Dershowitz: Keep Those Lies Comin’

Those of you who remember the Canadian Jewish film, Lies My Father Told Me, might think of Alan Dershowitz virtually whenever he opens his mouth.  And regrettably he did so (lied, that is) once again at the Aipac national conference.  Dersh couldn’t resist the impulse to chew out Hadar Susskind, J Street’s policy director, who was crashing (by invitation I presume) the Aipac event.  Unfortunately for Aipac, there was a French camera crew that recorded the imbroglio (Aipac’s PR flack Josh Bloch threw them out for their trouble). Aipac can’t be happy that Dersh went “off message” and gave J Street such great YouTube coverage on their big day.

Among the lies Dersh unloaded on Susskind:

“You should ask yourself why Norman Finkelstein loves you.”

The only problem: Norman Finkelstein doesn’t “love” J Street.  He doesn’t even support J Street.  If anything Finkelstein would despise the group as being insufficiently strong in its views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Dersh also accuses J Street of having Zbigniew Brezinski speak at its national conference. Though Amy Spitalnick and Susskind immediately point out his error he blusters through it all and maintains his lie with a straight face.

In the next breath, Dershowitz says:

I’ll speak to anybody. I’ll speak to Hamas, I’ll speak to Hezbollah.

I’m going to go out on a limb and out Dershowitz Dershowitz. I’ll pay him real money if he can prove he has any substantive contact with any representative of Hamas or Hezbollah in the next six months. Put your money where your mouth is, Al.

Another lie:

Some of Israel’s worst enemies have signed on in support of J Street.

But the problem with Dershowitz’s lies is that they sound just credible enough when he utters them that you’re hoodwinked for just the amount of time it takes for him to escape to utter the next lie.  By the time you’ve cottoned onto him he’s three lies down the line from where you caught him.

What’s truly comic and idiotic about Dershowitz is that he actually attempts to advance the argument that if J Street was really serious about being pro-Israel they would join Aipac and attempt to turn it into the kind of organization they (J Street) would like it to be. Seriously. Dersh actually tells the J Street staff member:

What we do is resolve our differences internally and we speak with one voice. And we put out a consensus statement on [sic] one voice.

Folks, these are the Jewish dinosaurs speaking. And you remember what happened to T-Rex? The Dershes of the Jewish world will have some impact for some time. But the longer they try to get away with sclerotic thinking like this the less impact and credibility they will have on anyone.

Dersh also tells Susskind rather incredulously that: “You know there are those who think that Aipac is too far left.” As if the fact that Sheldon Adelson thinks Aipac is a bunch of Jewish commies has any significance whatsoever to anyone but Shelly Adelson & Alan Dershowitz and Howard Kohr. Inside Jewish baseball, Al. Who cares?

Dersh lets Susskind know that he doesn’t think Aipac is “too far right” or “too far right” but “neutral on these issues!” Neutral! What universe is he living in?

Ron Kampeas should spend more time reading Steve Clemons and he would learn that the faux Aipac press release distributed today supporting a settlement freeze was written in jest by Clemons.  Or at least if it wasn’t written by him, it was inspired by a mock Aipac press release he did write.