October 4, 2003

Writing in the Globe and Mail Nomi Morris, former Middle East bureau chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers reviews Alan Dershowitz’s book The Case for Israel and finds it be a very successful in being an antidote to unformed accusations against Israel. Dershowitz has convinced me that in some circles his book is sorely needed. It should be required reading in university Middle East courses and for diplomats heading to the region. It has provided a genuine service by laying out the Israeli and Jewish perspective on the history of the conflict. It may well be the perfect volume to hand to, say, a neighbour with little knowledge of the Middle East who is upset by television images. It may be just the gift for, say, a European intellectual whose post-Second World War anti-militarism has jaundiced his view of modern Israel. I do believe that Morris is too optimistic about European attitudes towards Israel. While she writes: I'm not convinced Dershowitz or anyone else in the year 2003 need prove Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. It has been an internationally recognized fact for 55 years, which even the most vociferous European critics of Israel would acknowledge as a starting point. It is only fringe intellectuals and Muslim extremists who argue otherwise. The articles written in the Guardian and other European papers would suggest that many believe that Israel exists for now but in time will go away to be replaced by some Arab-Jewish state that would mean the end of Zionism and the end of Judaism in the Middle-East. For them, maybe this book will help. In a sidebar Morris also finds charges of plagiarism by left-wing anti-Israel self-hating Jew Norman G. Finkelstein and anti-Semitic polemicist Alexander Cockburn to be unfounded given that the works in question are cited within Dershowitz’s endnotes. 11:30:52 PM