by Debra Rubin
NJJN Bureau Chief/Middlesex

May 20, 2008

Ever the defense lawyer, Alan Dershowitz celebrated Israel’s anniversary as he dissected the arguments of a double handful of protesters gathered outside his appearance May 8 at Rutgers University.

“These students didn’t know that before Israel became a state, Israel unconditionally accepted a smaller piece of land than hoped for and all the Arab nations began engaging in a genocidal campaign,” said Dershowitz, whose speech at the Douglass College campus in New Brunswick was sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County.

“They started the war that began the catastrophe,” said Dershowitz, referring to the Arab armies that launched the full-scale attack on Israel immediately after its leaders declared independence.

Sixty years later, Dershowitz spoke before an audience of 700 at the Nicholas Music Center, noting that Israel was celebrating its milestone anniversary on what would have been his own father’s 99th birthday. His talk touched on pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses, Jewish historical claims in the Middle East, the Palestinians’ failures to seize opportunities for peace, and the technological, medical, and environmental advances that Israel has given the world.

“By any measure Israel is an astonishing success,” he said. “Zionism may actually be the most successful international movement of the 20th century.”

Dershowitz was introduced by Ruth Marcus Patt of Monroe, a longtime federation and community leader and a trustee of the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, which underwrote the program.

Federation officials thanked Patt and the other Laurie Foundation trustees, including Adelaide Zagoren and Gene Korf, for making the event possible.

Sharon Karmazin served as emcee for the event, which featured anthems performed by the Parktones, an a capella group from Highland Park that includes Mark Feurstein, Gene Corburn, Greg Hamm, and Dick Nurse.

Avi Smolen, president of Rutgers Hillel, offered a prayer for Israel, and local artist Sol Chadowitz donated a silver Kiddush cup to be raffled off at the federation’s annual meeting.

Dershowitz touched on the irony of speaking in Middlesex County since he too lives in Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

“You’re a model federation,” said Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard School of Law. “I always tell my federation we should learn from the real Middlesex County.”

Dershowitz said the Palestinians’ claim that they were thrown off their land by Jews ignores the fact that Jews lived in the region “since the beginning of time.”

“They don’t know that in 1830 the majority of Jerusalem was Jewish,” said Dershowitz. “They don’t realize that.”

Dershowitz recalled how former President Bill Clinton chastised Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during peace negotiations.

“Bill Clinton told him that Jews have lived there forever,” he said, quoting Clinton as saying, “‘My religion says that, your religion believes that. Don’t you ever say that again or these negotiations are over.’”

Dershowitz earned loud applause when he said the Palestinian leadership is “more interested in seeing there is not a Jewish state than seeing there is a Palestinian state.”

He also recalled a visit to the University of California at Irvine, which some activists call a hotbed of anti-Israel sentiment. The audience included pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian activists, as well as those he described as neutral.

Dershowitz said he asked the Israel supporters how many would be willing to give up land for a non-aggressive democratic Palestinian state. Virtually every hand unhesitatingly shot up. Dershowitz posed the same question to the Palestinian supporters, who looked at each other quizzically, but without raising their hands.

“The people in the middle,” he said, “understood.”

The small protest of Dershowitz’ talk was organized by No Time to Celebrate: Jews Remember the Nakba. The group’s Web site describes it “as a campaign organized by anti-Zionist Jews from around the U.S. and Canada.” Nakba, or catastrophe, is how the Arab world describes Israel’s birth.

The event was coordinated under the auspices of the federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council and its Israel’s 60th Anniversary Planning Committee.

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