Alan Dershowitz Calls A Spade A Spade

Jacob in the lion's den:

"The kind of hatred that one hears on campuses like Columbia, and let me say especially Columbia, is a barrier to peace," Mr. Dershowitz said. "They are encouraging the terrorists. They tell the terrorists you will have academic support even if you oppose the peace process."

At times he singled out for censure an assistant professor of modern Arab politics, Joseph Massad, who is accused of ordering one of his students to leave his classroom if she continued to deny Israel's alleged atrocities against Palestinian Arabs. Mr. Massad, who denies that the incident took place, is among dozens of Columbia professors who in 2003 called on the university to divest itself of financial holdings in companies that support Israel.

"Anybody who advocates for divesting only from the Jewish state ... at a time when Iraq was posing a great threat to the world, when Iran was posing great threats ... when China is oppressing million of Tibetans, when the Kurds are still denied independence and statehood, to single out only Israel for divestiture at that point in time cannot be explained by neutral political, even ideological consideration," Mr. Dershowitz said.

I disagree with Dershowitz on many, many things, but I admire his courage.