Free Republic

In the latest chapter of a fierce academic feud, Alan M. Dershowitz, the celebrity Harvard Law School professor, tried to pressure the University of California Press not to publish a book critical of Israel that also attacked his scholarship. The press is publishing the book despite Dershowitz's efforts, but with significant changes. The book will no longer include author Norman G. Finkelstein's claim that Dershowitz did not write, ''The Case for Israel," nor will it use the word ''plagiarize" in its argument that the Harvard law professor inappropriately borrowed from another work, according to the director of the press. An...

Publication of The Case for Israel has made me the target of vicious personal attacks. A systematic effort to discredit the book, and me, has been undertaken by a well-organized group of Israel bashers led by Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and Alexander Cockburn. As soon as the book reached the bestseller lists and began to get good reviews around the country, this triumvirate went to work. They had a model for their attack going back 20 years. The mode of attack is consistent. Chomsky selects the target and directs Finkelstein to probe the writings in minute detail and conclude...

The Case Against Jordan By Alan Dershowitz Jerusalem Post Online Edition Oct 7, 2003 Jordan is the West's favorite Arab nation. And for good reason, since it is the best of a generally bad lot. Most westerners admired King Hussein, adore his best-selling widow Queen Noor, and respect his son, King Abdullah. US President George W. Bush recently, and appropriately, praised King Abdullah for his devotion to peace in the region. No one has to write "The Case for Jordan," as I have had to write The Case for Israel. But any fair comparison between the Middle East's most reviled...

It might be best not to invite DePauw University professor Norman Finkelstein and Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School to the same dinner party anytime soon. Finkelstein, the author of several controversial books on the Middle East and the Holocaust, has baldly accused the law professor of plagiarizing in portions of Dershowitz's recently published "The Case for Israel." The always diverting and generally unreliable Nation magazine writer Alexander Cockburn has joined the fray in a just-published diatribe, "Alan Dershowitz, Plagiarist: Will Lawrence Summers Take Action?" You can read their indictment of Dershowitz on Finkelstein's website, www.normanfinkelstein.com. Before letting the fur...

A DePaul University professor has charged Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz with committing plagiarism in his recent bestselling book The Case for Israel—an accusation that has set off a furious back-and-forth about what does and does not constitute plagiarism. Norman G. Finkelstein first accused Dershowitz of plagiarism last Wednesday, when both professors were on a talk show called “Democracy Now!” to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The charge has also surfaced in the October edition of The Nation, in a column called “Alan Dershowitz, Plagiarist,” which cites Finkelstein’s research. In an interview this weekend, Finkelstein accused Dershowitz of “wholesale...

Dershowitz V. Dershowitz By David Hornik on 10/04/03 Undoubtedly Alan Dershowitz’s new book The Case for Israel deserves the praise it’s been getting. In it Dershowitz draws on his knowledge of international law, advocate’s reasoning skills, and passion for justice to refute all the standard lies and distortions about Israel that have been repeated so often by the Arab world and the liberal media that they now have the status of facts in Europe and much of America. The book could be even stronger, though, if Dershowitz himself didn’t suffer some lapses in the direction of moral equivalency and mushy...

On MSNBC’s Scarborough Country on 8 September 2003, renowned appellate lawyer, Harvard Law professor, and author Alan Dershowitz said: "I will give $10,000 to the PLO…if you can find a historical fact in my book that you can prove to be false." The book Dershowitz refers to is his latest work The Case For Israel. Author and professor Norman Finkelstein takes him on and charges that Dershowitz makes numerous factual errors in his book. Finkelstein teaches at DePaul University and is the author of four books including The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering. TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN:...