November 13, 2008
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported this story a few days ago, which apparently never made it to the US mainstream media: how a right wing supporter of Israel, Alan Dershowitz, the famous Harvard lawyer, convinced Barak Obama to shun Jimmy Carter at the DNC convention, presumably due to Carter advocacy for the Palestinian people through his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, and his statements about the siege of Gaza, which he called a “human rights abomination.” We all witnessed Jimmy Carter’s brief humble trek across the stage to applause, then disappear, never to be seen again.
Dershowitz claims he is a liberal Democrat but if a liberal Democrat can support the inhumane treatment and suffering of any people, what is he, really? About Carter, there are no doubts that he is a statesman and humanitarian, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his worldly efforts to bring peace and democracy to foreign peoples. Dershowitz, by contrast, deserves not to be mentioned in the same sentence with Jimmy Carter.
This episode leads us to ask: is Obama, like Dershowitz, a double-standard Democrat? The Middle East waits to find out.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Alan Dershowitz says he helped convince Barack Obama to keep Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention.
“I pushed him very hard to make that decision,” Dershowitz said in an interview with Shalom TV. “Barack Obama had to make a choice between his Jewish supporters and his anti-Israel supporters like Jimmy Carter, and he did not choose Jimmy Carter. And that was an embarrassment for Jimmy Carter and a show of disrespect.”
“It was a good decision, a wise decision, a moral decision,” the Harvard Law professor added.
(snip)
In the interview, Dershowitz also said he believes that Obama’s support in the pro-Palestinian community could make it easier to advance the peace process.
The fact that there are some in the pro-Palestinian community who like him (Obama) may be a positive thing–that he can reach out to both communities and be an honest broker who, without compromising Israel’s security, can facilitate a kind of peace that will be both in the best interests of Israel and the best interests of the Palestinian people.
Did Dershowitz actually say that? Let’s get oriented here to just who Dershowitz is and just what his actions have been on behalf of peace in the Middle East:
Despite Protest, Dershowitz Funds Occupation
NYers held a boisterous 3rd protest calling for a boycott of Israeli settlement magnate Leviev, as Alan Dershowitz shopped there.
By Adalah-NY
New York, NY, Dec. 8 – Wealthy Madison Avenue holiday shoppers were greeted Saturday afternoon by boisterous music and dancing, as 60 New Yorkers protested in a growing campaign to boycott Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev over his settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Participants performed a joyous dabke, a traditional Palestinian dance, and chanted to music from the eight-piece Rude Mechanical Orchestra. During the protest, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz entered LEVIEV New York and emerged to jeers as he displayed a LEVIEV shopping bag to the crowd.
Alan Dershowitz is fooling no one.
But that Obama would obsequiously bend to Dershowitz’s demands to exclude Jimmy Carter from the DNC convention does not augur well for a future Middle East peace agreement during the Obama administration.
