by mike Evans
That many civilians are killed every day by Muslims in the Sudan, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and yet the media focus was obsessively on every Muslim killed by the bomb of an Israeli rather than on Muslims killed by Muslims or Arabs killed by Arabs in many other parts of the world—and that’s the albatross that’s always going to be around Israel’s neck. So it was impossible to accomplish its military goals within the constraints of not killing civilians. In that respect, Hezbollah figured out a new way of using the morality of Israel as both a shield and a sword to be able to fire rockets and to be able to protect itself from counterfire by Israel.
MDE:
Do you think it’s inevitable that either Israel or the United States is going to have to take out Iran’s nuclear program?
Prof.Dershowitz:
I think the constant has to be that Iran will never be permitted to develop a nuclear program. And I think it is inevitable that if Iran is on the verge of developing a nuclear bomb, which they have said they would use against Israel, and if the United States did not preempt or preventively attack that nuclear facility, I think Israel would have no choice. Would any democracy allow its enemy to develop a nuclear bomb that it has already said it would use against its capital? Remember that the former liberal president, Rafsanjani, proudly boasted that if Iran got a nuclear bomb they would use it against Israel and they would kill three to five million Israelis and Israel would retaliate and kill ten to twenty million Muslims in Tehran—and said the tradeoff would be worth it because there are more Muslims than Jews.
No democracy, and certainly not one whose citizens are comprised largely of Holocaust survivors—and every Jew is a Holocaust survivor in that respect, because Hitler’s goal was to kill every Jew—no country could permit its enemies sworn to its destruction to develop a nuclear bomb. So Israel will have no choice ultimately but to take some preemptive or preventative action if the United States fails in its diplomatic efforts—or if the United States does not engage in a military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
MDE:
In America’s diplomatic efforts, the Atomic Energy Commission in Israel told me that thirty cents on the dollar of American money goes to the IAEA, which Iran is a member of, and that the United States is fundamentally doing nothing against Russia’s full-blown intent of building these reactors. Why?
Prof.Dershowitz:
I think Russia is acting in a very shortsighted way. I think an armed Iran poses a great danger to Russia as well because a nuclear armed Iran has the potential for leakage and the leakage will result in Chechen rebels potentially having access to some kind of nuclear ability. And I think every country that’s in any kind of a war with Islamic extremists would be the losers if Iran ever developed a nuclear bomb, particularly since the Iranian military is notorious for its corruption and for the ability of others to buy some facilities. They would not be able to control the facilities to the degree that the United States can today, or Israel can and has over the past thirty years, and it’s a scandal that the international community, through various agencies, has not been able to prevent Iran from developing a bomb. The only countries that should be permitted to have nuclear bombs are countries that won’t use them or countries that have them purely for deterrent purposes. Iran does not fit into that category. If it got a nuclear weapon, the risks are simply too high that it would use them. When the risks are catastrophic, the likelihood doesn’t have to be very high in order for it to be morally and legally justified for the potential victims of a nuclear attack to take preemptive actions.
MDE:
Was the Lebanon war a test for the West?
Prof.Dershowitz:
The Lebanon war was a test for the West, and the West failed it. The Lebanon war was a challenge by terrorists—and tyrannical regimes—to the morality of the West. The message was, “We’re going to kill your civilians and we’re going to challenge you to kill our civilians, and unless you’re willing to kill our civilians we will continue with impunity to kill your civilians.” This moral asymmetry is a test that we haven’t figured out a way around. We can’t compromise our morality. We can’t be in the business of killing children. We can’t lower ourselves to the level of the Iranians or Hezbollah or Hamas, and yet we have to figure out a more effective way of being able to take out their military command structure—their ability to fire rockets, whether they be conventional rockets or in the future chemical, biological, and nuclear rockets—without killing their civilians, or we have to change international law and international perception that every civilian killed when tyrannical regimes—terrorist regimes—hide behind civilians—that all those civilian deaths are not attributable to the democracies that are acting in self defense, but to those who are using these civilians as human shields. Unless—and until—that perception changes, the tyrannical terrorists have an enormous advantage over the democracies—and that’s what the Lebanese war proved.
MDE:
President Bush was on a fast track to G8 and all of a sudden, just about the time he was getting in the plane to head to St. Petersburg, hostages were taken and bombs were fired at the State of Israel. Was that a coincidence?
Prof.Dershowitz:
I don’t think you can ever assume that timing is a coincidence. Whenever events occur, you have to look at who gained some advantage from doing what they did at the time they did it. The timing of Hezbollah or Iran or whoever determined the timing—and I believe it was coordinated between Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran—I think Iran sent a message: “Heat things up. Turn the heat on. Attack Israel in whatever way you think is the most effective for you—kidnap soldiers, kill soldiers, cross the border, build tunnels, send rockets.”
I don’t think that Iran necessarily micromanaged every aspect of it. I think it’s enough that it turns on and off the spigot, and that’s what happened, and Iran did it for it’s advantage—whether it be to divert attention from its own nuclear ambitions, whether it be because it was fearful that there might be a peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Middle East, which is the worst thing for Iran.
The best thing that could happen to thwart Iranian ambitions would be for Israel and the Palestinians to finally arrive at a peace based on the model that President Clinton and Ehud Barak tried to set forth in Camp David and in Taba in 2000 and 2001. The big losers for that failed peace process were the Palestinians, who could’ve been celebrating the fourth or fifth anniversary of an economically viable, successful Palestinian state (instead they continue to live in misery), and the Israelis, who I think would be living in a more secure neighborhood if there were a more peaceful resolution. And the big winners are Iran,
Hezbollah, and Hamas, who don’t want a two-state solution. They want the same solution the Nazis wanted in the 1930s.
The Nazis wanted a one-state solution for Europe. They wanted the Third Reich extending from Ireland to the end of the Soviet Union. They wanted a one-state solution—and Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas want a one-state solution. They want one Islamic fundamentalist state living under the principles of the Sharia, living under the principles of the most extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism. They’re not going to get it, but they’re going to make life for the rest of the world miserable.
MDE:
When the Lebanese war took place, the word Iran was completely removed from the world screen and it became a proxy war with no sense of moral obligation to Iran. Is Iran capable of utilizing the same proxy tactics against the United States vis-à-vis Palestinian asymmetrical suicide bombers if they feel like it’s to their advantage?
Prof.Dershowitz:
The way Iran used Lebanon, Hezbollah, and, to a lesser degree, Hamas as surrogates in the first battle of this one-hundred-year war—which I think they’re engaged in—reminds me of the way Nazi Germany used the Spanish Civil War as a surrogate fight just prior to the beginning of the Second World War. The Nazi German army wasn’t directly involved in the Spanish Civil War, but the Spanish Civil War was a surro
gate, and when the democracies lost in the Spanish Civil War, it was the green light to Nazi Germany to move forward. And I think that the Hezbollah fight in Lebanon has been to the current crisis what the Spanish Civil War was in leading up to the Second World War. That’s why we have to take it so seriously and why it’s impossible to allow Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran any further victories.
MDE:
Why should the United States continue to support Israel?
Prof.Dershowitz:
The United States should continue to support the interests of the United States globally, and the interests of the United States coincide with the interests of Israel. Israel is the only reliable ally the United States has ever had in the Middle East. Israel provided the United States with some of its most important intelligence and military information and resources during the Cold War, and Israel continues to provide the United States with some of its most important intelligence and military resources during this war with Islamic fundamentalism.
If Israel were to, God forbid, disappear off the face of the earth, that would not strengthen America’s position in the world. It would weaken America’s position in the world considerably. There would still be an Islamic campaign against America, but it would have to be fought without a reliable ally in the Middle East. So it’s clearly in America’s interest to see a strong and viable Israel.
It’s also in America’s interest to see an Israel at peace, if that’s at all possible, and I think the United States should continue to play a constructive role in supporting Israel. But let there be no mistake about this—Israel can and would and will survive with or without the support of the United States. Israel has a formidable military capacity.
It has nuclear capacities, which it never wants to use. It is economically a secure country because it doesn’t have oil. That’s been one of the great blessings. Because Israel doesn’t have oil, it has to develop high technology. High technology is the wave of the future; oil is the resource of the past. And so Israel will remain a very important strategic ally of the United States in years to come, and that’s, by the way, one of the reasons why the French have turned so anti-Israel. The French do not have an interest in the strength of the United States. The French have an interest in a weakened United States, and I think one of the reasons the French have turned against Israel is because they see Israel as a strategic ally of the United States in its global position in the world today.
MDE:
I spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu at the Press Club, and I noticed him speaking on his admiration for Ronald Reagan and he hissed like a snake. Is that similar to what you’re discussing—a lack of moral clarity?
Prof.Dershowitz:
Well, for Americans who support Israel and who support social justice, admiration for Ronald Reagan has to be very, very mixed. I did not vote for Ronald Reagan. I would not vote for Ronald Reagan today if he were alive and well and running for office because I thoroughly disapprove of his domestic social programs. I believe in a much fairer distribution of wealth in America. I believe in a very high wall of separation between church and state. I believe in science and reason dominating the criteria for stem cell research. I believe very strongly in gay rights and in women’s rights—so for me, the Republican platform has always been a non-starter. I’m a liberal Democrat and will continue to support liberal Democrats primarily for reasons of American domestic concern.
On the other hand, I had some admiration for the way in which Ronald Reagan stood up to the evils of Soviet Communism. I think that the fall of Communism was not solely attributable in any way to Ronald Reagan. I think the pope played a very significant role. I think the changing economics in the world played a significant role. Gorbachev played a significant role, and the Russian people played a significant role. So I think it is a mistake to attribute the success of American policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union to one person or one policy.
I have the same feelings today toward the Bush administration. I’m a strong opponent of the Bush administration on domestic policies, and I also think it made a dreadful mistake in getting us into the war in Iraq, both from an American perspective and a pro-Israel perspective. I think it was a mistake from the point of view of Israel’s security for America to get bogged down in a war in Iraq. So I think, as with many liberal Americans who support Israel, we have to look critically and skeptically at both parties and all candidates and always ask first the question, “What’s best for America?” And I do believe that American support for Israel is best for America.
MDE:
Why is it that you seldom hear the word Islamofascist among liberal Democrats?
Prof.Dershowitz:
You certainly hear it from me. I’m a liberal Democrat and I strongly believe that “Islamofascist” is an appropriate term to describe one small group of Islamic radicals. I think one of the reasons why you have some hesitation is you don’t want to have a word that has a religious context being used broadly. I have many, many, many associates, friends, colleagues—people who I admire and respect enormously—who are Muslims by their religious faith and background. They’re a wonderful people and a peace-loving people, and they would love to see a two-state solution. So I don’t want to ever generalize about Muslims—members of the Islamic faith—but there is an element within the Islamic faith that has hijacked the faith, and I think they are aptly called Islamofascists. They are Fascists without any doubt. Hezbollah is a Fascist movement and has all the elements of a Fascist movement, including educating youth and providing social services.
People forget that the reason Germans voted for the Nazi Party the first time the Nazis were up for office was not because of their anti-Semitism, but often despite their anti-Semitism. They voted for the Nazis because the Nazis had youth programs, because they had social welfare programs, because they had approaches to unemployment—and by the way, they were also anti-Semites. And Hezbollah has managed to use the same approach. Many people in Lebanon support Hezbollah because of their social programs, because of their educational programs—and by the way, they’re also anti-Semites. They hate Jews and they hate Israel, but we can live with that as long as they’re providing the social services.
So one has to look beyond the social services at the core—at the core of Hamas and Hezbollah—who will use these social services to seduce people to get them to join their mission, and the core of the mission is the destruction of Israel, the destruction of the Jewish people, the destruction of Western values, the destruction of Christianity, and the destruction of everything other than radical Islam.
MDE:
In your book Why Terrorism Works, you’ve laid out some strategic principles relating to how it could also be stopped. Can you speak on that subject?
Prof.Dershowitz:
Terrorism can be stopped. Terrorism succeeds because it succeeds—that is, it’s self-perpetuating. The way to make terrorism stop is never to reward it and always to hold the terrorists responsible, but we don’t do that. The UN doesn’t do that, the international community doesn’t do that, even the United States and Israel don’t always do that. Every country in the world submits to terrorism. The old joke that I love to tell—because my mother is ninety-three years old—is, “What’s the difference between a Jewish mother and a terrorist?” The answer is, “With a terrorist you can sometimes negotiate.” And tragically, I think too many democracies have negotiated with terrorism and have strengthened the hands of terrorism.
Were I a national leader, I would take a no-negotiation posture—would’ve from the beginning of time—a no-reward posture. Terrorism has to be dealt with the way piracy was dealt with in the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries. Finally we were able to abolish piracy for the most part because pirates were regarded as international criminals that no country would give quarter to. If terrorism were treated that way—if we never would’ve permitted Yasser Arafat to set foot at the United Nations, if we would never have considered giving him a Nobel Prize, if we would never have recog
nized terrorists’ organizations—I think terrorism would’ve disappeared of its own force.
Terrorism doesn’t work against tyrannies because tyrannies don’t in any way tolerate terrorists and they turn off their sources for support and they don’t allow the media to be used by the terrorists. It’s easy for tyrannies to defeat terrorism. It’s much harder for democracies because democracies have to preserve our values, our morals, and our civil liberties—so it’s a real challenge, but it’s doable.
MDE:
What is the worst-case scenario for the West if a decade goes by and the West sleeps—if Iran gets the bomb? What are we faced with?
Prof.Dershowitz:
Well the worst-case scenario would be Iran getting a bomb and proving their strength by dropping it on Israel and counting on Israel’s morality—counting on the fact that even if a bomb were dropped on Israel, the Israelis would be very reluctant to counterattack by bombing the city of Tehran and killing ten million people. The fact that Israel has such a higher morality than Iran and the terrorist enemies it faces is one of the great weapons that the tyrannies and the terrorists have. That wasn’t true in the Second World War. In the Second World War, the United States was willing to drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were willing to, with Great Britain, firebomb Dresden. They were willing to firebomb Tokyo. Israel is not prepared to do that, and the United States today is probably not prepared to do that, and with the elevated morality that some countries have and other countries don’t have, the combination of the elevated morality of the United States and Israel with the reduction in morality by terrorists and tyrannical organizations creates an asymmetry, which is going to be very, very hard to deal with when we face nuclear annihilation.
