It all began with an innocent enough request for an interview about the Goldstone report and my 49 page response to it. The Israeli Army radio station asked to interview me. The interview was conducted by an experienced host, Razi Barkai. Unbeknownst to me, Barkai had an agenda. He wanted to get me to say that I thought that Goldstone was a “moser.” He wanted me to use this Hebrew word, whose meaning I did not understand, because in Israel, this obscure theological term has taken on a meaning of its own. According to The Forward, “the term moser entered Israeli political discourse in 1995 in the wake of Rabin’s assassination by radical settler supporter Yigal Amir, when Amir cited some rabbis’ designation of Rabin as a moser as part of his justification for carrying out the murder.” The Forward quoted Michael Karpin, an Israeli journalist and the author of a book on Rabin’s assassination, as follows: “After the assassination, when Amir was interviewed by the police and he mentioned the term moser, people tried to find out what it is…Nobody used it here before the assassination.”
Unfortunately, I was totally unfamiliar with the “inside baseball”—or in this case “inside Israel”—use of this esoteric term.
Several times during the interview, Barkai tried to get me to agree that Goldstone was a moser, a word he pronounced with a thick accent. Since the interview was being conducted in English, I thought he was asking me to agree with him that Goldstone was a “monster.” I would never use the term “monster” since it suggests an inherent, even genetic, flaw in a person, without regard to what he has said or done. I was clear throughout my interview that I believed that Goldstone had exploited his Jewishness to lend illegitimate credibility to a false report. In this respect, he had betrayed his people and deserved to be condemned in the marketplace of ideas. Accordingly, when Barkai asked me the following question, “Do you hint, Professor, that he is a moser, someone who betrays his own people?,” I focused on the part of the question I understood. Believing that he is someone who betrays his own people, I answered the question in the affirmative. Barkai had sprung the trap. Now he had me. He could send out press releases indicating that I had called Goldstone a moser, even though I never used the word and had no idea what it meant.
The story spread quickly around the world, and I was condemned, largely by the extreme left, for advocating Goldstone’s murder. As soon as I heard this, I immediately demanded a clarification from Barkai, which he ran on the air. I repeatedly emphasized, in subsequent interviews, that “I certainly did not mean to imply that any physical harm should come to Goldstone.” But this didn’t stop the incitement by those in the media more interested in sensationalism than truth.
M.J. Rosenberg, the former Director of Policy Analysis for Israel Policy Forum, wrote in his Palestine Note blog that I was “calling for Goldstone’s murder.” Even more insidiously, the Forward, a mainstream Jewish newspaper, ran a lengthy piece strongly implying that I must have known the theological (or “Halachic”) implications of “moser.” They went so far as to find an elementary school classmate at Etz Chayim Yeshiva in Boro Park who told them, quite erroneously, that I “must have heard it as a child.” (Another classmate wrote the Forward a letter confirming that he too had never heard it—and he was a good Yeshiva student!) The Forward then went on to quote another rabbi to the effect that “a moser can become a capital crime” under certain circumstances. At the very bottom of the article, so as not to detract from its sensationalism, the Forward included the following disclaimer:
“I do not want any harm to come to Richard Goldstone,” Dershowitz said. “I want him to be responded to in the marketplace of ideas.”
An article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by Ron Kampares was even more irresponsible. It “reported” the following:
“Most recently, Alan Dershowitz likened him to a “moser”, a Jewish traitor deemed in some interpretations as worthy of a death sentence.”
This was written days after I had made it clear that I wanted no harm to befall Goldstone. A response to the JTA article by Debra DeLee, President and CEO of Americans For Peace Now, accused me—also days after I made my position clear—of calling Goldstone a “moser,” which she said is “a term reserved in traditional Jewish law for a Jewish traitor who should be killed.”
She also showed her ignorance of the fact that I had written a 49 page substantive response to the Goldstone report, by saying that I “could have—and should have—aired substantive disagreements about the report that Judge Goldstone authored following the Gaza War.”
Finally, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (Bradley Burston) described me as “Kahane-sounding,” a reference for the radical rabbi who did in fact call for violence—as contrasted for my call for peace based on a two-state solution and the end of civilian settlements. But no matter, its sells newspapers.
It’s bad enough that there are some religious extremists on both sides who actually incite their followers to commit violence. But when elements of the mainstream Israeli and Jewish media twist the truth in the interest of sensationalism to imply—or state outright—that I am calling for the murder of Richard Goldstone, it is those irresponsible members of the media (and of Americans For Peace Now) who become the inciters.
It is a shame the media malpractice as it is, the playgrounds bullies and gossip mongers are
jockeying for a place of relevance these days.
Actually a "Moser" is a rat who informs on Jews to anti-Semitic hostile authorities, so I think the term could not be more appropriate when applied to Goldstone!
do you have the etymology? is it plain ganoven-speak?
A valuable lesson here for ALL .Deception is a universal trait in humans . Even this , slick and subtle subterfuge with a definite and clear agenda , perpetrated on a man with high education and good intentions
Words incite .
Words DO kill.
A testimony to the destructive power of a lie .
In hind sight, perhaps you should have asked for a clarrification of the word.
Or perhaps as I would have done, "I'm sorry, I dont understand what 'moser' means, could you explain what you mean by it"
will you redo nan interview with this reporter? then you should return to his interpretation of moser every time.
dont forget your stiff arm salute Akingu
Akingu, __Dude, are you serious? I think we need to get rid of low-lifes like you.
The comment Akingu left has been deleted. I will not let such filth stand.
Prof. Dershowitz has now completed his decent into the sub-sub-sub basement where disinformation, lies, deceit and endless psychobabble are neatly packaged and sold to the unknowning as true enlightenment. I am praying for you Alan, but it looks like you are beyond salvation.
Welcome to your frends lefties modus operandi ,mr. Dershowiz
….hahahaha and righties don't do the same ??? No sense in being hypocritical about this , is there?
It makes a big change for Alan to be blatantly mis-quoted. Usually, he does it to others, like the still not-withdrawn accusation that a dead woman was a capo in the Warsaw Ghetto, and her son (ie Norman Finkelstein) believes it of her.
It's patently false, you can easily find what it was that Finkelstein said but it seems as if this personal unpleasantness is sprayed at anyone in this discussion now.
Hey man , I didn't like Alans defense of Oj …he's gotta live with that , but how does it change my previous statement ?
It is practiced by Left AND Right .
btw , please rewrite your above accusation coherently , andf I'll be glad to adress it /win or lose .
A song for all of you!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5znh58WITU8
USMCSniper – Great Song! My Dad celebrated his 19th birthday on Iwo as a Corporal in the USMC. He helped me understand there is right and wrong, truth and justice, and honorable service and deeds in this world. Thanks again for the tune. Kindest Regards!
do you realize that Goldstone spelled backwards in Enotglod?
brilliant 080 …do you do bible-code too ?
great song USMC….I heard it for the first time ,with a backdrop of Dragon Mountain .
Of course Dreckstone is moser.
Not fun to be on the business end of left-wing lies, is it?
Dershowitz like many liberals before him who cross their old leftist friends,
find out quickly that debating Conservatives is friendlty and cordial compared to the
bile and vicious hate the left can spew.
The left-wing save their hardest punches for their own.
Etz Chaim in Boro Park – B'klyn NY? – I also attended for two years – but had to stop going when my father a reformed person started eating and bringing home bacon – I guess we weren't kosherr anymore. And what has that to do with anything – you guessed it – absolutely nothing.
I find the references to secularism very disconcerting and believe it detracts from the larger issues and the human condition to find meanings where they are not.
I personally admire Mr. Dershowitz for his strength of character and his moral compass – surely this incident does not define (nor does the OJ trial) who he is nor what he represents – move on Mr. Dersowitz there are more important issues to address.
Alan, I know you have an image to keep up. I know you need to appear rational, and you need to distance yourself from extremist views. So whatever your needs are, it's OK, tricked or not, you aren't being accused of anything is that is not true. Goldstone's actions are not only a clear act of being a traitor to his own people, he is a traitor and promotes deception to the western world which is in desperate need of clarity against the sinister Islamic treat to their existence.
Good post! You took the words I was about to type.
So how does it feel, Alan, being misquoted and used for propaganda purposes?
Hey Alan, you’re a putz. Ever heard that word?
It is very well known that Mr. Dershowitz calls for a two state solution. His words: "my call for peace based on a two-state solution and the end of civilian settlements." The left betray even those who are for a Muslim terror state in Israel – deliberately tricking Mr. Dershowitz! For the leftist humanity haters, if you don't join with them in their lies and blood libels against the IDF – defenders of Israel and the Free World, they will trick you and lie about you, spreading a blood libel against you as they have done to Mr. Dershowitz.
I hope Mr. Dershowitz learns a lesson from this. Never trust other leftists. Maybe he will re-think his leftist beliefs?
Deceitfully Called the Arab/Israeli Conflict, it's global jihad against Israel and the Free World. Aided and abetted by Western ruling elites.
US/EU are fully aware that all Palestinian Authority maps show the new state of "Palestine" covering ALL of Israel. Global Islam's conquest goal, shouted out and on banners in Muslim demonstrations in the West is: "Palestine From the River to the Sea".
In 1980 PLO Leader Arafat explained the peace process: "Peace for us means the destruction of Israel . We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations."
The PLO Charter calls for the destruction of Israel.
On the same day Oslo "Peace" Accords were signed in 1993, PLO leader, Arafat stated: "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel."
The Arab League's Charter states its goal is to eradicate the Zionist entity.
US/EU/UN ruthless ideology that demands the vicious religious cleansing of Jewish innocents for not being Muslim MUST stop! The 1976 International Convention for Civil and Political Rights, prohibits all forms of discrimination against people on the basis of religion and nationality.
Every Israeli Land surrender results in vastly increased Islamic terror and war! The murderous peace process: Land for War! As a result of Israeli land surrenders, every Israeli is under missile threat from either Hizbullah or Hamas, or both.
Demanding a Muslim terror state reducing tiny Israel at mid-section to 9 miles wide indefensible, Auschwitz borders is wickedly seeking a Second Holocaust!
Turkey's Prime Minister, Erdogan, publicly read an Islamic poem: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and Muslims our soldiers…”
Col. Richard Kemp, a British commander in Bosnia and Afghanistan
stated: "The Israel Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. " (Guardian-UK)
Goldstone Gaza Report: Col. Richard Kemp Testifies at U.N. Emergency Session
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX6vyT8RzMo&fe…
PA Muslims Celebrate Murder of 3,000 Innocents 9/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrM0dAFsZ8k