Blood libel against Jews: Back with a vengeance The current reaction to the events in Gaza cannot be understood without taking into account the long history of blood libels and Jew-hatred.

A document from the end of the 15th century features an illustration of a bearded Jew extracting the blood of a Christian child. The adjoining text explains that Jewish law requires that Passover matzoh be baked with the blood of Christian children.

Such documents were widely circulated through Europe during the Easter season and led to frequent pogroms—murder, rape and destruction—against Jewish children, women and men.
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There was never any actual evidence of such cannibalism. In fact, Jewish law explicitly prohibits the consumption of any blood or its use in cooking.

The total lack of evidence, however, did not matter to those who were taught and believed what has come to be known as the “blood libel.” Despite all the evidence to the contrary, many believed this falsehood.

This blood libel persisted throughout Europe into the early 20th century. Jews were put on trial and executed for supposedly killing Christian children for their blood.
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Other libels against Jews formed the basis for classic antisemitism, culminating in the Nazi lies that dehumanized Jews to an extent that made the Holocaust possible. Following the murder of 6 million innocent Jews, including babies, the world said “never again,” and antisemitism abated in many parts of the world.

Now it is back with a vengeance, accompanied by blood libels and other systematic lies about the Jewish people and their nation state, Israel.

It is against this sordid historical background that the current blood libel—that Israel targeted a Gaza hospital, deliberately causing the death of 500 Muslim children, women and men—can best be understood and assessed.

There is absolutely no evidence that Israel struck the hospital, whether deliberately or accidentally. Evidence from videos, photographs and telephone intercepts have proved to intelligence agencies worldwide that a barrage of rockets was launched toward Israel from near the hospital, almost certainly by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and that one of the rockets malfunctioned mid-flight, landing not directly on the hospital but in its outdoor parking lot, and that the explosion killed far fewer than 500 people.

The claim of 500 people killed came, within minutes of the PIJ rocket strike, from the “Gaza Ministry of Health”—in other words from Hamas. They lie. No facts or numbers are ever verifiable. Moreover, Hamas claims that no rocket parts survived—another self-serving lie. Yet their blood libel is widely believed by Israel’s enemies—perhaps because they want to believe it. It is too good a story to be ruined by the facts. As journalist Becket Adams wrote in National Review:
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“The Media Will Never Forgive Israel for Not Bombing That Hospital…. Reporters and pundits mishandled the Gaza hospital story because they wanted so badly for it to be true.”

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote:

“As the Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea pointed out to me, Palestinian Islamic Jihad achieved more this week with an apparently misfired rocket ‘than it achieved in all of its successful missile launches.'”

The “Muslim street” has been indoctrinated by its leaders to believe anything negative about Jews or Israel. And the Arab media generally reports Hamas lies and exaggerations—such as the claim that 500 civilians were killed at the hospital—as unvarnished truth.

It is unlikely that all the facts surrounding the tragedy at the Gaza hospital will emerge. Most of the physical evidence attesting to the rocket having been launched from Gaza by terrorists has been suppressed or manipulated by Hamas.

Credible intelligence agencies around the world have assessed the likelihood of various possible scenarios: an errant terrorist rocket; the debris of an Iron Dome defensive missile; a misfired Israeli missile; a targeted Israeli missile. The current consensus is that it was a Palestinian terrorist rocket that malfunctioned, as reportedly 20% of such rockets do, and landed at home in Gaza. There has been no objective assessment that points the finger at an Israeli strike.

The Palestinians have refused to produce fragments that could reveal if the rocket was Israeli, and no evidence so far has pointed to a missile having been launched there by Israel—to deliberately kill civilians or for any other reason. In fact, Israel blanketed northern Gaza with leaflets in Arabic urging its residents to flee to the south in order to avoid killing them—while the leadership in Gaza ordered them to stay, and then tried to block their safe passage south.
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Yet that lie is precisely the blood libel that Israel’s enemies—in Gaza, on the “Muslim street,” in the Arab media and on university campuses around the world—are fomenting.

The current reaction to the events in Gaza cannot be understood without taking into account the long history of blood libels and Jew-hatred. The current focus is on Gaza, but the goal of Hamas supporters is what Hamas itself proclaims in its charter: the obliteration of any nation state for the Jewish people in any part of Israel.

This conflict is not about occupation or settlements. The chant of anti-Israel protesters, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” means that the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea—all of Israel—must be free of Jews.

Antisemitism has always been based on lies. No amount of evidence, regardless of how strong, can persuade fervent Jew-haters to accept the truth.

In the weeks to come, Israeli strikes will accidentally kill civilians in Gaza, because Hamas deliberately uses Palestinian children, women, the elderly and disabled as human shields. Some are willing shields; others are pressured or forced to risk their lives to protect Hamas killers. The international law of “proportionality” allows Israel to destroy important military targets—such as Hamas leaders or rocket launchers—even though they know that a certain number of civilians may be killed or injured. The only requirement is that the military value of the target be proportional to the number of anticipated collateral deaths and injuries among civilians.

The rule of “proportionality” does not mean that Israel is permitted to kill the same number of civilians as those killed by Hamas. The rule of proportionality also depends on how “civilian” these “civilians” actually are. Israel legally has more leeway in endangering the lives of civilians who volunteer to be shields, or who are in other ways complicit with Hamas, than they would be with regard to young children or others who are completely innocent.

Do not expect, however, the blood-libeling liars of Hamas or their cheerleaders to consider these and other legal and moral distinctions. For them, every death of a Palestinian is automatically the fault of Israel, even if they are killed by an errant terrorist rocket, or while being used by Hamas as a human shield. The truth does not matter to bigots.

Publish the Names of Students and Professors Who Support Hamas Lynching and Rapes by Alan M. Dershowitz

 

• Student groups at many elite universities -- including Harvard, Yale and Columbia, CUNY -- have come out in support of Hamas at a time when its terrorists have raped, murdered and kidnapped women, toddlers, the elderly and other civilians, and have reportedly beheaded babies.

• The students who anonymously vote to support Hamas' recent attacks need not be fearful of anything but disdain and criticism. They should be willing to subject themselves to the marketplace of ideas. They should not resort to cowardly hiding behind the names of prominent organizations such as "Amnesty International at Harvard" -- one of the groups that said they "hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all" the massacres and rapes.

• Fellow students, future employers, and others should be able to judge their friends and potential employees by the views they have expressed.

• Some students who belong to these organizations argue that they do not personally support Hamas' recent barbarities. They are free to say so and to dissociate themselves from the groups they voluntarily joined. Silence in this context is acquiescence. So is hiding behind anonymity.

• Today, too many students are judged by their "identity." Identity politics has replaced meritocracy.

• Let the student newspapers, many of which are rabidly anti-Israel, publish the names of all students and faculty members who belong to groups that support and oppose Hamas. Hypothetically, if a club were formed at any of these universities that advocated rape or the lynching of African Americans, the newspapers would most assuredly publish the names of everyone associated with such a despicable group. Why is this different? Rape has become a weapon of war for Hamas, along with lynching, mutilation, mass murder and kidnapping. Expressing support for these acts, while constitutionally protected, is wrong. The answer to wrong speech isn't censorship; it is right speech, and transparency.

Student groups at many elite universities -- including Harvard, Yale and Columbia, CUNY -- have come out in support of Hamas at a time when its terrorists have raped, murdered and kidnapped women, toddlers, the elderly and other civilians, and have reportedly beheaded babies. Pictured: Pro-Hamas demonstrators in front of United Nations headquarters in New York on October 9, 2023. (Photo by Adam Gray/AFP via Getty Images)

Student groups at many elite universities -- including Harvard, Yale and Columbia, CUNY -- have come out in support of Hamas at a time when its terrorists have raped, murdered and kidnapped women, toddlers, the elderly and other civilians, and have reportedly beheaded babies. The immoral groups that support such atrocities are composed of both students and faculty members. Many of these individuals hide behind their organizations' names and refuse to identify themselves. They do not want to be held accountable in the court of public opinion for their own despicable views.

The open marketplace of ideas, which I support, allows students to hold and express these views, but it also requires transparency so that the rest of us can judge them, hold them accountable and debate them.

There are, of course, rare occasions where anonymity is essential. For example, during the civil rights period of the 1960's, identifying members of civil rights groups endangered their lives. There is, however, no such fear here. Groups that oppose Hamas have not been known to advocate violence against those who support it. To the contrary, it is pro-Israel advocates who have been threatened with and suffered from violence.

The students who anonymously vote to support Hamas' recent attacks need not be fearful of anything but disdain and criticism. They should be willing to subject themselves to the marketplace of ideas. They should not resort to cowardly hiding behind the names of prominent organizations such as "Amnesty International at Harvard" -- one of the groups that said they "hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all" the massacres and rapes. They should be prepared to defend these immoral views.

Some students who belong to these organizations argue that they do not personally support Hamas' recent barbarities. They are free to say so and to dissociate themselves from the groups they voluntarily joined. Silence in this context is acquiescence. So is hiding behind anonymity.

Fellow students, future employers, and others should be able to judge their friends and potential employees by the views they have expressed. Teachers should not grade students based on their views. That is why anonymous grading is widely employed at universities.

As a university professor for 50 years, I would not grade down a student because she supported Hamas atrocities. Nor would I befriend or employ such a student. Freedom of speech is not freedom from being held accountable for one's speech. It is interesting that most of the counter-petitions protesting Hamas's activities contain the names of students and faculty, but that is far less true of petitions that support Hamas's atrocities. That is understandable because there is no reasonable defense for what Hamas has done. Those who support Hamas should be ashamed and shamed, and those who oppose Hamas should be praised. That, too, is part of the marketplace of ideas.

Today, too many students are judged by their "identity." Identity politics has replaced meritocracy. Being judged by one's support or opposition to Hamas barbarity is more justifiable.

Let the student newspapers, many of which are rabidly anti-Israel, publish the names of all students and faculty members who belong to groups that support and oppose Hamas. Hypothetically, if a club were formed at any of these universities that advocated rape or the lynching of African Americans, the newspapers would most assuredly publish the names of everyone associated with such a despicable group. Why is this different? Rape has become a weapon of war for Hamas, along with lynching, mutilation, mass murder and kidnapping. Expressing support for these acts, while constitutionally protected, is wrong. The answer to wrong speech isn't censorship; it is right speech, and transparency.

So let the names be published. Let the despicable students and faculty members who support Hamas stand up and defend their indefensible views, and let the marketplace of ideas decide who is right and who is wrong.

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of "The Dershow" podcast.

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WATCH: Harvard’s Prof. Alan Dershowitz Debunks Challenges to Israel’s Legitimacy

The state of Israel was founded in 1948 with the approval of the United Nations. But Israel’s enemies routinely challenge the legitimacy of the Jewish State’s very existence.   Who is right based on  international law? Let’s hear from Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-harvards-prof-alan-dershowitz-debunks-challenges-to-israels-legitimacy/

Trump: Palestinians Must Earn a Two State Solution by: Alan Dershowitz

President Trump raised eyebrows when he mentioned the possibility of a one state solution.

The context was ambiguous and no one can know for sure what message he was intending to convey. One possibility is that he was telling the Palestinian leadership that if they want a two state solution, they have to do something. They have to come to the negotiating table with the Israelis and make the kinds of painful sacrifices that will be required from both sides for a peaceful resolution to be achieved. Put most directly, the Palestinians must earn the right to a state. They are not simply entitled to statehood, especially since their leaders missed so many opportunities over the years to secure a state. As Abba Eben once put it: “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

It began back in the 1930s, when Great Britain established the Peale Commission which was tasked to recommend a solution to the conflict between Arabs and Jews in mandatory Palestine. It recommended a two state solution with a tiny noncontiguous Jewish state alongside a large Arab state. The Jewish leadership reluctantly accepted this sliver of a state; the Palestinian leadership rejected the deal, saying they wanted there to be no Jewish state more than they wanted a state of their own.

In 1947, the United Nations partitioned mandatory Palestine into two areas: one for a Jewish state; the other for an Arab state. The Jews declared statehood on 1948; all the surrounding Arab countries joined the local Arab population in attacking the new state of Israel and killing one percent of its citizens, but Israel survived.

In 1967, Egypt and Syria were planning to attack and destroy Israel, but Israel preempted and won a decisive victory, capturing the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Sinai. Israel offered to return captured areas in exchange for peace, but the Arabs met with Palestinian leaders in Khartoum and issued their three infamous "no's": no peace, no recognition, and no negotiation.

In 2000-2001 and again in 2008, Israel made generous peace offers that would have established a demilitarized Palestinian state, but these offers were not accepted. And for the past several years, the current Israeli government has offered to sit down and negotiate a two state solution with no pre-conditions — not even advanced recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. The Palestinian leadership has refused to negotiate.

President Trump may be telling them that if they want a state they have to show up at the negotiating table and bargain for it. No one is going to hand it to them on a silver platter in the way that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon handed over the Gaza strip in 2005, only to see it turned into a launching pad for terror rockets and terror tunnels. Israel must get something in return: namely real peace and a permanent end to the conflict.

The Palestinian leadership’s unwillingness to come to the negotiating table reminds me of my mother’s favorite Jewish joke about Sam, a 79 year old man who prayed every day for God to let him win the New York lottery before he turns 80. On the eve of his 80th birthday, he rails against God: "All these years I've prayed to you every day asking to win the lottery. You couldn't give me that one little thing!" God responded: "Sam, you have to help me out here — buy a ticket!"

The Palestinians haven't bought a ticket. They haven't negotiated in good faith. They haven't accepted generous offers. They haven't made realistic counter proposals. They haven't offered sacrifices to match those offered by the Israelis.

Now President Trump is telling them that they have to "buy a ticket." They are not going to get a state by going to the United Nations, the European Union, or the international criminal court. They aren't going to get a state as a result of the BDS or other anti-Israel movements. They will only get a state if they sit down and negotiate in good faith with the Israelis.

The Obama Administration applied pressures only to the Israeli side, not to the Palestinians. The time has come — indeed it is long past — for the United States to tell the Palestinians in no uncertain terms that they must negotiate with Israel if they want a Palestinian state, and they must agree to end the conflict, permanently and unequivocally. Otherwise, the status quo will continue, and there will be only one state, and that state will be Israel.

The Palestinians are not going to win the lottery without buying a ticket.

Dershowitz rips Obama on synagogue slaughter 'Imagine if an Israeli soldier walked into a mosque and murdered 4 imams at prayer' “It was moral equivalence. It was the wrong statement. It had all the wrong tone. It had all the wrong content..."

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz is unloading on President Obama’s “moral equivalence” in the wake of Tuesday’s shocking terrorist attacks at a Jerusalem synagogue that left five people dead, three of whom were Americans.

The acclaimed defense attorney also accuses Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of inciting the bloodshed.

On Tuesday, terrorists stormed the synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood in West Jerusalem. Using axes, knives and guns, the terrorists savagely interrupted morning prayers, killing three rabbis, another worshiper and a police officer. Police eventually killed the two terrorists.

In his statement, President Obama condemned the attacks and said the deaths of three Americans meant shared grief between the U.S. and Israel. However, he was quick to urge all sides to renounce violence.

“Tragically, this is not the first loss of life that we have seen in recent months. Too many Israelis have died. Too many Palestinians have died,” said Obama, who urged both sides to work together to “lower tensions.”

Dershowitz said that was exactly the wrong thing to say.

“It was moral equivalence. It was the wrong statement. It had all the wrong tone. It had all the wrong content. At this point in time, you unilaterally condemn only the Palestinian Authority and Hamas for incentivizing and inciting this kind of thing. You don’t bring it together with how many Palestinians may have died because they were being used as human shields,” he said, noting that the terrorist groups are fine with the U.S. and others in the world equating their actions with those of Israel.

“Hamas is happy with moral equivalence,” Dershowitz said. “It gives them a kind of legitimacy that they don’t deserve, the kind of legitimacy that Bishop (Desmond) Tutu and Jimmy Carter had given them, but I would expect more of our president.”

President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were quick to point to point out that Abbas condemned the attack. Dershowitz said that condemnation came after great pressure from the U.S. and that Abbas deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the attacks themselves.

“Abbas is largely responsible for this,” he said. “He talked about Jews ‘infecting’ the Temple Mount. He called for Muslims to protect the Temple Mount. He basically incited this. Did he intend it? Probably not, but his words carry very great power.”

While the denunciation of the attacks by Abbas may have been grudging, Dershowitz pointed out that Hamas and Palestinians in the street made it clear they enthusiastically support such barbarism.

“After this horrible, horrible massacre, immediately there was dancing in the streets in Gaza, in Ramallah, in Bethlehem and Nablus and celebration of these murders,” he said.

“Although the great tragedy occurred in the synagogue, the most important events occurred before – the incitement – and after – the glee. How did the world respond? Spain unilaterally  voted in parliament to recognize the Palestinian State without asking them even to stop terrorism,” Dershowitz said.

However, he said the most common reaction worldwide was indifference.

“United Nations? Silence. Most of the Arab states? Silence,” he said. “We’re not seeing condemnation. We’re not seeing outrage from many of the European leaders.”

Dershowitz praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for forcefully denouncing the attacks but also for imploring Israeli citizens not to seek vengeance on their own. The international response to the murders was so tepid that Netanyahu implored world leaders to speak out. Dershowitz said if the roles were reversed, it would be a much different story.

“Can you imagine if an Israeli soldier had walked into a mosque and had murdered four imams at prayer? The entire world would be aflame about this,” he said. “We see very little condemnation (about Tuesday’s terrorist attacks). You see the usual ritual, formalistic condemnation, but you don’t see the kind of outrage that one would expect. And you don’t see the kind of outrage that one gets when Israel builds an extra bathroom or living room somewhere on the West Bank.”

The Middle East has long been viewed in the West as a problem that cannot be solved. Dershowitz said the Palestinians are undertaking a strategy to make sure it never does.

“The Palestinians are trying to turn this into a religious dispute, not a political dispute,” he said. “Political disputes can be resolved by compromise, but if you think your god has told you not to allow Jews to have a nation-state of their own … it’s very hard to compromise with that situation.”

Dershowitz said what’s worse than grisly acts of terrorism is the fact that it’s working to turn world opinion to the side of the Palestinians and others.

“Why are the Palestinians so popular today on academic campuses, at the U.N. and in European capitals?” he asked. “Because they have used terrorism over and over and over again. Nobody’s heard of the Kurds because they haven’t used terrorism to a great extent. The Kurds, there are much more of them and they are much more worthy of a state than the Palestinians and the Tibetans. But they’re getting nowhere because terrorism works, and it brings groups to the attention of the world. If we don’t stop terrorism in the Middle East, it’s coming to a theater near you because it’s an effective tactic today, unfortunately.”

World opinion has long tilted heavily against Israel, even when American presidents have vigorously defended it. Dershowitz admitted the U.S. can only do so much to reverse that, but he said there’s one thing the Obama administration can do in the coming days to prevent terrorists from scoring a major victory.

“They have to make a good deal with Iran or no deal,” he said. “You can’t make a bad deal with Iran. Iran is the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world. They’re dancing in the streets, too. If you think it’s bad to have a few terrorists with axes and guns and knives walk into a synagogue, just wait until terrorists begin to have nuclear weapons. That will happen if Iran has a decent deal that will allow it to become a threshold nuclear state.”

After Brutal Terror Attack, Dershowitz Rips CNN Anchor for ‘Parroting’ Hamas Claim That All Israelis Are Legitimate Targets (INTERVIEW)

"That's just racism and bigotry:" Professor Alan Dershowitz counters CNN anchor Ashleigh Banfield. Photo: Screenshot

Professor Alan Dershowitz, one of the most prominent advocates for Israel in the United States, as well as a leading light of Harvard University’s law school until his retirement last year, has blasted broadcaster CNN for its “determination” to “show that there is a moral equivalence between terrorists and Israel’s proportionate responses.”

Professor Dershowitz was speaking to The Algemeiner one day after he appeared on a segment with CNN anchor Ashleigh Banfield to discuss Tuesday’s terrorist atrocity at a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood. “Soldiers come in all forms,”Banfield told Dershowitz. “And when you have mandatory conscription and service in Israel, effectively the Palestinians will say, ‘it’s war against everyone,’ because everyone is a soldier.”

Dershowitz managed to respond, “Well, that’s just racism and bigotry. To say that everyone is a soldier…” before Banfield interrupted to protest, “But everybody is.”

“Not everybody is,” Dershowitz continued. “The law of war is very clear. You can’t kill a two year-old child claiming, ‘he’s going to be a soldier.’”

Dershowitz told The Algemeiner that Banfield had “parroted Hamas’ outrageous claim that every 2 year old and 90 year old in Israel is a soldier. It’s particularly ironic in the context of attack on the synagogue, because the people killed were beyond military age.”

“For her to raise this outrageous argument in the context of the synagogue shooting, it really required me to control my temper,” Dershowitz said.

Dershowitz pointed out that CNN does not make similar claims of moral equivalence in its coverage of the US-led war against the Islamic State terrorist organization. “No CNN anchor says that there’s another side to the story with ISIS  – but you hear that all the time with regard to Israel,” he said.

Dershowitz argued that CNN was much more “dangerous” than, for example, Britain’s left-wing Guardiannewspaper.

“Everyone knows The Guardian is anti-Israel, but you watch CNN and you see moral equivalence presented as balanced news. Describing an imbalanced situation as balanced is mendacious and misleading,” Dershowitz said.

Watch a video of Dershowitz’s CNN interview below:

A.Dershowitz: MET Stifled Free Exchange of Ideas About a Propaganda Opera

The Death of Klinghoffer. Photo: NewYorkCityTheatre.com

On Monday night I went to the Metropolitan Opera. I went for two reasons: to see and hear John Adams’ controversial opera, The Death of Klinghoffer; and to see and hear what those protesting the Met’s judgment in presenting the opera had to say. Peter Gelb, the head of the Met Opera, had advised people to see it for themselves and then decide.

That’s what I planned to do. Even though I had written critically of the opera—based on reading the libretto and listening to a recording—I was also critical of those who wanted to ban or censor it. I wanted personally to experience all sides of the controversy and then “decide.”

Lincoln Center made that difficult. After I bought my ticket, I decided to stand in the Plaza of Lincoln Center, across the street and in front of the protestors, so I could hear what they were saying and read what was on their signs. But Lincoln Center security refused to allow me to stand anywhere in the large plaza. They pushed me to the side and to the back, where I could barely make out the content of the protests. “Either go into the opera if you have a ticket or leave. No standing.” When I asked why I couldn’t remain in the large, open area between the protesters across the street and the opera house behind me, all I got were terse replies: “security,” “Lincoln Center orders.”

The end result was that the protesters were talking to and facing an empty plaza. It would be as if the Metropolitan Opera had agreed to produce The Death of Klinghoffer, but refused to allow anyone to sit in the orchestra, the boxes or the grand tier. “Family circle, upstairs, side views only.”

That’s not freedom of expression, which requires not only that the speakers be allowed to express themselves, but that those who want to see and hear them be allowed to stand in an area in front of, and close to, the speakers, so that they can fully participate in the marketplace of ideas. That marketplace was needlessly restricted on the opening night of The Death of Klinghoffer.

Unable to see or hear the content of the protest, I made my way to the opera house where I first registered a protest with the Met’s media person and then sat down in my fourth row seat to listen and watch the opera.

I’m an opera fanatic, having been to hundreds of Met performances since my high school years.  This was my third opera since the beginning of the season, just a few weeks ago. I consider myself something of an opera aficionado and “maven.” I always applaud, even flawed performances and mediocre operas. By any standard, The Death of Klinghoffer, is anything but the “masterpiece” its proponents are claiming it is. The music is uneven, with some lovely choruses—more on that coming—one decent aria, and lots of turgid recitatives. The libretto is awful. The drama is confused and rigid, especially the weak device of the captain looking back at the events several years later with the help of several silent passengers. There are silly and distracting arias from a British show girl who seems to have had a crush on one of the terrorists, as well as from a woman who hid in her cabin eating grapes and chocolate.  They added neither to the drama nor the music of the opera.

Then there were the choruses. The two that open the opera are supposed to demonstrate the comparative suffering of the displaced Palestinians and the displaced Jews. The Palestinian chorus is beautifully composed musically, with some compelling words, sung rhythmically and sympathetically. The Jewish chorus is a mishmash of whining about money, sex, betrayal and assorted “Hasidim” protesting in front of movie theaters. It never mentions the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, though the chorus is supposed to be sung by its survivors. The goal of that narrative chorus is to compare the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians—some of which was caused by Arab leaders urging them to leave and return victoriously after the Arabs murdered the Jews of Israel—with the systematic genocide of six million Jews. It was a moral abomination.

And it got worse. The Palestinian murderer is played by a talented ballet dancer, who is portrayed sympathetically. A chorus of Palestinian women asks the audience to understand why he would be driven to terrorism. “We are not criminals,” the terrorists assures us.

One of the terrorists—played by the only Black lead singer—is portrayed as an overt anti-Semite, expressing hateful tropes against “the Jews.” But he is not the killer. Nor, in this opera, is Klinghoffer selected for execution because he is a Jew. Instead, he is picked because he is a loudmouth who can’t control his disdain for the Palestinian cause.

At bottom The Death of Klinghoffer—a title deliberately selected to sanitize his brutal murder—is more propaganda than art. It has some artistic moments but the dominant theme is to create a false moral equivalence between terrorism and its victims, between Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups, and between the Holocaust and the self-inflicted Nakba. It is a mediocre opera, by a good composer and very bad librettist. But you wouldn’t know that from the raucous standing ovations received not only by the performers and chorus master, who deserved them, but also by the composer, who did not. The applause was not for the art. Indeed, during the intermission and on the way out, the word I heard most often was “boring.” The over-the-top standing ovations were for the “courage” displayed by all those involved in the production. But it takes little courage to be anti-Israel these days, or to outrage Jews. There were, to be sure, a few brief expressions of negative opinion during the opera, one of which was briefly disruptive, as an audience member repeatedly shouted “Klinghoffer’s murder will never be forgiven.” He was arrested and removed.

What would require courage would be for the Met to produce an opera that portrayed Mohammad, or even Yassir Arafat, in a negative way. The protests against such portrayals would not be limited to a few shouts, some wheelchairs and a few hundred distant demonstrators. Remember the murderous reaction to a few cartoons several years ago.

Coming Sunday: Alan M. Dershowitz on fighting terrorism under the rule of law

In a five-part series starting Sunday, Alan M. Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, addresses the trade-offs between civil liberties and national security.

• Employing military force against terrorists who use human shields: While the commitment to the rule of law constrains democracies in fighting terrorists who have no concern for international law, and we must fight terrorism with one hand behind our back, that does not mean that we cannot use the other hand forcefully, effectively, and legally.
• Surveillance and the right to privacy: The government is entitled to keep secret the technical aspects of our surveillance programs that give us a competitive advantage over our adversaries, and whose disclosure might provide terrorists with information useful to circumvent our legitimate efforts to keep track of their nefarious plans.
• Should terrorists who cannot be tried be detained?: Guantanamo contains several detainees who, if released, would almost certainly return to a life of terrorism. Imagine if the masked man who recently beheaded the two American journalists were captured, and a valued undercover source, who couldn't testify without blowing his cover, identified him as the killer. What should we do?
• Should terrorists be targeted for assassination?: What should a democracy, constrained by the rule of law, do if a dangerous terrorist cannot be captured, or can only be captured with undue risk to our soldiers? The U.S., UK, and Israel have opted for targeted killing. The use of drones with GPS-guided missiles has made this easier and more accurate.
• Is torture ever justified?: I am categorically opposed to torture, without exception. But I think every president would at least consider the option of torture of one terrorist, rather than permitting thousands of innocent Americans to be blown up.
  
  The author is an emeritus professor of law at Harvard University and the author of Terror Tunnels: The Case For Israel's Just War Against Hamas.

Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel`s Just War Against Hamas.

At a time when Israel is under persistent attack - on the battlefield, by international organizations, and in the court of public opinion - Alan Dershowitz presents a powerful case for Israel`s just war against terrorism. Ripped from the headlines, Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel`s Just War Against Hamas, published by leading independent digital publisher RosettaBooks, describes why Israel`s struggle against Hamas is a fight not only to protect its own citizens but for all democracies.

In Terror Tunnels, Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, author of the international and campus bestseller The Case for Israel, covers all of the hot-button issues - from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, to the rise of anti-Semitism, to the charge of war crimes, to the prospects of peace. eBook is available in the Amazon Kindle store (http://amzn.to/1rPT831) and is now available at Barnes & Noble Nook and Kobo. 

It`s a great resource book for students and faculty on campuses

Author Alan Dershowitz: How to defeat ISIS? Ask Israel

A.Dershowitz: ISIS is to America as Hamas is to Israel

President Barack Obama has rightfully condemned the ISIS beheading of American James Foley in the strongest terms. This is what he said:

"There has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so it does not spread. There has to be a clear rejection of the kind of a nihilistic ideologies. One thing we can all agree on is group like (ISIS) has no place in the 21st century. Friends and allies around the world, we share a common security a set of values opposite of what we saw yesterday. We will continue to confront this hateful terrorism and replace it with a sense of hope and stability."

At the same time that President Obama has called for an all-out war against the "cancer" of ISIS, he has regarded Hamas as having an easily curable disease, urging Israel to accept that terrorist group, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, as part of a Palestinian unity government. I cannot imagine him urging Iraq, or any other Arab country, to accept ISIS as part of a unity government.

Former President Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu have gone even further, urging the international community to recognize the legitimacy of Hamas as a political party and to grant it diplomatic recognition. It is hard to imagine them demanding that the same legitimate status be accorded ISIS.

Why then the double standard regarding ISIS and Hamas? Is it because ISIS is less brutal and violent than Hamas? It's hard to make that case. Hamas has probably killed more civilians — through its suicide bombs, its murder of Palestinian Authority members, its rocket attacks and its terror tunnels — than ISIS has done. If not for Israel's Iron Dome and the Israeli Defense Forces, Hamas would have killed even more innocent civilians. Indeed its charter calls for the killing of all Jews anywhere in the world, regardless of where they live or which "rock" they are hiding behind. If Hamas had its way, it would kill as least as many people as ISIS would.

Is it the manner by which ISIS kills? Beheading is of course a visibly grotesque means of killing, but dead is dead and murder is murder. And it matters little to the victim's family whether the death was caused by beheading, by hanging or by a bullet in the back of a head. Indeed most of ISIS's victims have been shot rather than beheaded, while Hamas terrorists have slaughtered innocent babies in their beds, teenagers on the way home from school, women shopping, Jews praying and students eating pizza.

Is it because ISIS murdered an American? Hamas has murdered numerous Americans and citizens of other countries. They too are indiscriminate in who they kill.

Is it because ISIS has specifically threatened to bring its terrorism to American shores, while Hamas focuses its terrorism in Israel? The Hamas Charter does not limit its murderous intentions to one country. Like ISIS it calls for a worldwide "caliphate," brought about by violent Jihad.

Everything we rightly fear and despise from ISIS we should fear and despise from Hamas. Just as we would never grant legitimacy to ISIS, we should not grant legitimacy to Hamas—at the very least until it rescinds its charter and renounces violence. Unfortunately that is about as likely as America rescinding its constitution. Violence, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are the sine qua non of Hamas' mission.

Just as ISIS must be defeated militarily and destroyed as a terrorist army, so too must Hamas be responded to militarily and its rockets and tunnels destroyed.

It is widely, and in my view mistakenly, argued by many academics and diplomats that there can never be a military solution to terrorism in general or to the demands of Hamas in particular. This conventional wisdom ignores the lessons of history. Chamberlain thought there could be a diplomatic solution to Hitler's demands. Churchill disagreed. History proved Churchill correct. Nazi Fascists and Japanese militarists had to be defeated militarily before a diplomatic resolution could be achieved.

So too with ISIS and Hamas. They must first be defeated militarily and only then might they consider accepting reasonable diplomatic and political compromises. Another similarity between ISIS and Hamas is that if these terrorist groups were to lay down their arms, there might be peace, whereas if their enemies were to lay down their arms, there would be genocide.

A wonderful cartoon illustrates this: at one end of the table is Hamas demanding "Death to all Jews" At the other end is Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu. In the middle sits the mediator, who turns to Netanyahu and asks: "Could you at least meet him half way?"

Image source: A.F. Branco/Legal Insurrection

No democratic nation can accept its own destruction. We cannot compromise — come half way — with terrorists who demand the deaths of all who stand in the way of their demand for a Sunni caliphate, whether these terrorists call themselves ISIS or Hamas. Both are, in the words of President Obama, "cancers" that must be extracted before they spread. Both are equally malignant. Both must be defeated on the battlefield, in the court of public opinion and in the courts of law. There can be no compromise with bigotry, terrorism or the demand for a caliphate. Before Hamas or ISIS can be considered legitimate political partners, they must give up their violent quest for a worldwide Islamic caliphate.

A.Dershowitz: Supporting Hamas is Anti-Semitic

Criticizing specific Israeli policies is certainly not anti-Semitic. Indeed many Israelis are critical of some of their nation’s policies. But support for Hamas is anti-Semitic, because Hamas’ policies and actions are based, at their core, on Jew-hatred. Yet many prominent individuals, some out of ignorance, many more with full knowledge of what they are doing, are overtly supporting Hamas. Some have even praised it. Others, like Italy’s most famous philosopher, Gianni Vattimo, are trying to raise money and provide material support to this anti-Semitic terrorist organization. Still others refuse to condemn it, while condemning Israel in the strongest terms.

Here is some of what the Hamas Charter, which remains its governing principles, says about Jews:

The enemies have been scheming for a long time. [Their] wealth [permitted them to] take over control of the world media such as news agencies, the press, publication houses, broadcasting and the like. [They also used this] wealth to stir revolutions in various parts of the globe…They stood behind the French and the Communist Revolutions…They also used the money to establish clandestine organizations which are spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies and carry out Zionist interests. Such organizations are: the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, B’nai B’rith and the like. All of them are destructive spying organizations…[T]hey stood behind World War I, so as to wipe out the Islamic Caliphate…They obtained the Balfour Declaration and established the League of Nations in order to rule the world by means of that organization. They also stood behind World War II…. They inspired the establishment of the United Nations and the Security Council to replace the League of Nations, in order to rule the world by their intermediary. There was no war that broke out anywhere without their fingerprints on it: “…

Most of these references to “the enemies” precede the establishment of Israel. The charter plainly means “the Jews” and it invokes the usual tropes of anti-Semitism and Jew hatred. Indeed, it expressly calls for the murder of Jews, citing Islamic sources for its genocidal goal:

Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!

This should not be surprising news. Hamas is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is an outgrowth of the German Nazi Party. The brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, a close ally of Adolph Hitler. It worked hand in hand with Hitler during World War II, establishing the Muslim Waffen-SS Handschar division, which committed war crimes against Jewish communities. It then helped to rescue Nazi war criminals following the defeat of Nazism and the disclosure of the Holocaust.

Nor is the charter and the origin of Hamas merely past history. Current Hamas leaders frequently invoke the “blood libel,” accusing “the Jews” of killing Christian children and using their blood for the baking of Matzo. They regard Jewish places of worship and Jewish schools, anywhere in the world, as appropriate targets for their terrorist attacks.

Some of those who support Hamas, such as Jimmy Carter and Mary Robinson, claim that they support its political goals, but not its anti-Semitic policies. (We must recognize “its legitimacy as a political actor.”)  Others, such as the Turkish foreign minister and the leaders of Qatar, support its military goals. (We support the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas “because it embraces the Palestinian cause and struggles for its people.”)  These distinctions hold no water, since Hamas’ anti-Jewish policies are central to its political and military actions. Some supporters of Hitler made the same argument, claiming that the Nazi Party and its leaders espoused good economic, educational and political policies. No reasonable person today accepts that excuse, and no reasonable person should accept the excuses offered by supporters of Hamas who claim to be able to slice the bologna so thin.

The same is true for those who argue that Hamas is preferable to ISIS or other Jihadist groups that might replace it. A similar argument was made by fascists who claimed that their parties were preferable to the Communists. The reality is that Hamas is an anti-Semitic organization, based on a Jew-hating philosophy, with the goal of destroying the nation state of the Jewish people and killing its Jewish inhabitants. It is evil personified. There is no excuse or justification for supporting Hamas, and anyone who does is supporting anti-Semitism.

Some Hamas supporters—such as those who chant “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas”—proudly acknowledge this reality. Others, such as Cornell West, who according to the American Spectator “headlined a high profile pro-Hamas demonstration,” deny it. But all are complicit, even if they are themselves Jewish or have Jewish friends. Supporting an organization that at its core is anti-Jewish and whose charter calls for the killing of all Jews is anti-Semitic in effect if not in intent. And those politicians, academics, entertainers and others who support Hamas—and there are many—must be called out and condemned, as Roger Waters of Pink Floyd has been. So must those, like Navi Pillay, the head of the United Nation’s Human Right Council, who see a moral equivalence between this anti-Semitic terrorist group and the democratic nation state of the Jewish people. She demanded that Israel share its Iron Dome system with Hamas, without condemning Hamas for using Palestinian civilians as its own Iron Dome.

Among the worst offenders is Bishop Desmond Tutu, who has a long history of anti-Semitism. He, like Carter, has urged recognition of Hamas, whose leaders he compares to Nelson Mandela. Among Tutu’s alleged “Mandela’s” with whom he has collaborated is Ahmad Abu Halabiya who has said the following:

“Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them . . . and those Americans who are like them, and those who stand by them.”

I’m quite certain the real Nelson Mandela never made any comparable statement. Yet Bishop Tutu, who refused to sit on the same stage as Tony Blair, has worked hand in hand with murderous Hamas leaders such as Halabiya.

It may be necessary to negotiate—directly or through intermediaries—with Hamas, just as one “negotiates” with kidnappers, hostage takers or extortionists. But to “recognize” their “legitimacy” as Jimmy Carter and Bishop Tutu would do is to recognize the legitimacy of anti-Semitism. Carter, Tutu and other Hamas cheerleaders may be willing to do that, but no reasonable person who hates bigotry should legitimate Hamas’ anti-Semitism or its express goal of destroying Israel and killing its Jewish inhabitants.

A. Dershowitz on "International Law" - 20 second video

Hamas' Phony Statistics on Civilian Deaths Reliable sources say half of those killed were combatants, by Alan M. Dershowitz

It's a mystery why so many in the media accept as gospel Hamas-supplied figures on the number of civilians killed in the recent war. Hamas claims that of the more than 1800 Palestinians killed close to 90% were civilians. Israel, on the other hand, says that close to half of them were combatants. The objective facts support a number much closer to Israel's than to Hamas'.

Even human rights group antagonistic to Israel acknowledge, according to aNew York Times report, that Hamas probably counts among the "civilians killed by Israel" the following groups: Palestinians killed by Hamas as collaborators; Palestinians killed through domestic violence; Palestinians killed by errant Hamas rockets or mortars; and Palestinians who died naturally during the conflict. I wonder if Hamas also included the reported 162 children who died while performing child slave labor in building their terror tunnels. Hamas also defines combatants to include only armed fighters who were killed while fighting Israelis. They exclude Hamas supporters who build tunnels, who allow their homes to be used to store and fire rockets, Hamas policemen, members of the Hamas political wing and others who work hand in hand with the armed terrorists.

Several years ago I came up with a concept which I call, the "continuum of civilianality" – an inelegant phrase that is intended to convey the reality that who is a civilian and who is a combatant is often a matter of degree. Clearly every child below the age in which he or she is capable of assisting Hamas is a civilian. Clearly every Hamas fighter who fires rockets, bears arms, or operates in the tunnels is a combatant. Between these extremes lie a wide range of people, some of whom are closer to the civilian end, many of whom who are closer to the combatant end. The law of war has not established a clear line between combatants and civilians, especially in the context of urban warfare where people carry guns at night and bake bread during the day, or fire rockets during the day and go back home to sleep with their families at night. (Interestingly the Israeli Supreme Court has tried to devise a functional definition of combatants in the murky context of urban guerrilla warfare.)

These data strongly suggest that a very large percentage of Palestinians killed are on the combatant side of the continuum.

Data published by the New York Times strongly suggest that a very large number – perhaps a majority – of those killed are closer to the combatant end of the continuum than to the civilian end. First of all, the vast majority of those killed have been male rather than female. In an Islamic society, males are far more likely to be combatants than females. Second, most of those killed are within the age range (15-40) that are likely to be combatants. The vast majority of these are male as well. The number of people over 60 who have been killed is infinitesimal. The number of children below the age of 15 is also relatively small, although their pictures have been shown more frequently than others. In other words, the genders and ages of those killed are not representative of the general population of Gaza. It is far more representative of the genders and ages of combatants. These data strongly suggest that a very large percentage of Palestinians killed are on the combatant side of the continuum.

They also prove, as if any proof were necessary to unbiased eyes, that Israel did not target civilians randomly. If it had, the dead would be representative of the Gaza population in general, rather than of the subgroups most closely identified with combatants.

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The media should immediately stop using Hamas-approved statistics, which in the past have proved to be extremely unreliable. Instead, they should try to document, independently, the nature of each person killed and describe their age, gender, occupation, affiliation with Hamas and other objective factors relevant to their status as a combatant, non-combatant or someone in the middle. It is lazy and dangerous for the media to rely on Hamas-approved propaganda figures. In fact, when the infamous Goldstone Report falsely stated that the vast majority of people killed in Operation Cast Lead were civilians and not Hamas fighters, many in Gaza complained to Hamas. They accused Hamas of cowardice for allowing so many civilians to be killed while protecting their own fighters. As a result of these complaints, Hamas was forced to tell the truth: namely that many more of those killed were actually Hamas fighters or armed policemen. It is likely that Hamas will make a similar "correction" with regard to this conflict. But that correction will not be covered by the media, as the prior correction was not.

The headline – "Most of those killed by Israel were children, women and the elderly" – will continue to be the conventional wisdom, despite its factual falsity. Unless it is corrected, Hamas will continue with its "dead baby strategy" and more people on both sides will die.

This article originally appeared on Gatestone Institute

DERSHOWITZ TO OBAMA: No, President Obama, Israel Could Not Do More to Prevent Civilian Casualties

Imagine you are the Prime Minister of Israel or the President of the United States, or the Chief-of-Staff of either Army. Your soldiers are fighting a just war to try to prevent rockets from hitting your civilians or tunnels from being used to murder and kidnap your people. Your enemy, knowing that you wish to prevent casualties among their civilians, purposely shoots at your soldiers from civilian areas. Your soldiers, caught in the midst of an ongoing fire fight, basically have two choices:  one, fire back and try to stop the enemy from killing you, while trying to avoid or minimize civilian casualties; or two, lay down your arms, because you don’t want to endanger civilians, and accept the risk that your soldiers may be killed.

The United Nations, and much of the rest of the world—sitting in the safety of peaceful areas—have condemned Israel for allowing its soldiers to try to stop the attacks on them while also trying to minimize civilian casualties.  “You can do more,” the White House has insisted.

But what more could Israel do, that would not endanger its own civilians and soldiers?  Would President Obama like to be the one who has to call the parents of an American soldier and explain to them that their son was killed because he, the Commander in Chief, had ordered the soldier not to fire back at enemy mortars that were being fired at him from behind human shields?

Israel is doing precisely what every other western democracy would do if confronted with the situation Israel now faces. Colonel Richard Kemp—a British expert on this kind of warfare—has said that Israel is doing it more carefully and with more concern for civilian life that any other country.  The Israeli military devotes considerable resources to trying to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties, while Hamas devotes its resources to trying to maximize both Israeli and Palestinian civilians.

It is worth remembering what the United States and Great Britain did during the Second World War. After German rockets were fired at London, Winston Churchill ordered the carpet bombing of Dresden, deliberately intending to kill as many civilians—men, women and children—as possible in order to weaken the morale of his enemy. The United States firebombed Tokyo killing 100,000 people and then dropped two nuclear bombs killing many more. The United States has also killed many civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo, as has Great Britain and other members of NATO.  In none of these wars did western armies take the precautions and give the warnings that Israel has undertaken.

It is unseemly and hypocritical for the western world to castigate Israel for doing exactly what it would do and has done when faced with comparable or even less serious threats.

In Israel, these moral issues are debated endlessly, among philosophers, in the media, within the military, by politicians and by the general public. There are no easy answers, except to those sitting in the safety of Washington DC, Turtle Bay, London and Paris. For Israelis, the questions are real, involving life and death decisions. How should the democratic nation balance the lives of its own civilians and soldiers against risks to the lives of enemy civilians?  Those who condemn Israel in simplistic terms should try to address some of these more nuanced questions. A reasonable moralist might answer these questions differently than Israel and other democracies have, but Israel’s answers are well within the rules of engagement employed by the United States, NATO and even the United Nations.

President Obama has recognized the difficulties faced by Israel in protecting its citizens from rockets and terror tunnels that are deliberately placed in hospitals, United Nations facilities, mosques and civilian homes. There is a considerable amount of open spaces in the Gaza Strip. Just look at population density maps rather than listening to the misstatement repeatedly parroted by the media: namely that the Gaza Strip is the most densely populated area on earth. It’s not even close.  There are cities within the Strip that are densely populated, but there are other areas—some of them quite large—in the Gaza Strip that are relatively sparsely populated. If Hamas were to fire its rockets from, and placed their terror tunnels in these open areas, there would be few civilian casualties. But it is part of Hamas’ strategy to place these lethal weapons in densely populated areas, precisely in order to maximize Palestinian civilian casualties.

Israeli soldiers and civilians should not have to pay the price for this cruel, unlawful and barbaric tactic.

Qatar, and other American “allies”, are among the villains in Gaza Alan M. Dershowitz

American allies, especially Qatar and Turkey, have been providing material support to Hamas, which the United States has listed as a foreign terrorist organization. This support includes financial, diplomatic, media and even the provision of weapons that deliberately target Israeli civilians from behind Palestinian civilians who are used as human shields. It also includes harboring war criminals, especially leaders of Hamas, who direct their followers from the safety of Doha. Without the support of Qatar and Turkey, Hamas would never have started this bloody war that has caused so much human suffering.

Qatar, which is more of a family-owned gas station than a real country, regards itself as untouchable because of its oil wealth. Its residents—they are not really citizens because there are no genuine elections or freedom of speech or religion—are the richest in the world. It can buy anything it wants, including the 2022 World Cup, several American university campuses, some of the world's greatest art, Al Jazeera television and other luxuries. It can also buy terrorist groups such as Hamas. Indeed, after Iran, which is the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism, Qatar ranks near the top of this dishonor role of death.

Any individual who provides material support to a designated terrorist group such as Hamas commits a crime under the United States Penal law and the laws of several European countries. If Hamas were ever to be convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, as it may well be, any individual who was an accessory to such crimes would be guilty as well. It is entirely fair, therefore, to describe Qatar as a criminal regime, guilty of accessory to mass murder.

In some ways Turkey is even worse. Its erratic prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has incited anti-Semitism, provoked conflict with Israel, provided material support to Hamas and undercut efforts to achieve a realistic end to the Gaza War. He has demanded that his Jewish subjects do his bidding, telling "our Jewish citizens' leaders" that they must "adopt a firm stance and release a statement against the Israeli government." He has suggested that if they fail to do so they will not be regarded as "good Turks," thus raising the old canard of "dual loyalty."

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) gives a warm welcome to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who travelled from Gaza to Turkey on an official visit in January 2012. (Image source: MEMRI)

Erdogan also recently said of Israel that "they always curse Hitler, but they now even exceed him in barbarism." And he responded to Americans who complain about the "comparisons with Hitler," by saying "You're American, what's Hitler got to do with you," forgetting that Hitler's forces killed thousands of American soldiers and civilians. He also conveniently forgets that Turkey, which remained immorally "neutral" in the war against Nazism, provided Hitler with the playbook for his genocide, by its own genocide against Armenians. As Hitler asked rhetorically when planning his genocide: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" So Hitler matters to America, as it should to Turkey, which still mendaciously denies that it committed genocide against the Armenians.

Yet it was Qatar and Turkey to which Secretary of State John Kerry turned in his efforts to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease fire. This not only infuriated Israel, which considers these two countries as accessories to Hamas' war crimes, but also Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, which also see Qatar and Turkey as allies of Hamas and enemies of moderate Arab states.

The time has come for the United States and the international community to reassess the status of Qatar and Turkey. These two countries have become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. A nation that hosts Hamas leaders and finances their terrorism should not also host the World Cup. Nor should American universities send their faculty and students to a nation complicit in terrorism that has taken the lives of many Americans as well as Israelis.

Turkey's role in NATO must also be reevaluated. Membership in this organization entails certain responsibilities, and Turkey has failed in these responsibilities. They have become untrustworthy partners in the quest for peace.

It is a truism that we, as a nation, must deal with devils, because men and women are not angels. I do not fault Secretary of State Kerry for trying to use Qatar and Turkey to pressure Hamas into accepting a deal, although the deal they ultimately came up with was a bad one. My point is that Qatar's wealth and Turkey's size should not preclude us from telling it as it is: Qatar and Turkey are among the worst villains in the Gaza tragedy. Nor should we reward such villains, and such complicit in war crimes, by international gifts, such as the World Cup. Both Qatar and Turkey should be treated as pariahs unless and until they stop becoming state sponsors, supporters and facilitators of terrorism.

How selective body counts incite more violence by Alan M. Dershowitz

The media has obsessively counted every dead body in the conflict between Hamas and Israel. They rarely explain why so many more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed: Hamas does not allow Palestinian civilians into their shelters, while using civilian areas from which to fire their rockets; Israel, on the other hand, devotes its resources to building shelters and Iron Dome protection. Put another way, while Israel uses shelters and Iron Dome to protect its civilians, Hamas uses its civilians to protect its rockets and its terrorists. A widely circulated cartoon makes this point effectively:

Recently, supporters of Hamas have argued that to say that Hamas uses civilians as human shields is a manifestation of racism and an attempt to dehumanize Palestinians. But it is Hamas' own leaders who have long boasted of this tragic reality. Listen to Fathi Hammad, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council:

"For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: 'We desire death like you desire life.'"

Ban-Ki Moon—who is not known for a pro-Israel bias—recently confirmed what every objective observer knows to be true: that Hamas uses hospitals and schools as shields from which to launch rocket attacks against Israeli civilians—a double war crime. Here are his words:

"We condemn the use of civilian sites – schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities - for military purposes."

He was referring, of course, to Hamas, since Israel does not use such civilian facilities to fire rockets. That is why more Palestinians than Israelis have died in recent weeks.

During a two day period this past week while dozens of Palestinians and several Israelis were killed, the media failed to report that in neighboring Syria, 700 Arabs and Muslims were killed in just two days of fighting. This constitutes only a tiny fraction of the 160,000 people killed in Syria during the ongoing civil war. According to theBritain-Based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 53,978 civilians have been killed including 8,607 children and 5,586 women. Many if not most of these deaths were deliberate—part of calculated efforts on both sides of the conflict to maximize civilian casualties.

Yet this body count has received little notice compared to the far smaller body count in Israel and Gaza. Why is this? Is it because when Arabs and Muslims deliberately kill other Arabs and Muslims, that deserves less attention than when Israelis kill Arabs and Muslims, even in self-defense and in an effort to prevent the murder of their own civilians? If so, this is racism pure and simple, and the application of a noxious double standard. The lives of all human beings have worth, and the death of Arabs and Muslims at the hands of other Arabs and Muslims deserve as much media coverage as the deaths of Arabs and Muslims that are caused by Israel's efforts to protect its own civilians.

The media's exclusive focus on the death toll in Gaza—without explaining that it is largely Hamas' fault and part of its media strategy—incites hatred and anti-Semitism around the world. It has incited violence against Jews and Jewish institutions in many cities. Much of this violence comes from radicals on the hard left and from radical Islamists. But a recent incident in Italy shows that bigoted hate can come from the mouths of intellectuals as well as the fists of rabble rousers. Gianni Vattimo, who has been called Italy's most famous philosopher, recentlyannounced that he would personally, "like to shoot those bastard Zionists," calling them "a bit worse than the Nazis". He said he was planning to launch a fundraising campaign to buy better rockets for Hamas so that this Jew-hating group can kill more Zionists, by which he means Jewish Israelis. He urged European volunteers to join Hamas and fight alongside of them against Israel, as volunteers fought against Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

If Vattimo is indeed Italy's most famous philosopher, I cry for the current state of philosophy in a nation that has contributed so much to that field over the millennia. Vattimo reminds me of the intellectual thugs—some of them "eminent" philosophers who provided academic cover and justification for the fascist abuses of Hitler and Mussolini. It is interesting, and perhaps relevant, that Vattimo is a follower of Martin Heidegger, a philosopher who joined the Nazi Party and provided cover for its anti-Semitic policies. Hamas, after all, is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, which actively supported Hitler during World War II. It is also interesting that Vattimo, who vociferously supports gay rights, would have such hatred for the one country in the Middle East that accords equal rights to gays and be so supportive of Hamas which punishes gays by torture and execution. Obviously his hatred for the nation state of the Jewish people runs deeper than his support for gay rights.

It is a crime under the law of the United States and several European countries to provide material support to designated terrorist groups, of which Hamas is one. Vattimo has committed this crime and might well be banned from travel to the United States and other countries or arrested if he travels to countries that have such laws.

The media has a moral obligation to tell the whole truth when it shows the pictures of the dead and counts the bodies on each side. If it fails in this obligation, it becomes complicit in the sins and crimes of bigots such as Vattimo and in the war crimes of Hamas.

Alan Dershowitz's latest book is "Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law".