The Warped Morality of a Warmonger: Why Alan Dershowitz is Wrong on Israel’s ‘Rights’

by Nima Shirazi

December 22, 2011

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Nima Shirazi is a political commentator from New York City. His analysis of United States policy and Middle East issues, particularly with reference to current events in Iran, Israel, and Palestine, can be found in numerous other online and print publications, as well as his website, WideAsleepInAmerica.com. He is a contributing columnist and newsletter editor for Foreign Policy Journal. Read more articles by Nima Shirazi.
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com

23 Responses to The Warped Morality of a Warmonger: Why Alan Dershowitz is Wrong on Israel’s ‘Rights’

BuzzK
December 22, 2011 at 5:23 pm
The author left off: “prolific racist” “hate-mongering Islamophobe” and “epic hypocrite.”
A former scholar who has let his obscene passions overwhelm him and out him as a pathetic bigot.
hamid
December 23, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Dershowitz, is realistic. This article is loaded with misrepresentations, and venom. Dershowitz is not wrong on Israel’s right to defend herself from the evil axis, Iran Ayatollahs, and the Jishadist everywhre. Dershowitz is right on target. See this link and understand what this author,Nima Shirazi, is defending: “Death to America” chants in Iran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92myDzAFgU4
And this recent Dec. 15, 2011 video:
Jordanian Sheik Nader Tamimi, Mufti of the Palestinian Liberation Army, to the West: We Will Restore the Caliphate and You Will Pay the Jizya “or Else We Will Bring the Sword to Your Necks”
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3238.htm
- Jeremy R. Hammond
  December 23, 2011 at 3:15 pm
  Hamid, please illustrate a single “misrepresentation” from Mr. Shirazi’s article.
Hamid
December 23, 2011 at 11:35 pm
In short Mr. Hammond,
This article does not have only a slew of misrepresentations and falsehoods but also is out of context and misleading. It also shows a vicious intention to demolish Dershowitz because one of his expertises is criminal defense and criminal defendants thus sought his advice. Dershowitz in all the cases cited by Shirazi was hired as a consultant not as their attorney. And he has never “worked tirelessly” to defend real criminals or child rape. Adolf Eichman too had Robert Servatius as his defense lawyer. All the prosecuted neo-Naziz in Canada found in Doug Christie a very effective defense lawyer. Why doesn’t Shiraz blame Christie and Servatius for defending obvious criminals? By focusing on Dershowitz, Shiraz shows his naked bias, which surely weakens his case, if he ever had one.
However, this whole false characterization of Dershowitz have nothing to do with the statement of Dershowitz regarding Israel’s legal, moral and political right to defend her citizens from vicious mad men, killers/terrorist Hamas/Hizaballah proxies of Iran who for years openly proclaim statements that their goal is to ‘wipe Israel of the Map’ conveniently omitting the fact that these terrorists hide behind children, old man and women and stoop to barbarism.
Further this statement “one can simply read his justifications for the murder of civilians, as long as they’re Arabs and/or Muslims.” is false. Check Shirazi’s own citation. And to cite the Dersh, is beyond the pale! And “preemptive attack” is legal, only logical and has always been so. Who is in the right mind would wait for an enemy to attack knowing so? You? On “preemptive strikes” Shiraz doesn’t know what he is talking about. There is a customary right of “anticipatory self-defense” under international law. This goes well beyond Article 51 of the UN Charter and finds its sources in the 17th and 18th century, with the words of Hugo Grotius and Emmerich de Vatel. Article 51 of the UN Charter does not overrise the customary rights of anticipatory self-defense. With the advent of nuclear threats and Islamic terrorism, anticipatory self-defense has a far greater importance now than it had then because, simply stated, “international law is not a suicidal pact” in the words of Louis René Beres.
In addition, while it is true that the world raised hell when the Israelis erased the Osiraq nuclear reactor in Iraq, the author fails to mention that when the smoke evaporated and a few years later, the world couldn’t have enough good words to thank the Israelis for doing so including rational, kind, informed and peaceful Arabs and or Muslims!
I would note that one can only deduce that it is apt to call Shirazi’s diatribe and it seems this website too: “The Warped Morality of Warmongers” since what he et al herein do is precisely defend terrorism and hatred. Lumped in the same hornet’s nest with Richard Falk and others, you lose all credibility.
Anybody who’s walking on clouds is apt to be carried away. — Franklin P. Jones (1906-????)
AND ONE CAN SAY a lot MORE, BUT THIS WILL SUFFICE. Indeed as long as Shirazi uses fake references about Dershowitz, it is not worth the time and attention of anyone who cares for truth and peace.
Peace,
- Jeremy R. Hammond
  December 24, 2011 at 2:13 am
  Hamid, while charging Mr. Shirazi with misrepresentations, you are guilty with quite a lot of your own. Israel has a right to self-defense. It does not have a right to violate international law and international humanitarian law, to commit aggression and war crimes, to collectively punish an entire civilian population, etc. You misrepresent Israel’s criminal actions as “self-defense”. As for Iran, the “wipe Israel off the map” claim is a fabrication of Western media propaganda. Mr. Shirazi’s comments on the so-called “preemptive” warfare are right on, and it’s actually you who doesn’t know what you’re talking about. There is no right to “anticipatory” self-defense. There is a right to self-defense against armed attack, period. This so-called “preemptive” war, actually “preventive” war, is merely a euphemism for “aggression”, “the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within it the accumulated evil of the whole”, as defined at Nuremberg. Applied to the example, Israel has no “right” to bomb Iran, which is not threatening Israel with armed attack. On Osirak, you’re wrong there, too. It was as a direct consequence of that act of aggression that was in violation of international law and undermined the NPT regime that Iraq determined to move its program “underground”, so to speak, and try to develop a nuclear weapon as a deterrent to any further such acts of aggression.
Hamid
December 24, 2011 at 5:33 am
Your denial of the evidence [Ahmadinejad calling for "wiping Israel of the map"] and your continued shifting from issue to issue show that you are incapable of sustaining any serious conversation on ANY TOPIC.
See Associated Press:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hLDjGdJC0Q
And here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9zcElqetqk&skipcontrinter=1
See also New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/world/africa/26iht-iran.html
- Jeremy R. Hammond
  December 24, 2011 at 5:54 am
  It’s a fabrication.
  http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/08/26/turning-back-from-the-point-of-no-return/
  You know, repeating lies over and over doesn’t make them true.
Hamid
December 24, 2011 at 6:28 am
Mr. Hammmond:
You wrote: “You know, repeating lies over and over doesn’t make them true.”
Do look deep in the mirror.
Farewell,
Farhad
December 24, 2011 at 6:32 am
Mr. Hammmond:
You wrote: “You know, repeating lies over and over doesn’t make them true.”
Do look deep in the mirror.
Farewell,
Fatima
December 24, 2011 at 6:33 am
Mr. Hammmond:
You wrote: “You know, repeating lies over and over doesn’t make them true.”
Do look deep in the mirror.
Farewell,
- Nima Shirazi
  December 26, 2011 at 4:09 am
  Whoops! Looks like the troll who’s been hitting up multiple sites that have posted this article of mine accidentally revealed himself as a phony by posting the same comment under different Iranian sounding names in short succession (y’know, for “authenticity”). Hilarious.
  Incidentally, I have already responded to this troll’s comments over at <Media With Conscience.
  No need to repeat them here.
  - HamidFatimaFarhad
    December 26, 2011 at 4:49 pm
    Shirazi, the phoney and vacuous person here is you. It is not about the name but the content of you false and hateful article. And get real!
    This is not about the name, Right or Left, but about integrity, reality and facts, that which you severely lack thus resort to triviality and sources that have legs or substance. Worse, you also choose to remain in denial because of the hatred in you that eclipses rationality and become blind, deaf and dumb.
    See these video’s again and again. Use a magnifying glass if you can’t seed. But I am afraid that even if truth hits you in the head, you still will not get it!
    See Videos:
    Nima Shirazi, is defending: “Death to America” chants in Iran
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92myDzAFgU4
    And this recent Dec. 15, 2011 video:
    Jordanian Sheik Nader Tamimi, Mufti of the Palestinian Liberation Army, to the West: We Will Restore the Caliphate and You Will Pay the Jizya “or Else We Will Bring the Sword to Your Necks”
    http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3238.htm
  - HamidFatimaFarhad
    December 26, 2011 at 11:48 pm
    In addition, let it be known that I give infinitely more credence to a single paragraph written by professor Louis René Beres and any of the listed Board members of MEMRI than to the verbal diarrhea generated by Shirazi. The French have a name for the likes of Shirazi: they use to call them chieurs d’encre, quite appropriately.
    - Jeremy R. Hammond
      December 27, 2011 at 1:09 am
      Hamid, if you would like to challenge Nima’s argument on the basis of fact and logic, you are welcome to do so. I notice you haven’t.
      - HamidFatimaFarhad
        December 27, 2011 at 10:04 pm
        Thank you for your invitation to continue this debate but I am afraid there is no point in doing so as both of you deny the evidence, facts, and lack simple common sense! To say that anyone is “enthusiastic” about torture is reflective of Shirazi sick mind.
        So long,
      - Jeremy R. Hammond
        December 27, 2011 at 11:53 pm
        To deny that there are people in America–Dick Cheney, for example–who are enthusiastic about torture is pretty ignorant. I’d observe that once again rather than addressing any facts or logic, you merely employ ad hominem argumentation. I invite you to be reasonable. If you refuse to be, you’re not welcome here.
      - Hamid
        December 28, 2011 at 4:35 am
        Jeremy,
        You wrote: “To deny that there are people in America–Dick Cheney, for example–who are enthusiastic about torture is pretty ignorant.”
        Do you hear yourself? How can you say such a thing? Are you for real? might it be that you are ‘enthusiastic’ to defame Americans and any reasonable human being? How can any one be “enthusiastic” about torture? And Dick Cheney is never “enthusiastic” about torture, the ignorant here is you!
      - Jeremy R. Hammond
        December 28, 2011 at 6:42 am
        Hamid, you have got to be kidding.
HamidFatimaFarhad
December 26, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Correction FOR Shirazi:
This is not about the name, Right or Left, but about integrity, reality and facts, that which you severely lack thus resort to triviality and sources that have NO legs or substance.
Hamid
December 28, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Jeremy and Shirazi et al,
Please, do illustrate to us how anyone who is a “torture enthusiast” according to the second and third words of this mostly false and hateful, poisonous article by Mina Shirazi demonstrate so in Western societies let alone by Dershowitz or Cheney per Jeremy?
Indeed it does so ‘perennial’[ly] FOR at least the last century in the barbaric, backward despotic regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Syria,Iran and its proxies, Hamas, Salafis, Fatah, Muslim brotherhoods, collectively called islamoemoManiacs?
Here are just a few examples of “torture enthusiast” in Iran, for the rest of the IslamoManiacs Google YouTube etc, in case you didn’t notice, Jeremy et al and there are plenty such examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfFrnQR2TxU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7aLxywU-88&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZF9Zs9AYl8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d90bwM4No_M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0XoJqjDXP8&feature=related
But let me repeat, I fear that even if truth hits you [Jeremy, Shirazi et al] in the head, you choose to harbor hatred and denial v. truth, historical facts, reality, love and peace, for some odd reason. Can you et al free your mind of that sever hatred that is inhabited in every cell of your body and soul? Sadly, it seems you chose to keep your mind obtuse and obstinate.
“There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark” Hamlet, by William Shakespeare.
– think over
Reread and see videos above and in the rest of my posting herein, you might get it!
The following link may refresh and heal your delusional and hateful mind; you may finally be capable of realizing who and what you and Shirazi et al are truly defending when you falsely demonize those who at the end result defend your own freedom:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Death+to+America+Ahamadinejad+&oq=Death+to+America+Ahamadinejad+&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=35367l44637l0l46577l18l18l2l14l16l0l206l396l0.1.1l2l0
H
- Jeremy R. Hammond
  December 29, 2011 at 4:14 am
  If you’d like a reply, you’ll have to post a coherent comment rather than gibberish.
  - Hamid
    December 29, 2011 at 4:29 am
    I do not expect a truthful reply from you. You have proven my case that you are nothing short of hateful, and terminally delusional! May you see the light at the end of the day, so long!
David Edwards
January 1, 2012 at 2:56 am
If anyone wants to know Dershowitz stance on Iran I suggest reading the chapter on Iran in his book “The Case against Israel Enemies”
One point I disagree with Dershowitz is Osriak strike. He claims only one person died yet i dont think he provides any reference for that claim