Posted on 01/12/2007 12:44:44 PM PST by presidio9
Harvard law professor and lawyer Alan Dershowitz has labeled former President Jimmy Carter a coward for refusing to debate him over Carter's controversial new book.
Carter will visit Brandeis University to discuss his book on Palestine but won't debate academic Dershowitz as originally proposed.
Will You Read Book?
"It's the height of cowardice," said Dershowitz. "He released this book saying he wanted to spark a debate and now he refuses to do just that."
In an opinion piece in the Boston Globe Dershowitz also called Carter a "hypocrite" for telling Brandies officials he would not debate Dershowitz.
He also wrote, "Jimmy Carter isn't brave for beating up on Israel. He's a bully."
A Carter spokeswoman and university officials say Carter will speak for about 15 minutes and then answer questions for 45 minutes during the visit, tentatively scheduled for January 23.
Some students and faculty had objected when the speaking invitation to Carter, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, suggested the debate with Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor who has disparaged the book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." They said Carter should be invited to campus without conditions.
Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said Carter looks forward to the opportunity to having a dialogue with everyone at Brandeis. She said Carter has set no conditions and would answer as many questions as possible.
Congileo said the visit to the campus at the Waltham, Massachusetts campus of Brandeis will be Carter's first to a university to discuss the book.
Brandeis is a nonsectarian university founded by the American Jewish community. About half its students are Jewish.
And traitor.
And those are his more positive qualities.
I dunno. I'll believe you though. But I know that Dershowitz did say, that lawyers have the ethical right to lie in court. So did some law "professor" at Northwestern "Law" School, who wrote about it in a book.
It would have been cool if he said the same thing back in '80.
I would love to see it happen.
No, being gay is an active choice in terms of behavior.
Environmental predispositions can make things challenging but don't force folks to do homosexual behaviors.
And denial about the idiocies of homosexual life is not at all the same thing as denial about the holocaust.
But I think your question was satire, right?
You're probably right.
But I'd still love to see the effort and publicity from it.
That and wearing T-shirts about the killer bunny scaring pooooh lil ol Jimmuh would be priceless.
How a seventh-rate academic rises in the world. At least she is better looking than Cindy Sheehan.
High praise for Carter’s work -- and not inconsiderable financial support -- also comes from the United Arab Emirates. In 2001, Carter even traveled to the country to accept the Zayed International Prize for the Environment, named for Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the late UAE potentate and former president-for-life. Having claimed his $500,000 purse, Carter enthused that the “award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahyan.” Carter also hailed the UAE as an “almost completely open and free society” -- a surreal depiction of a rigidly authoritarian country where the government handpicks a select group of citizens to vote and strictly controls the editorial content of the newspapers and where Islamic Shari’a courts judge “sodomy” punishable by death. (To appreciate the depth of Carter’s cynicism, one need only compare his gushing encomia to the emirates with his likening of Israel, the most modern and democratic country in the entire Middle East, with the racist “apartheid” of South Africa.)
On top of these official honors, Carter was offered a forum at the Abu Dhabi-based Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow Up, the country’s official “think-tank.” For his part, Carter declared his intention to forge a “partnership” with the center; in a 2002 letter, Carter praised its efforts to “promote peace, health, and human rights around the world.” Inconveniently for Carter, the center has since become famous for a different reason: It has repeatedly played host to anti-Semitic speakers who have denied the Holocaust, supported terrorism, and alleged an international conspiracy of Jews and Zionists to dominate the world. (Harvard University, in contrast to Carter’s enthusiasm for Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, rejected a $2.5 million from the ruler in 2004 due to his ties to the Zayed Center.)
Nor does this exhaust the list of Carter’s backers in the Arab world. Still other supporters include Sultan Qaboos bin Said, who sits atop Oman’s absolute monarchy. An occasional host to Carter, the sultan has also made generous contributions to his center. Prior to inviting Carter for a “personal visit” in 1998, the sultan pledged $1 million to the Carter Center, promising additional support in the future. Similarly, Morocco’s Prince Moulay Hicham Ben Abdallah, the second in line to the kingdom’s throne, has in the past partnered with Carter on the center’s initiatives.
On its face, there is nothing objectionable about these contacts. What has raised critics’ eyebrows is Carter’s immense chutzpah: In securing the financial support of assorted Arab leaders, Carter has gradually come to parrot their anti-Israel political agenda -- even as he styles himself as a dispassionate mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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