Your Essential Reading Guide: The Case for Israel

The best way to truly understand what is going on in Israel (without actually going there) is to read books. I will from time to time be writing on some of the books that I have read on the topic and there is no better way to start than with Alan Dershowitz's 'The Case for Israel'.

(Get it from Amazon or Kalahari.Net)

The Case for Israel addresses 32 common accusations made against Israel in a uniquely structured and orderly fashion. Dershowitz explains each accusation, provides examples of the accusers, details the true reality, and then provides a thorough proof supporting the reality.

Dershowitz has helped many people to realise just how vast the chasm between the reality is from the accusations made. In fact, after reading Dershowitz, one starts to think that It's Almost Supernatural.

But lets hear it from Dershowitz himself. This article is the transcript of a speech Dershowitz gave at UC Berkeley - perhaps the most anti-Israel campus in the US.

Those were the days. Those were the days when the Israeli-Arab conflict presented a clear-cut conflict between good and evil. Israelis were Holocaust survivors trying to build a Jewish democratic homeland that would always be open to Jewish immigrants and refugees. Doors to the world had been closed to so many refugees during the Holocaust. On the other side were the Holocaust perpetrators. We forget too often that the Egyptian army commanders in large part were former Nazis given asylum by the Egyptian government. Amung them was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the recognized leader of the Palestinian people. These were indicted war criminals who spent most of the war years with Hitler in Nazi Germany. This was a conflict between democracy and tyranny. A conflict between those who wanted to accept the United Nations' plan of a two-state resolution and those who rejected the existence of Israel. Those were the days when it was so clear on which side civil liberties and human rights and progress led and on which side tyranny and oppression lied. The sad reality is that nothing has changed on the ground. These facts are still the same today as they were in 1947 or 1948, yet the perspectives have changed so dramatically. Even in 1956, even in 1967, even in the early 1970's, most progressive, liberal and centrist people supported the right side of this struggle. Sure, I favored a two state solution. I've always favored a two state solution. Israel has always favored a two state solution, since 1937, when they accepted the Peel Commission report which would have give the Palestinians a long, contiguous state and the Jews a totally non-contiguous state. The Jews said yes and the Palestinians and Arabs said no. In 1947, the Jews were offered a non-contiguous state in which Jerusalem was separated from Tel Aviv and other Jewish cities, and the Palestinians were offered a contiguous state. And the Palestinians said no. Ben Gurion and the Israelis said yes. Nothing has changed. Not Israeli actions to be sure. What changed is the perception of the world. The United Nations tragically has become a mega bomb for bigotry against Israel. If a space alien from another planet were to come down to earth and land at the General Assembly of the United Nations, or at some American college campuses, or many an urban capital, and have to report back to the distant galaxy from which he came, he'd have to report this is a wonderful planet with great countries that love peace. Like Syria, which is on the Security Council. Or Libya, that chairs the Human Rights Commission. But there's this one country, this evil nation that's been condemned by the UN more than any other country or all other countries combined. If the spaceship landed on the Berkeley campus, all the canards and untruths about Israel--genocide, apartheid, all the claims you hear so often, would be heard. And that's the tragedy. And that's why I had to write The Case For Israel. It's my least favorite book, I have to tell you. It's the book nobody wants to write. Nobody has to write the Case for Canada or the Case for Spain or the Case for Australia. There's so much lying on college campuses today, so many untruths, so many legalese falsities being directed against Israel. But the impetus to write the Case For Israel came when the divestiture campaign began at Harvard and Berkeley and many of our college campuses. No members of the law school faculty, nor of the medical school faculty, nor the business school signed, but many at the other schools and departments signed the petition.

Comments

[Gerald]

WE WERE ASKED A QUESTION IN SUNDAY SCHOOL AS TO WHICH COUNTRIES BESIDES THE UNITED STATES FAVORED ISRAEL, IS THERE ANYONE KNOWS THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION....THANKS

[Steve]

Australia, Poland and much of Eastern Europe, Micronesia, Botswana, India provides quiet support, Ecuador ... cant remember them all really