The Case Against the Democratic House Impeaching Trump

by Alan Dershowitz

  Remember this is the same man who defended the so-called “research” of the notorious Holocaust-denier, Robert Faurisson. Not only did Chomsky defend Faurisson’s phony research, but he denied that Faurisson—who is a notorious Jew-hater—had said anything that qualifies as anti-Semitic.

  Here is what Chomsky wrote:

  I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the Holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic implications, per se, in the claim that the Holocaust (whether one believes it took place or not) is being exploited, viciously so, by apologists for Israeli repression and violence. I see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson’s work.

  Chomsky, who is a prominent linguist, knows nothing of the meaning of language in context. Holocaust denial is quintessentially anti-Semitic, because it falsely accuses the Jews of fabricating stories of the murder of six million Jews.

  Experts understand that there are different kinds of intelligence. Chomsky may be intelligent when it comes to linguistics, but his statements regarding Israel, Russia, and the Holocaust are simply counterfactual. There is no other word for his bizarre views, if he actually believes them. If he does not, then there is another word that aptly describes his statements: bigotry.

  If Britain Wants To Show Its “Moral Backbone,” It Must Reject Jeremy Corbyn35

  I was recently interviewed by British public news broadcaster Channel 4 about Donald Trump. Host Matt Frei asked me what he likely intended to be a rhetorical question: “Where is the moral backbone of America these days?”

  I responded: “Well, where is the moral backbone of Great Britain to have as the head of the Labour Party a virulent anti-Semite, a virulent hater of Jews and the nation-state of the Jewish people? Don’t lecture us about our political system as long as you have Jeremy Corbyn, who may potentially become the next Prime Minister. Shame on Great Britain for letting that come to pass.”

  Frei responded that Corbyn “would be rejecting all these accusations.” That should have been the end of the matter, with each having made our point. But no, Frei felt it was necessary to apologise to his viewers—when I was off-air—for what I had said. “And our apologies for those unexpected remarks from one of our guests about the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn,” he said, “who as we’ve reported many times consistently and robustly denies allegations of anti-Semitism.”

  In a rebroadcast, Channel 4 cut the discussion of Corbyn. It wrote an email to me explaining that it is obligated under the rules to present “the other side of the story” whenever there is “a significant allegation being made.” Yet Channel 4 doesn’t apologize or present the “other side” when it accuses Trump of misconduct which he denies.

  Why the double standard? Why not let viewers decide for themselves whether my characterisation of Jeremy Corbyn is correct? So let me present my case. I invite a response by Corbyn. In a widely accepted definition, adopted by the US State Department and its British counterpart, anti-Semitism includes:

  Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust … applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation … drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel … than to the interests of their own nations.

  Corbyn’s statement and actions meet these standards. Corbyn has taken part in events with Dyab Abou Jahjah, a Lebanese militant who rails against “Jew-worship” and calls homosexuals “Aids-spreading faggots,” according to the National Review. He also argued against the expulsion from Britain of Raed Saleh, a leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, who claims Jews were behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In 2012 Corbyn invited him to take tea with him on the terrace at Parliament, saying Saleh “is far from a dangerous man. He’s a very honored citizen; he represents his people extremely well.”

  Corbyn has also been accused of donating money to Deir Yassin Remembered, founded by self-proclaimed Holocaust denier Paul Eisen. Corbyn denies having any knowledge of Eisen’s views but has acknowledged that he attended one of DYR’s events as recently as 2013.

  At another conference, Corbyn said “Zionists … don’t understand English irony,” despite “having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives.”

  In this context, Corbyn seemed to be using the term “Zionists” to apply broadly to British Jews. This same conference also featured a speaker who blamed Israel for the 9/11 attacks. Britain’s former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has accused Corbyn of having given “support to racists, terrorists, and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map” and said his remarks about Zionists not being sufficiently British is “the language of classic pre-war European anti-Semitism.”

  Corbyn called former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, an advocate of the two-state solution, “a war criminal” while calling terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah “friends”—a comment which he later claimed he regretted making. While condemning Israel for human rights violations, Corbyn has praised human rights violators such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran.

  After the death of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Corbyn described him as “someone who stood up, was counted, was inspiring….” Following the death of Fidel Castro, Corbyn praised the Cuban dictator’s “heroism” and called him “a champion of social justice.” He has also praised Iran for “tolerance and acceptance of other faiths, traditions, and ethnic groups in Iran.”

  Corbyn seems to have little interest in the human right of Kurds, Chechens, Tibetans, and other groups. Is he more interested in the Palestinians largely because their alleged oppressors are Jewish? I don’t recall hearing Corbyn complain when Palestinians are oppressed by Jordan or by Hamas.

  To be sure, Israel does not have a perfect human rights record. No country does. But singling out Israel for condemnation while praising some of the worst human rights violators and ignoring violations against people at least as oppressed as the Palestinians is applying precisely the sort of double standard against the nation-state of the Jewish people the UK and the US have recognised as anti-Semitic.

  Corbyn’s actions paint a foreboding picture for British Jews as well as Anglo-Israeli relations should Corbyn become prime minister. It may come as no surprise then that the leading Anglo-Jewish newspapers called a potential Corbyn administration an “existential threat” to Jewish life in the UK and warned that “the [Labour] party that was, until recently, the natural home for our community has seen its values and integrity eroded by Corbynite contempt for Jews and Israel.”

  Let the good people of Britain show the moral backbone of that great country by rejecting Corbyn and the bigotry he has supported.

  Why Did the Clintons Share the Stage With Farrakhan?36

  Imagine President Trump being invited to speak at the funeral of a white singer who he admired (say, Ted Nugent, if he were to pass) and seeing that David Duke was on stage in a place of honor, he remained and gave a speech. Well, President Clinton gave a speech in the presence of Louis Farrakhan at the funeral for Aretha Franklin. Hillary Clinton was sitting off to the side but did not speak.

  Why would President Clinton, a good man and a friend of the Jewish people, do this? There are several possible answers. First, he was taken by surprise at Farrakhan’s presence and didn’t want to do anything to disrupt the service. But the shoe on the other foot question remains: Would he have acted similarly if it had been Duke rather than Farrakhan?

  Second, Clinton doesn’t believe that refusing to sit alongside a bigot is the proper response to bigotry. Again the shoe on the other foot question remains: Would he sit alongside Duke?

  Third, Clinton doesn’t regard Farrakhan as comparable to Duke. But that is simply wrong. Farrakhan is a blatant anti-Semite with an enormous following. Finally, Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism is not considered as serious a problem as Duke’s white supremacy. Bu
t without getting into comparisons of bigotry, anti-Semitism is a serious and growing problem.

  Farrakhan is at least as bigoted as Duke. This is a man who only last year called Jews members of the “Synagogue of Satan” and claimed that Jesus called Jews the “children of the devil.” Farrakhan is also a homophobe claiming that Jews are “responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out turning men into women and women into men.” In the past, Farrakhan delivered similar remarks claiming that “when you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door” and calling Adolf Hitler “a very great man.” He’s also a racist claiming a few years ago that “white people deserve to die.”

  Many younger people on the left may not know the extent of Farrakhan’s bigotry, or they may condone it by claiming he did a service for African American communities. For example, Tamika Mallory, cofounder of the Women’s March, called Farrakhan a “GOAT,” or greatest of all time, and Congressman Keith Ellison, deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, once called him a “role model for black youth.”

  Earlier this year, a photo of Barack Obama smiling with Farrakhan taken in 2005 emerged. (Although I supported President Obama, both in 2008 and 2012, I would not have campaigned as enthusiastically for him had I known then about this suppressed photograph.) Ellison, who may become Minnesota’s next attorney general, later distanced himself from Farrakhan but, like Mallory, claimed that Farrakhan’s contribution to African American empowerment is “complex.” Would we accept this kind of complexity and nuance if a white singer’s family had invited Duke?

  Liberals need to make unequivocally clear that the Democratic Party tent will never be big enough for anti-Semites and anti-Americans like Farrakhan, just as Republicans need to do the same with sympathizers of the alt-right. There are not “good people” on the side of anti-Semitism, any more than there are “good people” on the side of white supremacy.

  There is no place for a double standard when it comes to anti-Semitism. Black anti-Semitism should not get a pass on account of the oppression suffered by so many African Americans. Neither should “progressive” tolerance of anti-Semitism of the kind shown by Bernie Sanders backing Jeremy Corbyn, the anti-Semite leader of the British Labour Party who may well become the next prime minister of America’s closest ally.

  Just contrast the Aretha Franklin memorial service with the controversy surrounding the decision of the New Yorker to invite Steve Bannon for what promised to be a critical conversation with the magazine’s editor, David Remnick. After many prominent liberals, such as Judd Apatow, Jim Carrey, and Patton Oswalt, announced that they would not attend lest they “normalize hatred,” Bannon was disinvited. Chelsea Clinton tweeted, “For anyone who wonders what normalization of bigotry looks like, please look no further than Steve Bannon being invited by both @TheEconomist & @NewYorker to their respective events in #NYC a few weeks apart.”

  To that I would add, look no further than the Clintons sharing the stage with Farrakhan. I hope they will take this occasion to distance themselves from, and strongly condemn, Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism.

  Refusing Study in Israel Is a Bitter Lesson in Discrimination37

  Imagine a white university professor telling a highly qualified African American student that he refused to recommend her for a year-abroad program to an African country because he disapproved of the way that country treated its white minority. That professor would be ostracized, boycotted, reprimanded, disciplined, or fired.

  Well, now the shoe is on the other foot: a left-wing professor at the University of Michigan, John Cheney-Lippold, has refused to recommend a highly qualified Jewish student for study in Israel. How do we know she was qualified? Because the professor already had initially agreed to give her a recommendation. Then he noticed that she wanted to study in Israel, with whose policies he disagrees. So he withdrew his offer to recommend her based on his support for the boycott of Israeli universities.

  This pernicious boycott tactic is designed to cut off all academic, scientific, cultural, and other contacts with only one country: the nation-state of the Jewish people. Many who support singling out Israel will actively encourage academic contacts with Russian, Cuban, Saudi, Venezuelan, Chinese, Belarusian, and Palestinian universities despite the horrid human-rights records of these undemocratic countries and the discriminatory policies of their universities. Israel is one of the world’s most democratic nations, with one of the best human-rights records and among the freest, most diverse universities. Yet it is the only target of this bigoted academic boycott. And the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) tactic applies only to Jewish Israelis, not Muslims.

  This hypocritical professor probably would not hesitate to recommend his student to universities that discriminate against gay and transgender, women, Jewish, or Christian students. Israeli universities do not discriminate against anyone; on the contrary, they have affirmative-action programs for Muslim and black students. They are on the forefront of scientific, technological, and medical innovations which benefit the entire world and would be set back by boycotts.

  Defenders of Professor Cheney-Lippold will argue that he has the “academic freedom” to decide who to recommend and who not to recommend. But even his defenders would have to agree that if his decision to refuse to recommend a particular student was based on improper factors—such as race, gender, sexual preference, or religion—academic freedom would not protect him against charges of discriminatory action. The question, therefore, is whether refusing to recommend a student for a year abroad in Israel constitutes a permissible or impermissible basis.

  The answer rests on the shoe on the other foot test. If a university would allow a professor to refuse to recommend a student to an African country, to a Muslim country, or to a communist country, then it might be permissible to refuse to recommend her to a Jewish country. It is more than ironic that many of the same radical leftists who would support Professor Cheney-Lippold’s discriminatory action have strongly opposed President Trump’s travel ban, precisely because it focused on Muslim-majority countries—many of which are among the most discriminatory human-rights offenders and facilitators of terrorism. Yet they would support a ban against a Jewish country that does not discriminate and that fights terrorism within the rule of law.

  His defenders also argue that Israel sometimes disallows Palestinian Americans from joining academic programs at Israeli universities. But Muslim countries bar women, gays, Israelis, and Jews from attending their universities. Yet Professor Cheney-Lippold would probably not hesitate to recommend a Muslim student to spend a year at such a Muslim university.

  Academic freedom may permit a professor to advocate a boycott against Israeli (or any other) universities, misguided as that may be. But it does not permit a professor to actually discriminate against one of his students based on invidious factors. A teacher must treat all of his students fairly and equally, without regard to their religious, political, or ethnic views or identities. Just as academic freedom would permit a racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Muslim, or anti-Jewish professor to express his bigoted views outside the classroom, so too academic freedom would protect Professor Cheney-Lippold for expressing anti-Israeli views—but it does not protect him from discriminating against a student who has different views.

  The University of Michigan has issued a response and must now decide what its policy is, and what it will be going forward, with regard to professors of either the radical left or the alt-right who act on their bigotry by refusing to recommend qualified students to universities in countries with whose actions they disagree.

  Whatever policy the university adopts must be equally applicable to all universities in all countries. The University of Michigan is a public university which, unlike private universities, may have more legal constraints on their actions. It must adopt a fair policy for this and future cases that does not allow professors to discriminate against students based on invidious factors. Shame on Professor Cheney-Lip
pold for allowing his wrongheaded political views to override his academic and legal obligation not to discriminate against students who disagree with him.

  Impeachment Is Not the Answer

  I’ve shown that the proposed impeachment of Donald Trump and now Brett Kavanaugh aren’t legally viable; rather, impeaching them sets a precedent that is dangerous for all Americans and is a pointed manifestation of the perversion of our country’s discourse, the importance that political gain has taken on, and the push toward the political extremes that continues to widen.

  Impeachment would be the ultimate failure of the shoe on the other foot test.

  We must look to solutions. Rather than impeachment proceedings that will drag on for two years, we must strive to re-democratize our dialogue, to condemn the current criminalization of politics and weaponization of law, to move our conversation back toward the centrist values of tolerance and nonviolence in which America thrives. We must put down our arms and do what is best for the American people.

  Democrats, Don’t Try To Conduct a Revenge Inquisition38

  The confirmation disaster surrounding Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose appointment to the Supreme Court was approved by the Senate on a 50-48 vote Saturday, has done much damage to our country and its institutions. And the damage may well continue if Democrats regain majority control of the House and conduct a revenge inquisition against the new associate justice.