Jew Hatred on Campus, Liberals HATE JEWS!!
Vicious Liberal HATE-MONGERS!!! Dershowitz needs to realize who his
enemies are!
Israel-Hatred on Campus
By Alan M. Dershowitz
IsraelInsider.com | March 9, 2004
The other day, I experienced violent anti-Semitism for the first time
in my adult life. It took place in front of Faneuil Hall, the
birthplace of American independence and liberty.
I was receiving a justice award from the Jewish Council on Public
Affairs and delivering a talk on "Civil Liberties in the Age of
Terrorism" from the podium of that historic hall. When I left, award in
hand, I was accosted by a group of screaming, angry young men and women
carrying virulently anti-Israel signs. The protest was denominated a
peace event and was sponsored by a group calling themselves by the
vague name ACT-MA. Their website describes them as promoting peace and
justice and associated with
larger solidarity organizations, but there was nothing peaceful or just
about this protest.
Although the signs they were carrying were not anti-Semitic, the sign
carriers were shouting epithets at me that crossed the line from
civility to bigotry. "Dershowitz and Hitler, just the same, the only
difference is the name." The sin that, in the opinion of the screamers,
warranted this comparison between me and the man who murdered dozens of
my family members was my support for Israel. It was irrelevant to these
chanters that I also support a Palestinian state, the end of the
Israeli occupation and the dismantling of most of the settlements. They
also shouted "Dershowitz and Gibbels [sic], just the same, the only
difference is the name" - not even knowing how to pronounce the name of
the anti-Semitic Nazi propagandist.
One sign carrier shouted that Jews who support Israel are worse than
Nazis. Another demanded that I be tortured and killed. It wasn't only
their words; it was the hatred in their eyes. If a dozen Boston police
were not protecting me, I have little doubt I would have been
physically attacked. Their eyes were ablaze with fanatical zeal.
The feminist writer Phyllis Chesler aptly described the hatred often
directed against Israel and supporters of the Jewish state by some
young people as eroticized. That is what I saw: passionate hatred,
ecstatic hatred, orgasmic hatred. It was beyond mere differences of
opinion. When I looked into their faces, I could imagine young Nazis in
the 1930s in Hitler's Germany. They had no doubt that they were right
and that I was pure evil for my support of the Jewish state, despite my
public disagreement with some of Israel's policies and despite my
support for Palestinian statehood. There was no place for nuance here.
It was black and white, good versus evil, and any Jew who supported
Israel was pure evil, deserving of torture, violence, and whatever fate
Hitler and Goebbels deserved.
I do not believe that criticism of Israel, or even of Zionism, is
tantamount to anti-Semitism and I have so written over the years. But
what happened in front of Faneuil Hall went beyond criticism. To be
sure, it was
constitutionally protected speech, just as the Nazi march through
Skokie was constitutionally protected speech. But the shouting was
plainly calculated to intimidate. An aura of violence was in the air,
and had the police not been there, I would not have been able to
express any views counter to theirs.
As it turned out, I was not actually able to express any of my
opinions, even in response to their outrageous mischaracterization of
my views or their comparisons of me to the most evil men in the world.
When I turned to answer one of the bigoted chants, the police officer
in charge gently but firmly insisted that I walk directly to my car and
not engage them. It was an order, reasonably calculated to assure my
safety, and it was right. The officer got into my car with me and only
got out a few blocks away. The intimidation had succeeded. I was
silenced, and their horrible message went unanswered in the plaza near
Faneuil Hall.
That is not the way the marketplace of ideas is supposed to work. It is
not the conception of liberty for which Sam and John Adams spoke so
eloquently and controversially in and around Faneuil Hall more than two
hundred years ago. It was far more reminiscent of rallies conducted by
Nazi thugs in Berlin seventy years ago.
I will not be silenced nor intimidated. The shouters know that. Their
goal is to silence and intimidate others, who do not get police
protection and do not have access to the media. Let the debate about
Israel and the
Palestinians continue unabated. Let all views be heard. The shouters in
front of Faneuil Hall wanted no views but their own to be seen and
heard. They succeeded that day in front of Faneuil Hall, as they have
on some university campuses, but the marketplace of ideas is far too
vibrant to be shut down by a bunch of self-righteous thugs shouting
ugly and bigoted epithets.
--
Left-wing liberals are EVERYTHING they accuse the right of being. They
are mean, vicious, hateful, greedy, cold-hearted, closed-minded,
selfish, intolerant, bigoted and racist.
Liberals HATE America!
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