Dershowitz Wins Oxford Union Debate on Boycott Israel Movement
Alan Dershowitz, a famed Harvard Law School professor and Middle East expert, won over Oxford University’s Oxford Union on Sunday in a debate over the Boycott Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against the state of Israel, defeating his opponent 137-101 in the heart of liberal academia.What Do Palestinians Want?
Mr. Dershowitz told Breitbart News how he managed to convince students that the case for boycotting Israel was unjust, and only sabotages the peace process.
“The other side argued that BDS was an alternative to war. I argued that BDS was an alternative to a negotiated peace because it disincentivizes the Palestinian leadership from negotiating a compromise resolution and instead misleads them into relying on external pressure to delegitimize Israel,” he said.
Dershowitz squared off against Peter Tatchell, a self-described human rights advocate who is a member of the Green Party of England and Wales.
BDS, which advocates for a boycott of exports to and imports from the State of Israel, has been described by some as an anti-Semitic movement, given that many of its proponents refuse to recognize the sovereignty of the Jewish state.
Advocates of BDS commonly ignore the atrocities committed by actual dictatorial regimes, and tend to only focus on Israel, the only free, democratic country in the Middle East.
The Harvard professor argued that the side that promotes the boycott of Israel approaches the topic from a deep-rooted anti-Semitic perspective.
“BDS is anti-peace, anti-negotiation and anti-Israel. I am pro-peace, pro-negotiation, pro-Israel and pro-Palestine… BDS is based on bigotry. If Israel was not the nation state of the Jewish People, then this debate wouldn’t be happening today,” he said during the debate.
BDS leaders refuse to debate him, which says a lot about their supposed longing for peace, he added, stating: “BDS will absolutely not bring peace. If the BDS movement is desirous of peace, then why will its leaders not debate me?” (h/t Yenta Press)
Palestinians view Israeli words and deeds through a powerfully distorting lens. A half-century of Israeli restraint at the Temple Mount has failed to convince most Palestinians that there is no plan to replace the mosques on Haram al-Sharif with a Jewish house of worship. A decade-and-a-half marked by prolonged and intense bouts of violence has persuaded Palestinians that the use of force generally helps them, and many have formed these views based on earlier rounds of attacks against Israelis and Westerners dating back a number of decades. Additionally, a series of confrontations between the West and the Arab/Islamic world has ingrained in most Palestinians a belief that attacking Western or Israeli targets, far from constituting terrorism, is legitimate resistance. Hence, Israel is an unlikely candidate to mitigate Palestinian support for violence.A Soldier’s Mother: When the Arabs Make Our Point Better Than We Ever Can
The onus is therefore on the Palestinian leadership to recognize the dangers posed to its own self-interest by the current volatile circumstances and to take a firm and consistent stance against violence. Of course, there is no expecting Hamas to adopt such a position, which would contravene its organizational ethos and traditions ingrained over two-and-a-half decades. But is it utterly inconceivable that a successor to the eighty-year-old Abbas might do so? Whatever his weaknesses may be—and they have been abundantly on display in recent weeks—Abbas has preached for a decade that violence is not beneficial to the Palestinian cause and has consistently ordered his security forces to cooperate with Israel in quelling armed attacks. This is at least a precedent on which a stronger and more courageous leader might build.
In any such effort, the Arab countries with the greatest stake in preserving stability and preventing the further ascendancy of radical Islamic forces in their neighborhood might have a refreshingly constructive role to play (especially Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia). So might the United States and Europe, which have both an interest in cooling fevers and various diplomatic, political, and financial levers at their disposal. Though Palestinians possess a remarkable capacity to form their own, independent perception of the world around them, they are not immune to the consequences of their actions or to the changing incentives they face. If the U.S. and other Western powers were to begin vociferously condemning violence initiated by Palestinians, to penalize the PA and Hamas until attacks stop, and to ensure that under no circumstances will gains, diplomatic or otherwise, accrue from them, this, too, might exercise a meliorating effect over time.
Palestinian support for violence, and the attitudes underlying that support, have developed and become entrenched over a period of decades. Altering those attitudes can only begin once the attitudes are recognized for what they are, without blinking and without excuses. Toward that end, I hope this essay, along with the broader research project of which it is a part, can serve as a catalyst.
According to popular misconceptions, the left will always tell you there is hope for tomorrow and the right will always tell you that peace is un-achievable. The left will tell you that Israelis just have to be more accepting, more able to see the good in every human being; and the right will say that all Arabs are our enemy…Every. Single. Damn. One. Of. Them. These are the words of people who do not understand left, center, or right.
Ironically, the majority of people who have daily interactions with Arabs…are right wing. We live next to them, among them, not in some tower in Tel Aviv perched on high as a few Arabs sweep the streets below. We ride the same trains, wait at the same bus stops. By interactions, I mean discussions, comments, etc.
I was recently told by a woman that I am a target but she is not. I’m a target because I live in Maale Adumim, and she lives in Raanana. Obviously, she said this a few weeks ago, before two terrorists chose her city to make the point that she is as much a target as I am; that they do not differentiate between those who live here versus those who live there.
We are right wing. We are not stupid. We are not filled with hatred. We are not, as my college friend (now a big thinker in a think tank in Washington from which he tells us of maps and solutions that will bring the peace he envisions for us), said a few years ago, living in “limbo.” We lead productive lives, filled with family and friends, work, social events and more. My city has a museum, a Cultural Center, a Music Conservatory and a Country Club. Bowling alley. Schools. Emergency Medical Care Center. In short, we are simply Israelis. On average, we are as educated, as intelligent, as honorable, as peace-loving as those who live anywhere else in this country.
