Reply #3: Dershowitz is a clown. A second-rate apologete borrowing (heavily)...

[Poll_Blind]

...against a name made as a lawyer. Anyone seriously questioning why Carter doesn't wish to debate Dershowitz should really read Dershowitz's book, The Case for Israel. As a scholarly work it is atrophied and formless and ultimately, amateurish. It is a bright student trying to blather his way through a homework assignment about a subject which he knows nothing. It is a lawyer playing at being an historian and all too often in the book a reader is aware of Dershowitz falling back on his training as a zealous advocate.

  The best of Alan Dershowitz is as a point-scorer before a jury, nothing more. His grasp of facts or (based on his book) his desire to enlist them in his argument shows this. Your own feelings aside, compare Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel" to Michael Neumann's "The Case against Israel". Regardless of what their points are, make a comparison between the level of scholarship between Dershowitz and Neumann. If examining "The Case for Israel" does not, alone, produce the sensation of amateurishness then that comparison is the only further thing required.

  For Carter to Debate Dershowitz would be akin to Benny Morris debating Finkelstein- though arguably Finkelstein exists as a much more tangible scholastic entity than Dershowitz, credit to Dershowitz by adding in this field. Finkelstein is not a lawyer and Dershowitz is not a social scientist or historian and when they meet the disparity becomes apparent.

  So why should Carter debate Dershowitz? Why should a marine zoologist debate PT Barnum on existence of the Fiji Mermaid?

  When Dershowitz speaks on Middle East peace issues, he does so with a visa and a phrasebook.

PB