Some of my old friends on Martha's Vineyard.. are shunning me and trying to ban me from their social life on Martha's Vineyard. One of them, an academic at a distinguished university, has told people that he would not attend any dinner or party to which I was invited.... Others have said they will discontinue contributions to organizations that sponsor my talks.

This is all familiar to me, since I lived through McCarthyism in the 1950s, when lawyers who represented alleged communists on civil libertarian grounds were shunned. Some of these lawyers and victims of McCarthyism lived on Martha's Vineyard. I never thought I would see McCarthyism come to Martha's Vineyard, but I have.

Socrates was forced to eat hemlock. Ovid, Dante, & Emma Goldman were sent into exile. Margaret Sanger was jailed. Rosa Luxemburg, Gandhi and Martin Luther King were killed. Spinoza was excommunicated. Alan Dershowitz can't find anyone to dine with at Martha's Vineyard.

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) July 2, 2018

Norman Finkelstein comments, via email:

"Oh, he wants 'vibrant debate': I suppose that's why he threatened to bankrupt University of California press if they published my book [Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-semitism and Abuse of History, 2005], and called on Governor Schwarzenegger to kill the book.

"Oh, and I suppose it's because of his opposition to McCarthyism that he sent a 60-page smear document to every faculty member and administrator at DePaul so as to deny me tenure [in 2007].

○ Following Politicized Dismissal, Norm Finkelstein Gives Details of Tenure Battle (2012)

(2/2) It's bad enough when college students demand trigger warnings and safe spaces to avoid hearing views with which they disagree. But it's worse when it comes from professors and media people. It's a dangerous sign of the times.

— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) July 3, 2018

[Key words: Alan Dershowitz archived @EuroTrib]

[Key words: Alan Dershowitz archived @BooMan]

○ Dershowitz: from Israel Firster to MEK Firster for the Right Price | Tikun Olam |

Five lessons from the de-listing of MEK as a terrorist group | The Guardian - Opinion Sept. 2012 |

Nonetheless, a large group of prominent former US government officials from both political parties has spent the last several years receiving substantial sums of cash to give speeches to the MEK, and have then become vocal, relentless advocates for the group, specifically for removing them from the terrorist list. Last year, the Christian Science Monitor thoroughly described "these former high-ranking US officials - who represent the full political spectrum - [who] have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK." They include Democrats Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, Wesley Clark, Bill Richardson, and Lee Hamilton, and Republicans Rudy Giuliani, Fran Townsend, Tom Ridge, Michael Mukasey, and Andrew Card. Other prominent voices outside government, such as Alan Dershowitz and Elie Wiesel, have been enlisted to the cause [cached] and are steadfast MEK advocates.

Posted earlier in my diary ...

○ #HimToo - Iran Deal Scrapped
○ US Extremist Gets Free Reign In Paris Speech

Alan Dershowitz nails it! Per .@alandersh: "What they're doing to Manafort and Flynn endangers the civil liberties of all Americans!" pic.twitter.com/nOYxAmxdvf

— Patriot Gary (@Golfinggary5221) 5. maj 2018

Related reading ...

○ Remodeling Middle-East: Neocons, Republicans and Israel by Oui @BooMan on May 21st, 2015

No Alan Dershowitz, you are no Democrat or progressive on the Israel/Palestine issue. Always manage to explain away war crimes and occupation of Palestinian Land.