Book Review
Alan Dershowitz:
The Pragmatic Peacenik

Alan Dershowitz
The Case for Peace:
How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved
Wiley, 256 pages (2005)

Reviewed by Ari Bildner

As the cycle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians seems to wind down, the Gaza settlers vacate their enclaves, and the slightest prospects for peace emerge from the carnage of the Intifada, it is a hopeful sign that the academic debate, too, is beginning to reflect the implications of the shifting climate. Nowhere is this more evident than in Alan Dershowitz’s new book, The Case for Peace. After reflect defending Israel’s right to exist as well as the state’s defense policies in The Case for Israel (2003), Dershowitz, the noted Harvard law professor and perhaps Israel’s most outspoken champion in academia, articulates in his new book how it may be possible to conquer hatred and geopolitical barriers that are precluding a lasting, practical resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Before identifying what he terms “the barriers to peace,” Dershowitz states the end result—what he believes to be the most plausible and sensible solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This solution, he argues, would involve the creation of a Palestinian state coexisting peacefully with Israel with “politically and economically viable boundaries.”1 In exchange for a terrorism-free existence and defensible borders, Israel would cede any remaining claims to the whole of biblical “Eretz Israel,” while Palestinian extremists would relinquish claims to a full-fledged “right of return” for all Palestinian refugees within the state of Israel. “If these claimed rights are surrendered, peace can be achieved,” Dershowitz maintains. Thus, he argues, “the remaining disputes—and there are many—will be much easier to resolve if agreement is reached on these fundamental issues.” 2

With the exactitude of an experienced appellate lawyer, Dershowitz proceeds to identify and explore the obstacles frustrating progress towards the resolution of the century-old conflict. Perhaps the greatest hurdle, according to Dershowitz, is the fanatical support of the “one-state solution” among Palestinian sympathizers, who advocate incorporating Israel and the Palestinian territories into a single country. Dershowitz argues that the notion that a Jewish character could survive in a “binational” state is preposterous, as the Palestinians’ overwhelming demographic advantage would foster the formation of a distinctly Arab nation.

On this point, Dershowitz is unequivocally correct. He rightly denounces the one-state proposition as “a sinister scheme to destroy Israel veiled in pretensions of peace-making… an attempt to accomplish by law and demography what Hamas seeks to achieve by terrorism: the extinction of Israel.”3 The dovish façade of the one-state solution argument makes it the most potent threat to peace, and Dershowitz articulates this concern. When a cabal of veteran anti-Israel activists claims that this solution will foster a secular, harmonious binational state, Dershowitz proves that the contrary will occur. The newly-formed “greater Palestine” will lose any Jewish identity with the astronomical Palestinian birth-rate relative to the Israeli one. Jews will quickly become an inferior, disenfranchised minority among a nation of hostile Arabs. It should be especially heartening to both peaceniks and pragmatists that Dershowitz makes it his priority to discredit the one-state proposal and its misleading agenda.

Dershowitz’s fairness serves as a great asset to the authority of his arguments. His readiness to criticize Israel enhances his credibility and sets him apart from his counterparts in the Palestinian camp, who seldom acknowledge Palestinian fallibilities. Despite Dershowitz’s tendency to support and defend Israeli actions, he constantly reminds the reader of the Jewish state’s obligation to foster peace. He devotes a whole chapter in the section “Overcoming the Hatred Barriers to Peace” to denounce Jewish extremists, many of whom have recently allied with American evangelists in zealously proclaiming Israel’s biblical right to the occupied territories, some even favoring the mass deportation of Palestinians to Arab states. These factions fuel an extremist attitude and offer no hope for compromise. It is a sign of Dershowitz’s intellectual maturity and due credibility to admit flaws in Israel and avoid catering to radical segments of the pro-Israeli camp.

However, redundancies and repetitive criticism occasionally encumber Dershowitz’s focused analysis. In many instances, The Case for Peace serves as a mere continuation of the polemical The Case for Israel. Indeed, even Dershowitz admits in the introduction to his new book that his initial idea for a follow-up, a broadside entitled “The Case Against Israel’s Enemies,” would have focused entirely on virulent anti-Israel academics instead. Regrettably, The Case for Peace often echoes those aspirations by repeating attacks on the often outrageous statements of anti-Israel activists like leftist MIT professor Noam Chomsky and the late, staunchly Pro-Palestinian Columbia University Professor Edward Said.

In evaluating Israel’s recently completed security fence, Dershowitz steadfastly defends the measure against a barrage of criticism from the World Court, the United Nations, and the EU. However, straying from his initial assessment of the security-fence controversy, Dershowitz delves into a full-fledged, gratuitous critique of the World Court, its purpose and legitimacy. Using a far-fetched analogy to racist southern U.S. courts of the early 20th century, Dershowitz derides the body as “incapable of doing justice” and possessing an entrenched institutional bias against Israel. Regardless of the validity of this statement, the repetitious tirade departs from the author’s persuasive, calculated manner that characterizes most of the book.

Dershowitz’s emphasis on nuance weakens the strength of the book. Despite the appellate lawyer’s usual precision and focused style, Dershowitz occasionally wanders into irrelevant subtleties, detracting from the author’s overall vision. In his discussion of Israeli counterterrorism measures and their potential to obstruct the peace process, Dershowitz meanders into a spontaneous exploration of Israeli legal code and an appraisal of the level of Jewish-Arab enmity in Israeli society. On many occasions, he sidetracks into micro-analyses and criticizes prominent anti-Israel figures, deviations that only muddy his original point.

Nevertheless, it’s impossible to ignore the passion and the lawyer-like meticulousness with which Dershowitz delineates the obstacles to peace. With a more dovish tenor than in The Case for Israel but with no less righteous zeal, one of Israel’s most forceful advocates reveals how extremist Israelis and Palestinians, the “enemies of peace,” impede the possibility of the Israelis and Palestinians reaching a settlement. Despite his occasional deviations into pure diatribe and superfluous repetitions of his previous book, Dershowitz, in a sincere effort to find common ground, presents a strong case for a pragmatic approach to the Middle East peace process.

Notes:
1 Dershowitz, Alan. The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved. (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2005), p. 13.
2 Ibid, p. 13.
3 Ibid, p. 34.

Ari Bildner is a freshman at Yale University.

Copyright 2006, Yale Israel Journal