“SUE Them & Investigate Kristoff!” Alan Dershowitz UNLEASHED On NYT IDF Dog Libel!

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Nicholas Kristoff is a blatant anti-semite racist, bigot, anti- drill, distorter of the fact, distorter of the law, and a liar. His column is the closest thing I've seen to the protocols of the elders of Zion in my lifetime.

[00:00:17]Welcome to another episode of our Middle East. I'm Dan Dker, joined by my dear friend and colleague of over three decades, Khaled Abu, bringing you the Middle East from a Middle Eastern point of view. Today, Holllet and I are so uh pleased and honored to have a uh just a wonderful uh special guest, Professor Alan Derswitz, the perhaps the longest serving professor of law uh at Harvard University. uh over 50 years of distinguished uh uh uh service and um and mentorship to so many uh young uh uh attorneys and also an author of scores of books on anti-semitism on the law and everything in between. Professor Dur, it's great to have you here uh in Jerusalem, even though it's on Zoom at a a really critical moment um in which the New York Times and its columnist Nick Kristoff have published uh what is being um fashioned or being understood in Israel across the board from the political left to the center uh to the right as as a real piece of propaganda.

[00:01:26]severe charges uh that Israel trained dogs to rape Palestinians and a systematic accusation of systematic rape of Palestinians uh incarcerated and arrested by the Israeli authorities. Um, we wanted to get your sense of the most recent news that just came out just moments ago is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyao and Foreign Minister Gansar have instructed the legal authorities here in Israel to file lawsuit uh on charges of liel and slander against uh against the writer and the the publication of this article on the front page of the New York Times um this past Monday. How reasonable or or possible is uh such a potential lawsuit in these um in this particular situation?

[00:02:17]>> Well, let's start out with the column itself. Nicholas Kristoff is a blatant anti-semite racist bigot, anti- drill, um distorter of the fact, distorter of the law, and a liar. And he's been that for, you know, as long as I've been following the New York Times. Um uh he's not the only member of his family. We won't get into that. That uh has problems of this kind. But he's a terrible human being. And his column is the closest thing I've seen to the protocols of the elders of Zion in my uh lifetime. The protocols like this column purported to be based on facts. They weren't opinions. The people who forged the protocols said, "We have facts. We know that uh uh Jewish leaders get together and they control the world.

[00:03:03]They control the economy." These weren't opinions. these were alleged facts. And that's what Kristoff did. He disguised um an alleged reporter column reporting facts as an opinion in order to try to immunize it from illegal action. But he's not fooling anybody. These are not opinions. He didn't say it's my opinion that Israel trains dogs to rape Palestinians. He said it's a fact. and he purported to quote from somebody who was a victim of such uh a fictional atrocity. Uh so in those countries that allow um nations and groups to bring lawsuits for defamation, it seems to me there's a very very strong case. Not in the in the United States, Israel can't bring a lawsuit. Um the the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can't bring a lawsuit.

[00:03:56]only uh individuals or corporations etc can be defamed but there's no doubt in my mind that defamation has occurred and um under the law of probably Great Britain, Canada, maybe Australia, maybe Israel, uh these claims can be tested in a court of law. So no, not in the United States, but yet yes in other states that permit uh defamation actions for hate speech. Professor Durovitz, why do you think the New York Times chose to publish it as an opinion piece as opposed to a news story or report? Does that give them some kind of legal immunity against the lawsuits?

[00:04:37]>> Not immunity, but cover. Um they they've done this more and more. uh they've invented a new journalistic or anti-journalistic concept called news analysis that they put on the front page which gives them the excuse for publishing just plain ordinary opinions as law.

[00:04:55]This is the opposite. This is publishing reports uh reporatorial information alleged facts and calling it opinion. Um the law of defamation in the United States is you can't be sued for your opinion. You know, I can say Dan Dker is a uh, you know, a putts. Uh, he's not.

[00:05:13]He's a guy. I'd be immune because I didn't literally mean that he is a penis. I meant that he has the the classification that deserves to be called that. So, the law distinguishes clearly between opinion and verifiable facts. But if the fact is verifiable, if in scientific jargon uh there is uh an empirical n negative proposition that could be proved, then it is judged as not as an opinion but as a fact. And uh the the the article though it's largely fictional and largely made up purports to be a reporting of fact. So whatever the law is with regard to facts um can be uh directed against this piece of garbage uh that as I said is the closest thing I've seen to the protocols of the elders of Zion. Then you have to ask the question why would the New York Times publish it? Uh Kristoff does not have credibility. Uh he's regarded as a pma pmacist. He's regarded as somebody who picks and chooses and selects and has been anti-Israel oh as long as I know him. Uh he disguises his anti-Israelism as human rights. But you know he doesn't write about um many of the worst human rights abuses that occur or at least he prioritizes Israel the Palestinians over many of the other abuses that he could be writing about. So, uh, you know, it's it's he he nobody should have any sympathy for the New York Times. And they purposely timed it so as to deflect from the very credible report that has been just issued about a rape that occur and the sexual misconduct that occurred on October 7th and and during the hostage taking. Uh, so this was a deliberate plan by the New York Times uh to go against Israel. The New York Times has a long long history of being anti-Semitic. Uh goes back to failing to report on the Holocaust. Deborah Lipit wrote a whole book about that called Beyond Belief. How the New York Times buried stories of the Holocaust. They promoted Stalin at a time when Stalin was was killing Jews. They were virantly anti-uh Israel. Uh and it's a long long history of a Jewish owned newspaper.

[00:07:36]Jewish in the sense only that uh they come the Solsberies come from a Jewish heritage but um you know it's the most anti-Jewish newspaper um in the United States today and and among those in the world. So uh you know many people I know have canceled their subscriptions to the New York Times. That doesn't help. Uh the New York Times has lost a lot of its readership and a lot of its online readership. But still, it's a very powerful uh institution of propaganda in the United States. You know, it is still the newspaper of record when it comes to Broadway plays and concerts. If you get a bad review in the New York Times, probably going to fold.

[00:08:16]>> So, are you actually saying that from a legal point of view, there's nothing one can do about it?

[00:08:22]>> No, there's nothing one can do about it in the United States. There's uh other countries. Remember, the New York Times, an international newspaper. In London, for example, you could you could find because London has very strict uh anti-defamation uh laws, I understand.

[00:08:35]>> But they also have tourist laws. They they don't allow you to there used to be was called tourist tourism defamation.

[00:08:43]That is people would purposely sue in London even though they didn't have any connections to London. Uh so the the courts are very concerned there about that. Um the problem with Israel, of course, is that uh you can bring lawsuits uh in Israel and you can win, but you're going to collect almost nothing. So um the the the issue with Israel is to bring the lawsuit and get a determination. Now, it won't have the same credibility that a lawsuit in another country might have uh and they won't collect a lot of money, but the issue is not collecting money from the New York Times. It's discrediting it.

[00:09:19]It's it's uh opposing it in the marketplace of ideas where it itself operates and getting discovery and you know sitting down with the lawyers for the New York Times and with um uh Kristoff and others and putting them under deposition and and questioning them uh about who their sources are and um we'll see whether or not the courts would allow them to protect their sources even though there's real issue about the credibility of at least some of the sources.

[00:09:50]>> You know, it's extraordinary. President Dur, I'm holding the opinion piece here on my left hand, which is called the silence that meets the rape of Palestinians. And it's more than ironic that the um the official report 10,000 uh uh 10,000 sources uh 300page report by the state of Israel called Silenced No More, Sexual Terror Unveiled. the the similarity in the titles is rather extraordinary as is the timing uh by which Khaled as you and I have chatted about was just hours apart. So it looks like a clear preeemption of the uh official Israeli uh report which is actually documented by the Hamas themselves uh as opposed to by Israel with photographs with videos and what Halid may perhaps you would um share with professor Durowitz and our viewers as well as myself. You're an expert in all things Palestinian the Arab world.

[00:10:47]This strategy that we've seen manifested on the front page of the New York Times is a Hamas strategy and the NGO that that Kristoff quotes himself is affiliated with the Hamas.

[00:11:00]>> Yeah. You know, this is this is providing ammunition to Hamas and most of Israel's enemies worldwide. You know, since the article came out, it's being circulating circulating on different social media websites, uh, accounts, most of them associated with Hamas, by by the way. And let me point out then, this story about the dog dogs raping has been circulating on social media for a long time. Most of the Arab media, the mainstream media and the Arab world did not pick it up. But now that the New York Times has published it, they're all quoting the New York Times and they're saying, you know, this is the New York Times. You go to Hamas affiliated social media accounts and you see that this is the number one story. You go to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. You go to all the anti-Israel, you know, elements in the Arab world. It's being used to promote hate against Israel, to delegitimize Israel, to demonize Jews.

[00:12:03]This is part of the campaign to delegitimize and demonize Israel. This is the eighth front. The war is not only taking place in Iran, in Yemen, in Lebanon, in Gaza, and elsewhere. It is also taking place in the media.

[00:12:20]>> No doubt about that. And it's also taking place on university campuses. And this will become the major the major accusation against Israel on college campuses because rape is a a big issue.

[00:12:32]There's no doubt uh that on some college campuses there is what's called a rape culture where uh young men take advantage of women, get them drunk, put them to sleep, give them drugs. And um um I I would hope that Nicholas Kristoff would look into that issue because uh it's very close to home. Uh but Kristoff decides not to look at those issues.

[00:12:55]Instead, uh portrays the one country that has probably done more to uh deal with uh prison abuses. Remember, every single democratic country in the world has abuses in prison. Uh there have been reports in the United States, reports in Great Britain, reports in Australia, reports in Canada. Prison guards do abuse prisoners. We know that. uh there was a famous case in the United States where uh there was a rectal rate. So the question is not whether these things occur. Of course they occur and of course they occur particularly during wartime in following an incident like October 7th. The question is what does the country do about it and uh Israel has done more to address this issue and go after some of the people than many of the other countries but that wasn't uh wasn't reported. what was reported only is this kind of repeat of what has been uh in the uh social media for years and and and what I've seen and what others have seen is a pattern that is uh Hamas activists make up stories and then they create parallels. They have everybody tell the same story and that story a fake credibility by being repeated.

[00:14:10]The truth is that when stories are repeated over and over again uh with uh some degree of parallelism, that's usually pretty good proof they're made up. Um what's needed now is a really good investigative journalist from the Wall Street Journal or some other more credible newspaper looking into Kristoff and looking into uh his background, his history of of lies and covering up lies.

[00:14:36]I mean, he's covered up lies uh and and rapes and and and and sex culture and rape culture uh by people very close to him and by institutions close to him and by countries close to him. And so the time has come for an expose which is even more credible sometimes than a lawsuit. Now, lawsuits can help with that because discovery is very important. And um uh if if if a lawsuit were to get beyond the dismissal phase and get to discovery, uh the New York Times would be very embarrassed uh when their people and their veters and their fact check fact checkers are put uh under cross-examination by lawyers like me uh who can get to the to the truth.

[00:15:23]The last thing the Times wants is for uh us the readers to learn how the sausage gets made by the New York Times because it's pretty it's pretty disgusting and nobody would eat the sausage or give credibility to the newspaper if they knew what went into these stories and why the Times decided on timing, why they decided to allow unsourced allegations to be made. The other thing is why don't they accuse individuals? uh they know the names of some of the alleged individuals who were guards and if they named any individuals those individuals could sue but they were very careful not to accuse any individuals.

[00:16:04]They accused only institutions that are unable to sue under American law in order to try to prevent lawsuits from being brought against them. Professor Dersowitz, you've been writing about anti-semitism, Jew hatred, Jewish state hatred, uh, for decades. When you look at this particular case, what kind of, uh, influence and impact do you sense this can have on what is already a spiking uh, anti-semitism phenomenon in New York itself? Uh, not to not to speak about the rest of the United States.

[00:16:40]>> Let's take New York. Um, I I spent a lot of time in New York. I live in Florida, but I spent a lot of time in New York. And, um, the area that I live now has a congressional campaign. And there are half a dozen Jewish Democrats running against each other, including Jack Schlloberg, uh, the idiot grandson of, uh, the former president of the United States. Um, he's running as an EPO baby, and he's the most anti-Israel candidate. Um, but there are others. Uh, all these Jewish candidates are running against each other as to who can be the most anti-Israel. And whoever is the most anti-Israel will win this Jewish district um in on the west side of of New York, also on the east side of New York, which shows you what happens. So, who is going to be believing this? Uh, there are going to be some who will be anxious to believe it. They would believe anything. They would believe that, you know, people came from out of space and raped. They would believe any of that. There's no doubt about that. A and there are college students who will believe anything. The real fear is the average reader of the New York Times, non-Jew, non-Zionist, uh, who reads it and gets their minds changed as a result says, "Wow, you I never knew this before. I thought Israel, uh, was a very civilized country, and now I read about these these anal rapes. I re read about these dogs. I'm beginning to change my views on Israel. That's the group that I'm most concerned about and that's the group that would be believed only because the New York Times said it.

[00:18:10]Look, I have friends, Jewish friends, other friends. If it's in the Times, they believe it. I I have conversations with them and they'll quote the New York Times for some of the most absurd things you've ever heard. But if it's the New York Times or if it's on NPR, um those are kind of the liberal paragonss of virtue and truth. So that's why this is so serious. Uh this is some in respect worse than the protocols of the elders of Zion because the protocols of the elders of Zion ultimately was clearly clearly exposed as a Tsarist forgery at a plot and you know people were able to prove who did the forging and everything and it's gone down in history as an example uh you know next to the Drifus case of how you can Drifus they framed an individual vertical of elders of Zion they framed an entire society and and group of people uh but the New New York Times hasn't been subjected to that. And that's why it's important that there now be investigative journalistic reports on Kristoff and on what he has not reported on, what he has covered up and why he picks this to write about and focus on and that has to be the next step and I hope it will be undertaken. I would be happy to help and participate in any such activity because for me as a believer in free speech for me the answer to bad speech is always good speech more speech not censorship. Yeah, the uh question Dan and Professor Durovvis is the New York Times has a bureau here in Israel and there are several reporters and journalists why were they not involved? I mean they are close to the story if this story you know was around. Why didn't they go out and investigate? Okay. Why do you have to fly someone in from the US to do his own research and you know research in quotes and >> well let's be clear didn't do his own research >> as he claims but he didn't do his own research. Read the article carefully.

[00:20:08]These were people who were given to him.

[00:20:11]These were people who were handed to him on a silver platter. Uh these were groups that are known for their anti-Israel attitudes. uh who went to him and and urged him to write the story. Um I didn't see very much evidence of original research that would satisfy uh uh journalistic criteria. On the other hand, this article will probably win a Pulit surprise because the Pulitzer Committee has turned viciously against Israel, giving a Puliter Prize most recently to a journalist to allegedly documented um uh abuse uh by Israel against Palestinian women and children and and other pelet surprises. The Pelet surprise committee has become very left, very anti-Israel.

[00:20:56]And so this is going to be nominated for Pulit surprise and uh and that will encourage more and more uh fake reporting like this. That's why it has to be exposed and exposed quickly and exposed credibly um by other journalists who really care about journalistic integrities. Uh I have to tell you, you know, I' I've lived a long life. I'm 87 years old. I've dealt with many professionals, psychiatrists, doctors, um um you name it. The most unethical group of people I had ever worked with in my life have been journalists.

[00:21:32]Journalists. The most unethical.

[00:21:35]Starting with the New Yorker, uh, 60 Minutes, uh, the New York Times. The most unethical group of people I have ever encountered have been journalists.

[00:21:47]And the reason they're so bad is they come with a purported purported uh, journalistic integrity. and the actual integrity is so much lower than the perceived integrity that the barrier is greatest and that's why I believe journalists as a whole are the most unethical uh group of professionals that in my long professional association I've been doing this for over 65 years um the journalists have been the worst and the New York Times has been among the worst because it has such a good reputation and so bad in reality You know, Dan and Professor Durbus as a journalist, I can tell you that I've worked with hundreds of international reporters over the past four decades. I've helped uncover, you know, the conflict over here. And I've always been saying this. What worries me is that most of these journalists who come here or who are based here, uh, they wake up in the morning and they search for any story that reflects negatively or badly on Israel. You try to offer them a story about wrongdoing on the Hamas side, on the Syrian side, on Lebanon, on they turn a blind eye.

[00:23:02]For them, it's all about bashing Israel and making Israel look bad. This has always been like that. By the way, it's not new. Look, the the two ma major editorial people uh the other one is Tom Freriedman who you know started out as a balanced journalist in Lebanon and has ended his career uh we all hope it's ending soon has ended his career with one of the worst articles I have ever seen in which he says as an American Jew I am torn torn to o rn I am torn between who should win Iran on the one hand or Israel and the United States on the other hand, he says, "I'm torn. I don't like Iran, but I do not want to see Natu and Trump in any way strengthened." So, he's torn. Now, that's pure opinion, idiotic opinion, stupid opinion, but nonetheless, it's opinion. So, that's protected. But when you start reporting on dog rapes, that's a very, very different situation. You're absolutely right. It should have appeared as a journalistic piece, not as a an opinion piece. Uh and but yet the Times has a long history of merging opinion uh with reporting. The Wall Street Journal doesn't do that. Um they don't have uh uh analysis on the front page. They have a strict separation of church and state.

[00:24:25]Uh they have op-eds. There's an op-ed editor who I work with who's terrific and and and very very tough. uh there is an editorial page editor and then there's a news editor and they're not allowed to even speak to each other for the most part or work together. They're uh total strict separation but not in the New York Times. The New York Times merges opinion with reporting and that means that the reporting is often as it was in this case totally distorted by opinion. But I want to emphasize again one more time, this is the protocols of the elders of Zion. This comes closest to that of anything I've seen in modern day reporting because it purports to be based on facts and the facts are false and uh and it's very important to uncover the falseness of those facts.

[00:25:18]That doesn't mean that Israel is perfect. It doesn't mean that there aren't abuses in prisons. There are. And by the way, if I was somebody who cared about the abuses in Palestinian prisons, I'd be furious at Kristoff because the real abuses are going to be uh uh credibility. It's like women who cry rape when they never met the person and just were after it for the money. That hurts real rape victims. And in this case, real victims, small as they are, of uh abuse by individual prison guards, and we're talking about 19, 20, 21 year old kids. Um, some are Jewish, some are uh not Jewish, some are uh belong to other uh groups. Uh if anybody did any of these things, they should be held accountable. And Israel does a pretty good job uh of holding people accountable, but this kind of reporting in the end is going to be proved so noncredible that it's probably going to hurt the few real cases of abuse.

[00:26:18]Professor Durvis, are there any measures that one can take against the organizations behind it? The re the so-called research centers and in Europe for example the ones that are affiliated with Hamas and that are behind these stories >> like Euromid.

[00:26:34]>> Yeah, Euromid. I mean look at the name Euromade based in Geneva. it, you know, it creates the impression that this is something European and >> look at doctors without borders which has become a Hamas front and they're regarded as extremely credible. I mean that's what good reporting should be doing. That's what, you know, the Jerusalem Post and and other newspapers uh in Israel should be doing and other newspapers in the United States should be doing and in Canada and in England exposing these fraudulent organizations um for what they are often just Hamas fronts or at the very very least double standard appliers apply a very very different standard to Israel than they do to the reporting on other other countries. And so again, the answer to bad speech is good speech. And I think what we need is more active real journalism, looking at u the sources, looking at Kristoff, looking at what he's covered up. Uh and I have some information that I would be happy to provide to people who are doing this reporting about stories that Kristoff could have covered but didn't cover. Uh and that that is as important as the stories that he does cover and particularly since he covers them so inaccurately. But I would hope the New York Times, they've gotten so many complaints, uh would do its own internal investigation and and see why a the timing of this uh b why, as you say, people like Kushner who do reporting in Israel are not part of this story. She was part of the story, which didn't get as much attention, part of the story of the real investigation that was done.

[00:28:15]She wrote that story for the New York Times. uh but she uh as far as I know uh didn't didn't have much to do with this story. And so uh you're absolutely right. It should have been done by reporters by trained reporters. Kristoff is not a reporter. He is an opinion analyst. And yet he writes as if he were reporting. That's another form of deception.

[00:28:38]>> And at the end of the day, people will remember two things. The headline and the New York Times. That's all. New York Times gives it false credibility and that's why the New York Times has to be subjected to its own standards of reporting uh better standards. But look, let's just in general understand the New York Times has lost its credibility. Did it ever have credibility? You know, it won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting how good Stalin was in the 1930s and then it turned out the person doing the reporting was on Stalin's payroll. New York Times. That was the New York Times.

[00:29:13]We've seen other such uh stories as well. So the New York Times has a real problem of credibility. But this is one of the worst stories ever published by the New York Times and precisely as you put it right in the beginning because it purports to be uh reporting stating what people have said, reporting it and then it puts it in the context of opinion to protect it from being subject to the usual rules that reporters are subject to when they uh quote uh without sourcing their material. Professor Durus, would you suggest that there are Israeli newspapers such as the Jerusalem Post, such as JNS? Um, and there Yeriota Kronote has an English or Wet they call it has an English version. Uh, would if they did an independent investigative piece because they have all of the sources, the real sources in the prison system, in the Shabbach, uh, you know, in the investigative uh, uh, community, in the settler community. I mean this this article uh accused Jews living uh in Judea and Samaria of being part of this rape culture, this systematic uh sexual torture um you know phenomenon.

[00:30:29]So would it be helpful for the international community to for for the local media to do a deep dive a serious investigative piece and and out all of these uh propagandistic uh phenomena?

[00:30:42]>> Yes. But it has to apply rigorous journalistic criteria if possible.

[00:30:47]Naming sources, providing credibility. I mean the interesting thing about this article is uh or the worst thing about it is uh this bigot who wrote it uh basically analogizes what Hamas did uh to these accusations. And of course in Hamas's case, they videotaped it themselves. Uh there's credible evidence. It's much of it is in the report that just came out. and to compare it to unnamed sources uh or one named source who has real credibility problems. Uh the idea of comparing the journalistic rigor of one thing to the other is as menacious and as as malicious as the report itself.

[00:31:32]>> And finally, Professor Duruititz, a larger question. And at 50,000 ft, Israel has been under global assault now, most dramatically since the October 7th invasion, mass murder, rape, and torture, and kidnapping of Israelis and Americans, I might say, uh, among nationals from 15 other countries on October 7, 2023. How would you suggest there's a a major discourse in Israel about what Israel can do to stop the bleeding of this uh global assault? Um what are some of your thoughts about that?

[00:32:08]>> First of all, let's remember that the most successful attack Hamas ever made on Israel was on October 7th because it changed the dynamic. It changed the rhetoric. And the world is rewarding rape. The world is rewarding murder. The world is reporting massacre.

[00:32:24]Universities, uh, professors are rewarding it and they're sending a message. Do it again. Do it again. If you want to turn opinion around, rape, murder, behead, uh, abuse children, uh, and then, you know, the world maybe, maybe will give you some attention. Um, um, you know, I I've been writing a series of books um, uh, that I've been giving out free on college campuses. The first one was the 10 big Israel lies and how to refute them. But I have one that is recently called uh Jewish blood is no longer cheap. And I tell the story of what happened uh on October 7th and what happened on October 8th which was in many ways more enduring than the horrible tragedy of what happened on October 7th. Look, the first rule that Israel has to comply with, and this doesn't answer your question directly, but it's really important. Israel should never ever under any circumstances sacrifice its military security to the desire for good public relations. It should always put its military security first. It should protect its people. It should attack Iran. It should seek regime change. It should do all the things it is doing, some of which the United States is stopping it from doing now. That has to be the first priority because that works. Whereas nothing Israel does can possibly work in changing academic opinion. Let's remember who brought the Nazis to power.

[00:33:54]Students at the University of Munich, University of Berlin, H Highleberg University. Who brought Stalin to power?

[00:34:00]Students at St. Petersburg University and Moscow University. Who brought Castro to power? Students at the universities in Cuba and other places.

[00:34:09]Who brought Palpat to power? Students are the ones who bring tyrants to power.

[00:34:15]and students often reflect the future of a country. And so I think the future of public relations in relation to Israel is uh going to get worse, not going to get better. And there's a temptation to try to change that by changing Israel's behavior. Big big mistake. And I think uh the prime minister understands that.

[00:34:39]He understands that the primary job of the prime minister is not to get good stories in the New York Times, but to make sure that Iran doesn't have the capacity to destroy Israel through nuclear weapons, rockets, and and other uh other kinds of military action. So, I think the priority has to be set straight and Israel is doing a very good job when you look at the priorities that way. Can Israel do a better job? Yes.

[00:35:05]I've often thought for example that Hazar should be taken out of the prime minister's office and put in the office of the president uh because hazar should be done on behalf of all of Israel not on behalf of the government that happens our at the moment. I think there are a lot of other things that could be done as well but I want to make sure that those are all secondary to what Israel has to do. Hashem owes moane. The only way Jews will ever have shalom is through superior oes through superior military. That is the best answer to the New York Times. Let Israel continue to win on the military battlefield and let others like me and you will do what we can to help Israel in the court of public opinion. But the most important thing, and we learned that on October 7th, is Israel cannot show weakness. It must show strength. When it shows weakness, as it did on October 7th, the bullies of the world will surround them and do everything they can to destroy their credibility. So, keep strong.

[00:36:10]That's the key key point.

[00:36:12]>> So, well, thank you very much uh for joining us as our special guest today on our Middle East. It's been enlightening as always, Professor Dowitz. And I will just say I remember when I was a senior at Harvard College in 1984. You were my teacher when you brought us into the at that time the Black Student Association of the law school where the PLO was featured and you ushered the Jewish students out. That was my first demonstration and you were you were our leader. So you continue to be >> I've been fighting at Harvard since the day I got there in 1964 um when a Jew couldn't be a dean of a uh any of the colleges or a president to the university and we're but I have to tell you anti-semitism is much worse today than it was in 1964. When I got there in ' 64 at least what 18% of the student body was Jewish. Now it's below the quota that President Leel imposed.

[00:37:09]It's 6% today.

[00:37:11]>> It's we don't know. It's between 6% and 9% but it's way lower than the 23%. And it's because of the end of meritocracy because universities have abandoned meritocracy for mediocracy. Harvard University is today a mediocre university. I'm not talking about the sciences. I'm not talking about curing diseases. I'm talking about social sciences, law, history, literature.

[00:37:36]Yeah.

[00:37:37]>> Yeah. Disciplines. uh have become Harvard has become a place of real real mediocrity notwithstanding it has a great president and some great deans but uh faculty has too much power and faculty is too far left >> and we haven't even talked about foreign funding atari fun >> in the in the in the tens of billions >> well we'll talk about all of those things but most important thing for Israel is hashemos keep strong make sure you god's plan is to create peace through strength, not peace through weakness. We learned about the cost of peace through weakness during the showah. We can never repeat that again.

[00:38:16]>> Yes, >> army uh and Israel's army abroad um has to m strength, economic strength, political strength, every kind of strength, but most important military strength.

[00:38:28]>> Very much. We also learned during the failed Osel Accords uh that concession breeds greater violence uh as opposed to what happened in Israel after the second inifat in which there was a change and then after October 7th now the whole national security concept has changed towards prevention and away just from a deterrence and early warning. So, uh I hope um that Israel uh the government prime minister is listening to you uh and uh will continue to um take greater initiative in preventing terror uh uh violence and subversion as opposed to trying to contain it.

[00:39:06]>> The prime minister knows that and that he's been in the business of trying to prevent terror now for all the years that I've known him and I've known him since 1970. That's how far back.

[00:39:16]>> Wow. He was at MIT when you were at a prof when you were professor at that time.

[00:39:22]>> I was a young assistant professor and he was a student at MIT. We were on a show together called the advocates on PBS and that's when we met in um in the spring of of 1970 and we've been close friends ever since. Do I agree with everything he says and does? does any Israeli, does any Jew, you know, two Jews, three opinions, and uh so we have the right to uh be be uh constructively critical. On the other hand, we agree completely that a strong Israel is an Israel that has a better chance of getting peace.

[00:39:56]>> Absolutely. And uh we we deeply appreciate your insights as always.

[00:40:01]Professor Alan Derswitz, professor ameritus at Harvard Law School and an author of I think you must be up to 60 books at this point if I'm not mistaken >> or 64.

[00:40:12]>> New one coming out on July 4th called Founding Fathers and One Jewish Mother.

[00:40:17]It compares Washington Jefferson with the Israel Bengorian and Golden Mayer being the Jewish mother. As you know, uh, prime minister not prime minister Bengorian turned to his cabinet early in his administration looked at the only woman in the cabinet called Golden Mayer and said there's only one person in this cabinet who has balls pointing to her balls which mean eggs. So there's a double antandra there. But uh the idea of Benorian and Golden Mayor recognizing that peace comes through strength has been central to Israel's success for the last nearly 80 years.

[00:40:56]>> Well, we hope to keep it that way.

[00:40:58]Khaled Abu Tom and Professor Alan Dersitz. Hal Abu Toé. What a um extraordinary uh opportunity we've had to hear from one of the really the great authorities on uh in the American juristprudence uh defamation, anti-semitism, especially here on our Middle East. We really are trying to bring to the west a greater understanding of the Middle East in its own image and professor Duritz really is as much a Middle Eastern in a sense having been here for so many years not only in the west. So we continue to try to bridge the cultures. I live um in the middle of the United of of of Manhattan and uh I don't live on the upper west side. I don't live on the upper east side. I live in the Middle East. I live in the middle of the east side.

[00:41:43]>> That's right. Well, I hope you'll meet me and give me your book when I come in the next two weeks to uh the United States to New York. Fantastic. What do you think? You know, one of the things I've been saying uh since the Oslo Accords is that Israeli concessions and Israeli compromise and Israeli gestures are sadly being interpreted as signs of weakness and that brings more violence.

[00:42:09]You withdraw from Gaza, that's seen as a sign of weakness, not as a sign that you want peace. You bring the PLO to the West Bank in Gaza, that's seen as victory for the PLO and a sign of weakness on the part of Israel. And this hasn't changed it. It this is a cycle we are involved in or we are witnessing and stories like what just came out of the uh New York Times.

[00:42:37]This actually plays into the hands of the rejectionists and the extremists on the Palestinian side. It undermines the moderates in the Arab world who defend peace with Israel, who who are trying to advocate for peace with Israel because this story will be used to justify why Israel should be destroyed. And that's very, very serious. And I see what's how the Arab media is reporting it. And they're all saying, they're all emphasizing this is the New York Times.

[00:43:08]It didn't come out from an Arab uh institution. and it didn't come out from a media outlet in the Arab world. So that's why the name the New York Times is very important for them, the context.

[00:43:20]But this is long-term damage. This is a massive explosion, I call it. It's an earthquake.

[00:43:28]>> It's a nuclear explosion.

[00:43:29]>> It's a it's a it's a massive explosion.

[00:43:32]It causes huge damage in the Middle East. it emboldens or empowers the uh the radicals in the in the Arab world, jihadist groups and all those who don't want peace. It's very difficult to see how Saudi Arabia, for example, would be able to normalization >> normalization with a story like this circulating, you know, on social media and in the Arab world as at the end of the day, as I said, people remember two things, the headline and the New York Times.

[00:44:02]>> Yeah. So, we've got to do our own aggressive branding and exposure. We you and I have been talking about this for years. Uh whether or not, as Professor Duritz pointed out, um these this particular case is actionable uh legally, which we understand it is not in the United States. However, the pretext of filing suit uh certainly becomes perhaps a an arrow in the quiver of public opinion in the United States.

[00:44:28]And as professor Durovitz said, you know, take this to the court of public opinion. Discredit those behind it.

[00:44:34]Discredit, you know, the the reporting.

[00:44:38]It's it's it's a the battle is over public opinion and that's where the uh focus should be.

[00:44:44]>> Where the focus should be and where Israel's focus should be. Even though winning on the military battlefield, as Professor Durwood said, is number one.

[00:44:52]Absolutely. Peace through strength. And I hope that our program is uh programmed through strength. Absolutely.

[00:44:59]>> We're in the Middle East.

[00:45:00]>> We're in the Middle East.

[00:45:00]>> Do you understand the language of the Middle East, by the way?

[00:45:03]>> Yes.

[00:45:03]>> We I appreciate it very much.

[00:45:05]>> Thank you.

[00:45:06]>> Thank you very much, Listen.