Lori Lowenthal Marcus
American Thinker
2/12/2012
When Professor Alan Dershowitz spoke to hundreds of pro-Israel supporters at the University of Pennsylvania last week, many understood him to be simply providing a broad-strokes counter-message to the anti-Israel Penn BDS (boycotts of, divestment from and sanctions against Israel) conference which began the next day on the same campus.
But while Dershowitz was there in the ostensible role of “lover of Israel because I am a liberal Democrat,” a close listening and gentle unpacking of many of his standard lines reveal more nuanced positions relating to Israel than many typically understand him to espouse. The nuances are very important, especially because they come from so committed a tribunal of the liberal left.
Indeed, while the left believes Dershowitz to be reflexively and unquestioningly pro-Israel, the right frequently sees him as reflexively pro-Obama Democrat and rigidly anti-“settlements.” But within minutes of the start of a short press conference preceding the official events at Penn, Dershowitz angrily denounced Media Matters, an entity closely aligned — and, in his view, that alignment may prove fatal to the election — with the Democratic party, and firmly rejected a straight-line “the settlements are the problem” position…
The article continues at the American Thinker.
Update: Alan Dershowitz: Media Matters could become Rev. Wright of 2012 for Obama
…“Well I think if swing voters in the pro-Israel community had any idea how extreme Media Matters was on issues of Israel and supporters of Israel, they would regard Media Matters as another, you know, Rev. Wright,” Dershowitz told The Daily Caller.
“And for many, many in the pro-Israel community, it would be a game changer.”
Dershowitz went so far as to suggest that Media Matters’s rhetoric on Israel, particularly from Media Matters Action Network senior fellow M.J. Rosenberg, is similar to what one would find on a neo-Nazi website.
“When I started reading their stuff it sounded like the kind of stuff you see on neo-Nazi websites,” Dershowitz said. “Or on Hezbollah-supporter websites. It is so extremist. The thing that shocked me is that anybody regarded it as mainstream.”
Media Matters did not respond to a request by TheDC for comment…
