Critical look at the critic

It is one thing to publish a review critical of my book “The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved” (Calendar, Sept. 23). It is yet another thing to publish a review by someone who is a constant critic of Israel and Zionism.

Amy Wilentz is a contributing editor at the Nation, where she wrote last January, “Scratch an Israeli peacenik, in other words, and you will very often find a Zionist; blow up a bus or a discotheque or a pizza parlor filled with Israelis, and you will find that every single Israeli is, to some degree, a Zionist.” She apparently regards “Zionist” as a dirty word. In May 2003 in The Times, she wrote that “the whole world” seems to be in the grip of “Israeli-style madness.”

Someone who seems to harbor such anti-Israel sentiments could not be expected to fairly review a book calling for compromise between Israelis and Palestinians. It took only five minutes of Google searching to discover these and several other remarks that Wilentz has written. Either the editors who assigned Wilentz to review my book didn’t take the time to check or didn’t think they were relevant.

Not surprisingly, Wilentz totally mischaracterizes my book. First, she writes, “Dershowitz asserts that Muhammad did not ascend to heaven on his horse from Jerusalem but from Medina, citing a columnist from the Times-Union of Albany, N.Y., to bolster this religious argument rather than the dozens of Islamic specialists who’ve been debating this legend for decades.” Actually, I say exactly the opposite: “There are some Jews and Christians who similarly seek to denigrate Islamic claims to Jerusalem.... These historical arguments too are nonstarters. Muslims hold these beliefs and they should be respected.”

Secondly, Wilentz repeats allegations that I tried to prevent publication of Norman Finkelstein’s “Beyond Chutzpah” because it accused me of plagiarism. Finkelstein’s absurd plagiarism charge -- that I cited quotes to their original rather than secondary sources -- has been rejected by former Harvard University President Derek Bok and other objective scholars. I never tried to prevent Finkelstein from publishing his bigoted falsehoods. As I wrote to the University of California Press, “I am not trying to prevent the publication of Finkelstein’s book. I am concerned, however, with the decision of the University of California Press -- which has its own 1st Amendment rights -- to choose to publish an anti-Semitic screed by a cult hero of the neo-Nazi movement in Germany.”

Third, Wilentz accuses me of being a moral absolutist. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my book “Rights From Wrongs,” I unequivocally state: “I am a pragmatist ... and ... a moral relativist. I reject absolutes.” In “The Case for Peace,” I write that “pragmatic division is possible if there is a real desire for peace on all sides. Peace will require that with regard to Jerusalem, as with other divisive issues that have symbolic significance, the spirit of compromise must trump ideological absolutism.”

That my book -- which Wilentz characterized as a “rant” -- belongs to this class of pragmatism is reflected by the praise it received from such respected and diverse figures as former President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israeli writer Amos Oz and Dennis B. Ross, former U.S. Mideast envoy. I’ll take their praise over Wilentz’s criticism any time.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ

Professor of Law, Harvard University