Defending Israel
The Story of My Relationship with My Most Challenging Client
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
World-renowned lawyer Alan Dershowitz recounts stories from his many years of defending the state of Israel.
Alan Dershowitz has spent years advocating for his "most challenging client"—the state of Israel—both publicly and in private meetings with high level international figures, including every US president and Israeli leader of the past 40 years. Replete with personal insights and unreported details, Defending Israel offers a comprehensive history of modern Israel from the perspective of one of the country's most important supporters. Readers are given a rare front row seat to the high profile controversies and debates that Dershowitz was involved in over the years, even as the political tides shifted and the liberal community became increasingly critical of Israeli policies.
Beyond documenting America's changing attitude toward the country, Defending Israel serves as an updated defense of the Jewish homeland on numerous points—though it also includes Dershowitz's criticisms of Israeli decisions and policies that he believes to be unwise. At a time when Jewish Americans as a whole are increasingly uncertain as to who supports Israel and who doesn't, there is no better book to turn to for answers—and a pragmatic look toward the future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lawyer Dershowitz (The Case Against BDS: Why Singling Out Israel for Boycott Is Anti-Semitic and Anti-Peace) clunkily combines memoir and advocacy for the state of Israel in this look at his decades as a highly visible defender of the country. He starts in 1948, when he was 10 and the modern state of Israel declared its independence, and continues through the April 2019 Israeli elections. While he doesn't shy away from criticizing Israeli policies, such as the building of settlements in the West Bank, he acidly rebuts criticisms of the Jewish state, noting that, contrary to accusations, Israel has made repeated and rejected peace proposals that would have returned most of the occupied territories to the Palestinians. The other strain of the book recounts personal experience, much of it with big names; Dershowitz recounts being asked by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu if O.J. Simpson was really guilty, answering his cellphone while meeting with Barack Obama in the Oval Office, and playing basketball with Ralph Lauren. He sometimes assumes knowledge about Israel's history that not all readers will have, and those who do have it may be put off by the focus on anecdotes about famous people. To achieve Dershowitz's advocacy goals, an update of his 2003 book The Case for Israel might have been more effective.
