas, which deliberately fire their rockets from densely populated areas. Hezbollah made a conscious decision not to build bomb shelters for Lebanese civilians, while building bomb shelters for its own leaders, in order to maximize Lebanese civilian casualties. The more the world blames Israel for these civilian casualties, the more the world encourages Hezbollah and Hamas to use their own civilians as human shields, and the more civilians will die–on both sides.

KS: How would you characterize the difference in the way the world has reacted to Israeli civilian casualties versus the Lebanese casualties?

AD: The world has reacted essentially the same to Israeli casualties and to Lebanese casualties without understanding the enormous difference. Every casualty inflicted by Hezbollah on an Israeli civilian is deliberate, because Hezbollah targets Israeli civilians. The only exception is when they accidentally killed two Israeli Arabs in Nazareth. For that they apologized, but not for the deaths of Jewish children. When Israel inadvertently kills a Lebanese civilian, it is despite its best efforts to avoid civilian casualties. Israel understands that it loses every time it kills a Lebanese civilian, whereas Hezbollah understands that it wins every time it kills an Israeli civilian and every time Israel kills a Lebanese civilian.

KS: How do you think Israel’s response to the attack on their territory is different than other democratic states might respond in a similar situation?

AD: Israel’s military response has been more cautious, and has killed fewer innocent civilians, than the response of any other nation to comparable threats in modern history.

KS: You have written that the “misuse of civilians as shields and swords requires a reassessment of the laws of war.” How do you foresee that occurring?

AD: I do not believe that there will be a reassessment of the laws of war, because countries like France and organizations like the United Nations generally side with the terrorists, and the terrorists benefit from the current laws of war. These laws provide them with both a shield and a sword to attack civilians and to hide behind their own civilians.

KS: Last year you said in a debate with Noam Chomsky, in reference to academics, “By demonizing and de-legitimating Israel in the international community and on university campuses throughout the world, they send a doubly destructive message to those who must make peace on the ground.” How would a change in international law affect the academic community?

AD: Those on the academic hard left who follow Noam Chomsky will not in any way be influenced by a change in international law. They stopped thinking about this issue the day the old Soviet Union changed sides and started to support the terrorists. It has now become a litmus test to join the hard left that one become a knee-jerk opponent of Israel and everything it tries to do. This kind of bias cannot be affected by rational changes or rational thought. When Israel gives up land for peace these academics attack it. When Israel absorbs terrorist attacks without responding, as it did following its withdrawal from Gaza, these hard leftists increase their attack. The British teachers’ campaign to boycott Israel only got worse when Israel made significant sacrifices for peace.

KS: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has said that Israel could be charged with war crimes for attacking civilian areas or even for attacking military targets if civilian casualties result. How likely do you think that is to happen?

AD: There is no chance that Arbour’s absurd suggestion will be followed. The chief prosecutor at the international criminal court is a fair man who would never prosecute Israelis for legitimate acts of self-defence. Arbour has been biased against Israel for years and her knowledge of international law would warrant a failing grade in any major law school. She is part of the problem, not part of the solution, and should be removed from her important position. Her real calling in life is to become a lobbyist for Hezbollah or Hamas. Come to think of it, she already is doing that job.

KS: How reasonable is Arbour’s expectation that a terrorist group like Hezbollah can actually be brought before an international court to face the rule of law?

AD: Arbour’s bias is exceeded only by her naivet?. The idea that Hezbollah’s leaders could be brought before an international court to face the rule of law is absurd. Moreover, if Arbour were the judge, they would be acquitted and only the democracies would be convicted.

[This article appeared in the August 14, 2006 issue of the Western Standard.]