Law Professors, Racism

A Response To Joe Patrice

The Harvard Law professor responds to an earlier Above the Law article.

By Professor Alan Dershowitz  
on
(Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images for Hulu)

(Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images for Hulu)

UPDATE: Joe responds to this post here.

Joe Patrice’s nasty personal attack against me (“time to up his meds”) is so filled with misstatements, omissions and flat-out lies that it disserves your readers. Let me begin with the headline alleging that I am sticking up for Bannon. I actually authored a column about Bannon titled “Bannon’s Not an Anti-Semite.  But He is an Anti-Muslim, Anti-Woman Bigot.” I wrote:

I do not support the appointment of Steve Bannon as president elect Donald Trump’s chief strategist. But nor do I support accusing Bannon of being an anti-Semite, based on the evidence I have seen…. Both Bannon and Breitbart have made bigoted statements about Muslims, women and others, which I do not condone. That is why I do not support Bannon, even though I do not think he’s an anti-Semite. Bigotry against any group should be disqualifying for high office.

Does that sound like standing up for Bannon?

Then Patrice attacks me for telling the truth about Black Lives Matter as an organization. As he knows, I strongly support the principles of Black Lives Matter and have devoted my career to advancing civil rights. I have criticized the Black Lives Matter organization’s platform for singling out only one country in the entire world for condemnation: Israel. The platform describes Israel as “an apartheid state” and argues that, by providing aid to Israel, the United States is “complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people.” The word “genocide” was invented to characterize the deliberate murder of six million Jews by the Nazis. I strongly believe that calling Israel “genocidal” is a blatant act of anti-Semitism and that Black Lives Matter is responsible for what is in its official platform. I will continue to support the organization, only if and when it removes that blood libel from its platform.

I am not alone in condemning the anti-Semitism in the Black Lives Matter platform—the platform has been denounced by Jewish leaders across the political spectrum—including the Union for Reform Judaism, Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council, and the Anti-Defamation League. Your readers can read my complete take on the Black Lives Matter platform in my Boston Globe op-ed.

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Patrice also condemns me for pointing out that the appointment of Keith Ellison as Chair of the DNC would be applauded by Hamas and other anti-Semitic groups. Congressman Ellison has apologized for his support of the virulent anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, and I do not have any reason to doubt that his apology is sincere and that he does not hold Farrakhan’s abhorrent views about Jews. But the fact remains that Ellison was involved in the work of the Nation of Islam. Ellison did much more than simply march with Farrakhan, as Patrice erroneously reports. Among other things, it’s been reported that he stood on stage with Khalid Abdul Muhammad as Muhammad said “if words were swords, the chests of Jews, gays and whites would be pierced” and that he helped sponsor a talk by Stokely Carmichael at the University of Minnesota Law School on “Zionism: Imperialism, White Supremacy or Both?” It is fair to raise questions about Ellison’s associations.

Ellison’s affiliation with the Nation of Islam will lead some in that anti-Semitic organization to support Ellison’s candidacy for chair of the DNC. But just because anti-Semites support Ellison does not mean Ellison is anti-Semitic. In my MSNBC interview I was making a similar point about Bannon—just because some of his supporters are anti-Semitic does not mean that Bannon himself is. This is not to equate Bannon with Ellison (as I have said, Bannon does not belong in the White House), but to make the point that anti-Semitism exists on both the “alt-right” and the “hard left” and to emphasize that it must be condemned in equal measure regardless of its source.

Finally, Patrice cites as evidence of Bannon’s anti-Semitism a headline in Breitbart calling Bill Kristol a “renegade Jew.” But, as Patrice well knows, that article and headline were written not by Bannon but by David Horowitz, a right-wing Jew who was criticizing Kristol for not supporting Trump. I have not overlooked this article—indeed I quoted it in my recent column—but it is simply not evidence of Bannon’s anti-Semitism.

The Above the Law site has a long history of attacking me. That is its prerogative, but it has an obligation to its readers to be accurate.

Earlier: Alan Dershowitz Thinks ‘Black Lives Matter’ Is Anti-Semitic, Sticks Up For Steve Bannon

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Professor Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Dershowitz, a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judge David Bazelon and Justice Arthur Goldberg.

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