Alan Dershowitz and Dennis Prager, two of America's most prominent intellectuals, took a liberal and a conservative stand, respectively, on Israel and on Jewish matters. Their sparring ring was the 92d St. YMHA in Manhattan on October 8, beamed to TV sets at 30 locations in America. Their keen and humorous analysis was like a feast of the mind. Both were persuasive on the same topics.
Mr. Dershowitz' theme was to keep liberals from being absorbed into extremism. He dedicates himself to not letting extremist enemies of Israel, such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, presume to make a "liberal" case against Israel. He fights that on campuses.
He is keeping an open mind on J Street, whose head, Jeremy Ben-Ami, will debate him at the Y on Sat., Nov. 21, 8 p.m., $27. J Street, however, fails Dershowitz' test on whether it is a friend of Israel, because it opposes almost every means of Israeli defense and reserves its criticism for Israel. That makes it an enemy of Israeli existence, not just a critic of some Israeli policy here and there. See my series on J Street.
Mr. Prager's theme was to show Jews that being conservative is not beyond the Pale. He said his radio shows are not nasty. Reform synagogues, however, do not invite him to speak on any subject, because he is a Republican. Their minds are closed. They seem to confuse liberalism with Judaism and a certain kind of anti-Zionism with liberalism.
Dershowitz said that during the Gaza war, Abbas urged Israel to fight Hamas more and overthrow it. Now he criticizes Israel over the war.
Another key point was about how real is the danger from Iran, whose supposed moderate leader, Rafsanjani, said he wouldn't mind a nuclear exchange in which Iran loses 15 million people in order to kill 3 million Israelis. Reckless for religion!
But Dershowitz clings to the old notion of evacuating from settlements, as if a territorial adjustment would resolve the Arab-Israel conflict, which is religious.
Prager said that universities are centers of anti-Israel agitation, and Israel's best friends are [certain] Christians and conservatives. He said that the problem with liberals [or at least with extremists] is that they have abandoned their hatred of evil. He thinks that Jews who are against Israel have a moral problem.