יום חמישי, ג׳ תמוז תשפ״וThursday, June 18, 2026
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Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and is the author of “Guilt by Accusation” and host of the “The Dershow” podcast. Follow Alan Dershowitz on Twitter (@AlanDersh) and on Facebook (@AlanMDershowitz).
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Judges look harder to find procedural objections to policies and actions of which they disapprove.
The college administration, instead of disciplining students who break the rules and the law, negotiated with them. Cutting off funding from Barnard will not hurt students who want a real education, because Barnard students can enroll in courses at Columbia, which is affiliated with Barnard. It will put an end to the propaganda "courses", and "studies" "programs" in which Barnard seems to specialize.
When a terrorist group "negotiates" with a democracy, it always has the upper hand.
One of the most pervasive myths of the Palestinian protest movement is that Israel has denied statehood to the Palestinian people. To the contrary, Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution that would […]
[W]e are likely to see more anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish pogroms in other parts of the world as antisemitism moves from the fringes to the mainstream.
Sadly, the media's dangerous cooperation with terrorists tells us more about them than about the war about which they purport to be "reporting."
Obama has been the "Chamberlain" in this 21st-century version of Great Britain's and France's appeasement of an evil and dangerous regime.
It is easy to denounce violence by one's opponents. It is far more difficult, but more important, to denounce violence by one's allies.
So Why Is the Left So in Love with It?
Students are afraid to express these contrary views for fear of reprisals.
Critics of Israel almost never cite comparable data from other military encounters. This omission creates the false impression that the civilian death tolls in Gaza are among the highest in history, when they are in fact among the lowest.
He taught by example, not by preaching. Though we have differences in our religious and political outlooks, he always treated my 'heresy' with respect and humor...
What is the International Court of Justice? ... It is the United Nations' court, and that tells you all you need to know about it.
So when you watch an anti-Israel demonstration on television, please understand who is behind it and what are their ultimate goals, because the next target is American democracy -- and you.
It creates divisiveness on campuses that makes Jewish students and faculty fearful for their safety when their university president seems unwilling to apply the same standard to those who advocate genocide against Jews as they surely would against anyone who advocated genocide against Blacks or the raping of women or the shooting of gay and transgender people.
Gays for Gay-Killers, Jews for Jew-Killers, Feminists for Wife-Beating, Progressives for Fascists
Israel has a right under international law to prefer preventing the deaths of its own civilians over inadvertently causing the deaths of enemy civilians.
if a club were formed at any of these universities that advocated rape or the lynching of African Americans, the newspapers would most assuredly publish the names of everyone associated with such a despicable group. Why is this different?
People will always want to censor but not be censored. — Dershowitz.
Many so-called progressives have been willing to ignore procedural safeguards and due process in their campaign to get former President Donald Trump — to misuse the law in an effort to prevent the leading Republican candidate from running against the incumbent candidate for president
What should happen... when it is virtually impossible for the defendant to get an impartial jury in that state or district?
Not every Senator and Congressman was present. A group of radical leftists, who misidentify themselves as "progressives", boycotted Herzog because he is president of the nation-state of the Jewish people... It was not the current Israeli government that they were boycotting. It was the symbol of the entire nation of Israel.
After decades of vacillation, the Supreme Court of the United States has finally and firmly declared that the Constitution does not permit publicly funded universities to consider race, as such, in its admission processes.
So instead of starting each school day with a prayer, why don't we start each school day with the recitation of the First Amendment? Then the teacher can explain why prayer is a private matter – for the home, the church or the mind. It is not the job of the teacher to inculcate his or her religious views — or those of Mayor Adams.
We are witnessing the weaponization of the criminal justice system for partisan purposes.
There is much for Israel to be proud of, even as it faces challenges both from without and within.
So please, as Israel approaches its 75th birthday, look at the big picture: no country has contributed more to the world in its first three-quarters of a century than has Israel; no country faced with dangers comparable to those faced by Israel has had a better record of human rights, compliance with the rule of law and concern for enemy civilians than Israel.
Israel has too many elections; The Palestinians have too few.
let free speech not become weaponized as a partisan issue.
As long as the goal is to get Trump, anything goes including hypocrisy, inconstancy and unconstitutionality.
Equal justice for Democrats and Republicans must not only be done; it must be seen to be done. There must be one law, and one application of law, for all comparable acts and persons. There must also be one standard of civil liberties — and complaints about their violation — by principled civil libertarians.
As President Joe Biden was returning from his productive trip to the Middle East, the Jewish Democratic Council was holding a fundraiser on Martha's Vineyard to support Democratic candidates in the 2022 midterm elections and to help elect a Democratic president in 2024. Former President Bill Clinton and former Senator Hillary Clinton were the guests […]
Why does the Palestinian cause get so much attention, when there are much more compelling causes around the world?
So I will protest the morality of those who are demonstrating in front of US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's home, while defending their right to do so peacefully and within constitutional limits.
It is hard to know whether this benighted editorial suffers more from ignorance or bigotry.
It may make it just a little bit harder for Putin to incur the wrath of the entire world by murdering the holder of the Nobel Peace Prize.
There are a considerable number of highly qualified Black women, and I would applaud the nomination of any one of them. But that is not the issue. The issue is exclusion.
Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
He was far more vocal about Israel’s imperfections than about the genocides in Rwanda, Darfur and Cambodia.
The relevant issue is whether the communication was privileged at the time it was made. If so, it should be an enduring privilege that encourages confidential communications during their incumbency.
Temple Emanu-El CANCELS Dershowitz!
The recent Republican victories were not so much a vindication of Republican policies as a rejection of the extremism of Democratic leaders and their tolerance for radical hard-left policies.
Had Israeli troops remained, Israel would be criticized. Now that they have left, there is still criticism. For some, Israel can do no right.
After much criticism, the Times quietly removed the reference to "rabbis" without apologizing for its reporter's mendacious anti-Semitism or disciplining her for her journalistic malpractice.
The fact that the Squad would try to deny Israel the right to defend its civilians speaks volumes about the lack of morality and decency among Squad members and their allies.
Cuomo has categorically denied all of these charges and, until the contrary is proved, he must be presumed innocent....
[The decision] sends a powerful message that the Supreme Court is still in the business of protecting offensive speech, even as big tech, universities and many progressives have tried to justify pervasive censorship of speech with which they disagree.
Stay tuned to see how the now government manages to survive the challenges of diversity. In the meantime, however, stop singling out Israel for demonization by mislabeling it as apartheid or undemocratic.
The current social media have the worst of both worlds: they censor material that is neither dangerous nor necessarily false; and then permit material which is both highly dangerous and demonstrably false.
They "Trot out the usual stable of reliable anti-Israel academics to flood newspapers and television shows with some of the worst drivel about international law, human rights and the laws of war -- drivel that would earn students failing grades in any objective law school course on these subjects."
The ACLU, if the shoe were on the other foot, would be demanding a new trial — if the defendant were black, and white crowds were demanding a conviction or else.
Waters is not interested in neutral justice. She wants vengeance for what she and her followers justifiably see as the unjustified killing of George Floyd.... That is not the rule of law. That is the passion of the crowd.
Each case presents different facts, different legal considerations, different moral conclusions, and different lessons to be learned. Let us consider them each separately, as they deserve.
The fact that we even have to ask these questions demonstrates the precarious state of freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas in the cancel culture....
The Harvard Law School petition is directed only at Trump supporters, not supporters of left wing anti-democratic repression, either here or abroad. It is based on the assumption that there is a special "Trump exception" to freedom of speech and due process.
Falsely Charging McConnell with Inconsistency
The International Criminal Court decision on Palestine is a setback for a single standard of human rights. It is a victory for terrorism and an unwillingness to negotiate peace.
What they want to do is to impeach President Trump without giving him an opportunity to defend himself at a Senate trial.
Let us remember that as a matter of law and constitutionality, Joe Biden is not yet the president-elect. He has been coronated by the media, by politicians and by most Americans.
The last thing the Democratic party needs is yet another prominent politician who harbors negative views about America’s most reliable ally, Israel.
Israel is a stabilizing influence in an unstable region of the world. It is a democracy, a military and technological innovator, an economically advanced country. It can assist its new allies in each of these areas, as it has already begun to do even in the short time since normalization began.
All current White Houses leak like sieves. Staff members develop quid pro quo relationships with the media: in exchange for leaking information, the media promises to treat them well. That is the reality of contemporary journalism.
One's religion is a private matter, but one's judicial philosophy is highly relevant in the confirmation process... Let us hope the Senate handles this nomination better than they have handled other recent nominations.
So when CNN made a decision to doctor a recording so as to deceive its viewers into believing that I said exactly the opposite of what I actually said, that action was not protected by the First Amendment...So I am suing them for a lot of money, not in order to enrich myself, but to deter CNN and other media from maliciously misinforming their viewers at the expense of innocent people.
Under the first amendment, churches hold a higher protected status than comparably sized and ventilated businesses. So, as an initial matter, it would appear unconstitutional for a state to prohibit church assemblies of more than 50 congregants, regardless of the size of the building, while allowing a casino to host up to half their usual number of gamblers, which in some cases can exceed 1,000.
The deal demonstrates how quickly changes occur in this volatile part of the globe. It was only a few decades ago when Israel's strongest allies were Iran and Turkey, and its most intractable enemies were Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states. Now the reverse is true.
It is very hard to be a dissenter today. If you are a dissenter today, you risk being canceled. If you are an editor who is willing to publish dissenting material, you risk being fired. If you are a dissenter today in a crowd, you risk being beaten up.
It took decades for Jews to achieve real equality all through the United States, but it might not have happened without George Washington’s bold and unequivocal pronouncement.
Beinart is insistent that today's Israelis and Jews must ignore the lessons of the Holocaust. But those who ignore history are destined to repeat it. And Jews cannot afford to see a repetition of their tragic past.
Farrakhan — like Nazis and Communists — has a First Amendment right to tell his lies and spread his hate. But no media has an obligation to promote or disseminate his bigotry.
This “blame it on Israel” or “blame it on the Jews” bigotry is common throughout the world at demonstrations for legitimate causes, that are unrelated to the Mid-East.
Invoking the Bible and God is intended not as a stimulus to further debate, but rather as an argument- stopper: God is against it; no further discussion, research or argument is necessary; the debate is over.
From a legal and policy point of view, encouraging the FBI to misuse its legitimate authority to investigate past crimes, solely to create future crimes is both immoral and illegal.
This is not the time to further politicize a great Israeli institution.
In the event of an outbreak, guards and other staff are likely to refuse to come to work, thus raising the risk of violence among prisoners.
Perhaps the most disturbing consequence of distorting the so-called "Dershowitz doctrine" into a justification for any and all presidential actions, is that it may create a dangerous precedent. Because of the persistent mischaracterization of the "Dershowitz doctrine," the Senate vote to acquit may be taken as a confirmation that a president who believes his re-election is in the public interest, can do anything he wants -- even commit serious crimes -- to help himself get re-elected. That is not what I said or believe.
If Congress and its GAO truly believe that President Trump violated the law, let them go to court and seek the civil remedy provided by the law.
I believe that the Senate need not wait for articles of impeachment to be transmitted. Senators are empowered by the constitution to begin a trial now — with or without further action by the House. Just as the House has the "sole power of impeachment," so too the Senate has the "sole power to try all impeachments."
These two grounds [of impeachment] — abuse of power and obstruction of congress — are not among the criteria specified for impeachment. Neither one is a high crime and misdemeanor. Neither is mentioned in the constitution. Both are the sort of vague, open-ended criteria rejected by the framers. They were rejected precisely to avoid the situation in which our nation currently finds itself.
For Congress to impeach President Trump for abuse of Congress would be an abuse of power by Congress. So despite the partisan opinions of the Democratic academic experts, Congress should not include abuse of Congress among its list of impeachable offenses.
The most striking similarity is that both are being investigated for actions that their legislatures have not explicitly made criminal.
I will not allow my life’s work— on behalf of Israel, the Jewish community, Soviet Jewry, human rights, civil liberties, teaching students, writing books and defending the accused — to be “cancelled” by a totally false accusation by a woman I never met and by the cowardly McCarthyism of the 92nd Street Y.
Misusing the impeachment power in a partisan manner would pose, in the words of Hamilton, "the greatest danger" to our Constitution.
Among the most fundamental First Amendment rights is to ridicule — regardless of the reason. The same is true of holding people or groups up to contempt. Were Connecticut's absurd statute to be upheld — which it will not be — it could be applied to comedians, op-ed writers, politicians, professors and other students.
All civil libertarians should be concerned about an Alice in Wonderland process in which the search for an impeachable crime precedes the evidence that such a crime has actually been committed.
For Stalinist and "wokers," there is no uncertainty or fallibility. If they believe someone is guilty, he must be. Why do we need a cumbersome process for determining guilt? The identities of the accuser and accused are enough.
If it repeats these false accusations, without confronting the accusers directly, The New Yorker will have done precisely what judges and others have condemned: namely using the judicial process as both a sword and a shield for false accusations.
he New Yorker picked on the wrong innocent victim, because I have the will and resources to fight back against the falsehoods he is directing at me and those who want to hear my voice. The truth is my weapon in this war of words, and the truth is unequivocally on my side.
In the post-Acosta world, prosecutors will bring cases to trial even if the likelihood of a conviction is questionable, as it was in the Epstein case. The result of this change will be more trials, more crowded courtroom dockets and fewer convictions. That is not good for defendants, victims or for the rule of law.
The Palestinians should send a delegation to Bahrain and participate in the meetings. They can make their demands and propose changes in the U.S. plan. There is no good reason for them not to participate. They can object to what President Trump has done and even demand that it be undone, but their objections will have no credibility if they continue to be no-shows.
The nationalist leaders of central and eastern Europe are a mixed picture when it comes to Israel. They strongly support Jewish nationalism, Zionism, and the nation state of the Jewish people. But their attitude toward Jews and the Holocaust is often highly questionable.
None of this is to deny Israel's imperfections or the criticism it justly deserves for some of its policies. But these imperfections and deserved criticism cannot even begin to explain, must less justify, the disproportionate hatred directed against the only nation-state of the Jewish people and the disproportionate silence regarding the far greater imperfections and deserved criticism of other nations and groups including the Palestinians.
If the editors of The New York Times refuse to separate opinion and analysis from hard reporting, every reader has an obligation to make that separation for herself or himself. Bear this in mind when you read The New York Times.
Declaring the Western Wall to be illegally occupied territory is akin to declaring the Vatican, Mecca or other religious, holy sites to be occupied by those who pray at them. The Western Wall is lawfully part of the nation state of the Jewish people. It will remain so as long as Israel exists. If there is to be any hope of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the world must recognize that historic, moral and legal reality.
Israel is also celebrating its 71st year of independence. No nation has contributed so much to humankind in so short a period of time. No nation faced with threats compared to those faced by Israel has ever had a better record of human rights, compliance with the rule of law or concern with avoiding civilian casualties. The world should join Israel in celebrating its 71 years of statehood.
For years now, the New York Times op-ed pages have been one-sidedly anti-Israel. Its reporting has often been provably false, and all the errors tend to favor Israel's enemies.
Prof. Alan Dershowitz: When anybody ever challenges Jewish power and influence, remind them that Jewish power is the best road to peace - it should be a source of pride.
