[ April 20, 2024 ]
I often disagree with Dershowitz, but I thank him for having the honesty and clear-sightedness to state this, despite the abuse it is certain to bring his way.
“Dershowitz: Geller Critics Should Realize MLK Provoked, Too,” by Greg Richter, Newsmax, May 7, 2015:
Story continues below advertisementCritics of Pamela Geller, organizer of the “Draw the Prophet” event in Garland, Texas last Sunday, should realize that while she may have intended to provoke a negative reaction from extreme Islamists, she shares something in common with civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., says Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.
“I don’t want to make any comparisons morally or legally, but from a constitutional law point of view, there’s no difference,” Dershowitz said Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File.”
King purposely picked some of the cities he led protests in precisely in order to bring out the racists and show what kind of violent people they are, Dershowitz said
“It’s part of the American tradition to provoke so that the world can see,” he said.
Two radicalized Muslims showed up with assault rifles at Sunday’s event, but were quickly shot to death by police. Critics have said Geller put people in danger needlessly because she knew jihadists would attempt to kill someone over the drawings of Muhammad, considered blasphemous in Islam.
National Review editor Rich Lowry said critics are comparing Geller to the Islamic State (ISIS) rather than the assailants, who actually were spurred to the attack by an ISIS sympathizer.
“The left in this country has taught us you should push the envelope in your art and commentary and literally trample on every single piety except for this one,” Lowry said.
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62 Comments
8 years ago
Pretty strong endorsement.
I am glad he had the intestinal fortitude to say what is right.
8 years ago
I was with Martin Luther King (briefly) and what Derschowitz reports is true. He deliberately targeted certain areas for peaceful demonstration because he anticipated violence in return. He alerted news media in advance so all of the violence would be reported nationwide to gain support for his cause. People of goodwill were shamed by the overt racism they saw on TV and it spurred the change he so ardently desired. Pamela Geller is poking the hornet-nest of Islam for the same purpose and they are responding with predictable hatred and violence. It comes from the same source: insecurity and the nagging suspicion that you know you are wrong.
8 years ago
Reply to
Petrucio14
He was also an extremely strong advocate for Israel and Zionism….
As is Professor Dershowitz.
8 years ago
Reply to
Fromafar
I remember MLK exposed the antisemitic euphemism zionists for what it really was: disguised antisemitism.
8 years ago
Reply to
IzlamIsTyranny
And here is the quote you just referred to:
Martin Luther King On Zionism”… You declare, my friend; that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely ‘anti-Zionist’. And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of G-D’s green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews — this is G-D’s own truth.
“Anti-Semitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agree-ment. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently anti-Semitic, and ever will be so.
“Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. From this they were expelled by the Roman tryant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered our L-RD. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them.
“The Negro people, my friend, know what it is to suffer the torment of tyranny under rulers not of our choosing. Our brothers in Africa have begged, pleaded, requested — DEMANDED — the recognition and realization of our inborn right to live in peace under our own sovereignty in our own country.
“How easy it should be, for anyone who holds dear this inalienable right of all mankind, to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of G-D’s promise, that His people should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land. This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less.
“And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism.
“The anti-Semite rejoices at any opportunity to vent his malice. The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the anti-Semite must constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerrade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just ‘anti-Zionist’!
“My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate anti-Semitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you have been misled — as others have been — into thinking you can be ‘anti-Zionist’ and yet remain true to those heartfelt principles that you and I share. Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews — make no mistake about it.”
8 years ago
Wow, I’m impressed and a bit gobsmacked that this Lefty stood up for Pam. I hope he sets a trend amongst the Lefty crowd.
8 years ago
Reply to
Mr. Roger's innocent digit
More and more Dershowitz tee’s off the left. He’s very outspoken in his support of Israel and it makes the Progressive left apoplectic. He was asked by someone in the media once why he didn’t become a Republican….he essentially smiled and said he was too old to change…..
8 years ago
Reply to
Mr. Roger's innocent digit
That is what happens when the party comes first, and not your country.
8 years ago
Reply to
sandra schmidt
Yes he is. I disagree with him on his solutions for Israel and the Palestinians, but he is an honest man with whom to debate.
8 years ago
I read the article earlier today, and I was pleasantly surprised. Nice! Let’s hope he gets the point through to all the lefties out there!
D
8 years ago
The liberal meme is falling flat on the American public. That bitch slap Megyn Kelley administered to O’Reilly was heard in the living rooms across America. And had anyone else noticed that Pam is being defended by the smartest of the pundits. Only Ingrahm is off message.
8 years ago
Reply to
puhiawa
Were it only so about Ingraham…
Add: Greta van Sustern, Howard Kurtz, Donald Trump, Bill Donohue, Martha McCallum, (former Fox – Allysin Camerota) and oh my gosh!…Judge Andrew Napolitano. I’m not including the much longer list from the left.
8 years ago
Except for the fact that Geller provokes to diminish the humanity of an already oppressed group of people, and King provoked to uplift the humanity of an oppressed group, and their oppressers. Otherwise, there’s no difference.
8 years ago
Reply to
Paul Long
The beliefs that a black rock in a hole in a wall is their god and the assembled
rantings and lifestyle of a paedophile pirate is somehow holy and to be emulated, is what diminishes the humanity of that group.
Oppressed?
pbuh (I just spit.)
8 years ago
Reply to
Lacouray Too
The “muslims” who are oppressed are the female half of the population and their oppressors are imams wielding shariah law as a weapon. You don’t care about them, do you Paul?
8 years ago
Reply to
sandra schmidt
No prob. It happens sometimes when we get too irritated at these mooslim idjits.
8 years ago
Reply to
Paul Long
The myth that these Islamist groups and leaders are oppressed or poor has long been debunked and something Ayaan Hirsi Ali has addressed numerous times. Most of the leaders as was OBL were very wealthy and privileged individuals. ISIS is wealthiest terror group in world.
8 years ago
Reply to
Paul Long
I don’t consider rich Saudi princes and their sons who fly airplanes into our buildings oppressed, but keep telling yourself that if it makes your life as a dhimmi coward more meaningful.
8 years ago
Reply to
Paul Long
I say to you, what I say to everyone who writes the broad brush smears against Pamela Geller……Link us to where she has “…..diminish(ed) the humanity of an already oppressed group of people”….. I ask for substance over and over and all I get is silence….. I expect nothing more from your assertion, just silence….
8 years ago
Reply to
Paul Long
//”Except for the fact that Geller provokes to diminish the humanity of an already oppressed group of people”//
Thank you for presenting an argument. But, with all due respect, this argument lacks context and seems therefore myopic.
The group in Question, Muslims, is not a race, and one’s race is not chosen, but a group that chose to follow Islam and should be held accountable, at least in some way, for the consequences of that choice.
Pamela thus holds Muslims accountable, but even if this somehow “diminishes the humanity of Muslims”, what she says still does not diminish their safety or rights ONE BIT.
At times, then “the humanity is diminished” from followers of all other religions, and it is, among others, also done by Muslims. Look at what they say about Jews in Islamic countries.
So either you Paul, disparage and discourage all “diminishing humanity” of all groups by all groups, or allow all.
Especially in the context that there is also plenty of support and praise for Islam, coming from countless Westerners, including pres. Obama, Prime Min. Cameron! So if you allow support, praise and silence in plenty, why discourage verbal denigration, humiliation?
Now, as we see from so many Westerners, you seem to have :”elevated expectations of Westerners like Pam Geller, criticizing just now her choices” and “lowered expectations of Muslims”, not criticizing their choices”.
8 years ago
Reply to
Your Friend Clem
Hello, Clem, thanks for the support.
I always try to figure out exactly what it is that opponents say and then what I disagree with and why.
Most of my arguments I learned from Pamela and Robert, and David Wood, Ali Sina, now that I think of it.
8 years ago
Reply to
Paul Long
Nah, I would say Muslims are a useless people. Inbred. Illiterate. Inert. Infantile. A perfectly understandable product of “arab culture”. king was , in effect a teacher moral lessons. I have yet to hear anything vaguely rational, thoughtful or intelligent from any of the self appointed so-called imams that
are given exposure in the media these days. Remember, it was muslim’s who organised and maintained the slave trade out of Africa well before there was a United States of America.
8 years ago
Reply to
Paul Long
Oppressed? Moslems? You’ve got to be kidding, living on another planet, or an ISIS troll.
8 years ago
Ms. Geller and others who provoke militant Islamists deserve praise. They are on the front line of the ideological conflict with militant Islam, an ideology shared by tens or even hundreds of millions in the Islamic world, even if they are not – yet – willing to butcher infidels. Psychological warfare is nothing new. Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck and many other cartoon characters went to war in WWII, and Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” (1940) is iconic. If we could render the enemy’s militant Islamic ideology a subject of laughter, scorn and ridicule, the enemy’s
recruiting efforts especially in the western world would be much more difficult: Nobody wants to go to war for something laughable.
The “War on Terror” is in fact a war against militant Islam and its followers. Most of us will never fight in the military against militant Islam (I served over 40 years ago and would have enlisted again after 9/11 if the military had been taking 50 years then). However, we can still do our part by first recognizing the existence of the ideological conflict, something our current President refuses to do. We should then challenge militant Islam wherever and whenever we can. Unfortunately, virtually all of academia and, for that matter, the political left would hamstring us with political correctness. That is especially why events such as the cartoon contest organized by Ms.Geller are so important.
8 years ago
Reply to
chrisinpaso
Well said. But about that “militant Islam”. Suppose we believe in this distinction between “militant Islam” and “normal Islam”, which is supposedly “all the rest of the Muslims, the vast majority”, what then should we say to all those “normal Muslims”???
I like some of our leaders to explain to them: Look, we perceive that “militant Islam”, by violent intimidation-tactics, is giving all Islam and all Muslims, on a global scale UNFAIR ADVANTAGE. We can explain why we think so.
Now, either, you “normal Muslims” somehow negate that UNFAIR ADVANTAGE of Islam and all Muslims, or
somehow the followers of the other religions increasingly will demand the same preferential treatment, on the same scale, that Islam now gets.
That means that whenever any other religion or followers of them are, you know, “attacked” by anybody, but especially by Muslims,
The reaction from the followers of the other religions could ad nauseam; why “attack only us, and NOT Islam?!
Because the violent intimidating jihadi’s did create an unbalance in “negative reactions to religions” and somehow that balance should be restored.
8 years ago
Reply to
Demsci
The balance is restored by defeating the militant Islamists, not by other religions turning as violent as they are.
8 years ago
Reply to
chrisinpaso
Chrisinpaso, I think that strategy ALONE is insufficient.
If it is true that Islam and all Muslims do prophit from the intimidation-strategy followed by the militant Islamists,
Then following ONLY that strategy you mentioned will not deal with the problem that
the vast majority of Muslims has no problem with letting Islam win by foul play,
but still prophits from it (because they love Islam most and want it to win)
Somehow we have to let them know that now Islam is winning through foul play (that IS what I am contending)
and that either they should or we will restore the balance.
With some kind of vehement but non-violent protest against them or anybody else ridiculing, denigrating, our religions when we are intimidated not to ridicule, denigrate theirs.
I feel we must insist on fair competition in the market place of ideas.
We cannot behave as the jihadists do, but I like to think about how the Political Correct people WOULD react if we, the followers of the other religions, WERE behaving like the jihadists.
8 years ago
Reply to
chrisinpaso
One of the most annoying statements ever is “we fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.” That worked out well///. My brother did 3 tours in OIF/OEF, and I immediately started studying the enemy. It is stunning what the enemy has accomplished in this country over the last ten years, and our gov’t has allowed them to do it.
8 years ago
Yes Martin Luther King upset the racists, Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists, and mysteriously a inmate serving a life sentence disappears from a Missouri prison, is accused of killing him, allegedly hired by two businessmen with white supremacist ties, who then flees to UK using a Canadian passport he got via a little known at the time CIA trick to get the passport, but was so dumb he got caught with a pistol which resulted in his arrest, yes getting folks angry does often end badly for folks, them 3 civil rights workers whom the Ku Klux Klan murdered angered some folks to, angry nuts often do crazy things, so Geller might be wise to hire as many guards as she can from the funds she has conned out of her fans!:-)
8 years ago
Reply to
sandra schmidt
Sorry lady, your worship of your mistress is amusing to me, the conned, swindled often are willing victims fooled into believing the right wing snake oil cure all that ails you rhetoric! If your lonely try a lonely hearts club, truly stalking me is a bit sad!:-)
8 years ago
Reply to
R Hill
Too many of us have read the Koran to know Geller is telling the truth. But truth is hate to those who hate the truth.
8 years ago
Reply to
sandra schmidt
Telling the truth is not as fun as spouting zionist conspricacy nonsense.Anyone can have 15 minutes of fame by slamming the Jews.You dont need to have anything of value to offer the world or anything intelligent to say. You just need to say the word Jew and watch all the crackpots flock to you like cockroaches. R. Hill is just having his 15 minutes. He should be gone soon..
8 years ago
The United States has a proud history many instances of provocation against enemies of state.
The Spencer/Geller event in Texas echoes of caricatures of enemies of freedom
presented by generations past like that of :
and
and
MGM movie studios.
and
Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 “The Great Dictator”
and
and
and
Columbia Pictures 1940s “You Nazty Spy” which provides the following caveat:
”Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle.”
and
Columbia Pix: Back from the Front with the opening caveat:
”Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and other human beings is a dirty shame”.
and
Economics:
“It’s Everybody’s Business (1954) (Capitalism v. Communism)
The doctrines of Nazism, Shintoism, & Communism were routinely and critically
caricatured without reservation…and without the need for tens of thousands of dollars of security apparatus to protect the presentation of each effort.
Caricatures break the language/literacy barrier and that is the reason Islam feels so threatened by these efforts. The appalling illiteracy rates of Islam dominant societies expose it’s vulnerability to visual criticisms.
Americans understood, valued and made unapologetic use of their constitutional rights to free expression, even when and especially because it was insulting to an offending doctrine &/or to the followers of said criticized doctrine.
It is time Americans relearn, embrace and make effective use of these lessons. As Reagan once said, it’s a “Time for Choosing”
God bless and protect these artists and all who refuse to submit to the false gods of ‘tolerance’ and ‘blind faith’ – those who remain indignantly ignorant believing all
religious doctrines are the same. Lan Astaslem. Never submit.
8 years ago
I’m provoked by the 1.5 million Armenians killed in the Armenian Genocide by the Muslim Turks.
8 years ago
Dershowitz is correct. And that was back in the days when people thought blacks had a damn lot of nerve speaking out about ANYTHING…that they should “know their place”.
Nothing different here.
8 years ago
Thanks to Prof. Dershowitz and to Ms. Geller. I am in Jerusalem where the Jihad is around the corner and down the street. Of course it is not ‘all Muslims’ by any means, but those that do act are ‘powered by Islam’ as talkbacks are powered by Disqus. I was shocked by Trump’s comments and saw him defended at PajamasMedia by Robert Wargas of The Weekly Standard. Let him know how I felt, and posted about it on FB. But there’s not much you can do but watch in wonderment as the conservatives split into two- those who will defend free speech and those who will not. Sadly, here we have some of the same issues with the government and police who let anti-Zionist Arab MKs rant on and sail on the Marmara, while religious Jews are banned from praying on the Temple Mount. This morning (here it is early morning) I saw the Breitbart article on Obama boycotting Officer Moore’s funeral in New York, while he sent three representatives to Freddie Gray’s – and is SILENT about what happened in Garland. The world at war – including civil war, including within the conservative movement. It has been ever thus..
8 years ago
The Left paints itself into a corner, as usual, and then points the finger of hypocrisy at others, as usual.
So what’s new…?
8 years ago
Dershowitz is also a filed name in a paedophile sex abuse case, ongoing.
Search your favorite engine for witness accounts and details, evidence and the Epstein pedophile sex dungeon.
8 years ago
I’ve been citing MLK too. But here’s the ultimate Thou Shalt Not Provoke. https://www.facebook.com/AnnInquirer/photos/pb.355910681177323.-2207520000.1431180135./663818553719866/
8 years ago
If any other religion had been mocked and its adherents reacted negatively our leftwing media would be chastising them for their lack of progressive thinking.
Its only when muslims get mad that we hear the chattering classes say that we must not insult them. I think it was Voltaire who said that if you want to know who rules over you just look for the ones that you cannot criticize. I guess we have our answer.
8 years ago
Reply to
alyn21
been looking for that quote. thanks
Here’s another of Voltaire’s, Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities – like kill unbelievers or cartoonists.
8 years ago
8 years ago
Over the years i listened to Dershowitz promote liberal ideas. It turns out that he’s a true liberal and deserves our respect.
8 years ago
MLK provoked just by holding marches and making speeches and that drew out the crazies. (It’s too bad that his speeches aren’t listened to by the Black community); however, i digress. The Greeks said ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ and that was provocative. It seems to me that the FBI would do well to hold a nationwide cartoon contest, fill up the event with agents, and take down the misfits that show up. Let them come to the FBI rather than waste time looking for them. The FBI conducts stings all the time, right?
8 years ago
Yes, he’s right. Exactly right. Both promoted by Jewish instigators. And look where it’s got us in race relations today. We don’t need Jewish instigators in the Western World destabilizing our countries.
8 years ago
Reply to
pubpubpub
Whoever you are: You represent the typical anti-Semitic evil that deserves nothing but scorn. Your attitude has long been relegated to the garbage dump of history.
8 years ago
Reply to
chrisinpaso
You represent the typical anti-Muslim evil that deserves scorn. You’re too stupid to see your own hypocrisy. I deserve praise.
8 years ago
MLK provoked too, yep but let us not forget that the things the islamic fascists do and preach, day and night in western countries and in Irak and Syria, do provoke all non-muslims too! When islamic clerics tell their listeners in mosques that democracy is to be rejected, that Israel is to be destroyed, that gays are to be thrown to death from a high place or stoned, that women must have sex with their husbands at any time the husband wants, that apostates must be executed, that mosques be built, etc etc, that is provocation too! And noone cares about it! And if you do care and say something about it publicly,you are at once labelled a racist!
