Quotes from Alan M. Dershowitz

Religion is not a panacea for all of life's tragedies.

Catch One: The Case of Edmund Rosner

Those primarily responsible for the current desperate situation of the Palestinian people have been their own leaders, from Haj Hussaini (the late Grand Mufti of Jerusalem) to Yassir Arafat, to the leaders of Hamas and the other terrorist groups. These leaders have placed a higher priority on the destruction of Israel than on the construction of Palestine.

The Palestinians will eventually have a state, but it should not come as a reward for terrorism.

It is fair to say that although Israeli actions in combating terrorism have been far from perfect, Israel has been in greater compliance with the rule of law than any other country facing comparable dangers.

Yet the world, including many in the media, academia, and even diplomacy, seems to accept Palestinian violence as cultural. On the other hand, something different is expected from Israelis. This is cultural relativism bordering on racism. To expect less of Palestinians, regardless of their grievances, is to diminish their humanity.

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has warned that if terrorism is rewarded in the Middle East, it will "be coming to a theatre near you.

The first rule for escaping prison in the United States is always having someone more important than yourself to incriminate.

I personally favor the creation of a Palestinian state as a consequence of making best efforts to end terrorism, not as a reward for increasing terrorism as a carefully calculated tactic to achieve statehood.

The challenge of the Nuremberg tribunal, therefore, was to do real justice in the context of a trial by the victors against the vanquished—and specifically those leaders of the vanquished who had been instrumental in the most barbaric genocide and mass slaughter of civilians in history. Moreover

despite finishing first in my class at Yale Law School, I was rejected by all 32 of the law firms to which I applied.

Reading the fascinating transcript of the trial has the effect of demythologizing both the heroes and the villains. For example, Justice Robert Jackson, the American chief prosecutor and hero of Nuremberg, is shown as a bungling cross-examiner who loses virtually every verbal battle with Göring. Jackson was unprepared and sloppy, while Göring was ready for every question with a precise Germanic recollection. At

In the end it was the documentary evidence, the Germans' own detailed record of their aggression and genocide, that provided the smoking guns. Document after document proved be yond any doubt that the Nazis had conducted two wars: One was their aggressive war against Europe (and eventually America) for military, political, geographic, and economic domination. The other was their genocidal war to destroy "inferior" races, primarily the Jews and Gypsies.

This remarkable story is all too typical of how so many Jewish leaders throughout our history have reasoned about Jewish survival. Without tsuris--troubles--we will cease to be Jewish. We need to be persecuted, impoverished, discriminated against, hated, and victimized in order for us to retain our Jewishness. The chosen people must be denied choices if Judaism is to survive. If Jews are given freedom, opportunity, and choice, they will choose to assimilate and disappear.

The Jewish Bible teaches about justice largely through examples of injustice and imperfection. 5 Genesis challenges the reader to react, to think for him- or herself, even to disagree.

Within the Jewish tradition there are different kinds of biblical commentary: pshat, literal translation; drash, rabbinic explication; remez, symbolic interpretation; and sod, secret or mystical meaning.

We believe in the process of American justice, which requires zealous advocacy, scrupulous compliance with constitutional safeguards and the rule of law.

A library is a place where you learn what teachers were afraid to teach you.