Good advice from Dershowitz...

You might have missed this...but some good advice from Alan Dershowitz.

Recently, former President Clinton proposed that the IRA’s decision to lay down arms in Northern Ireland can serve as a model for peace in the rest of the world. That’s a great idea, but it’s unlikely to work in the Middle East, which is overheated with religious zealotry. So here’s my model. It comes from a rabbi in Israel named Yosef Dayan who recently assembled 20 other like minded right wing religious zealots in a cemetery in Israel and encanted a ritual curse against PM Ariel Sharon.

The ancient ritual known as “pulsa denura” is designed to bring “lashes of fire” against the hated Sharon. Sharon is hated because he is trying to bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians by withdrawing from disputed land in the Gaza Strip and
West Bank. These right wing rabbis consider him a traitor and they want him dead. But they don’t want to do what Yagal Amir did to the late PM Yitzak Rabin – namely, kill him at the hand of a human being. Instead, they are trying to hire a celestial hit man, namely, God. “It’s request we made of the Almighty,” said Dayan. “I believe it will work,” he added.

Ok, the challenge is on. Now let’s see whose God is stronger. Let Hamas and Hezbollah follow the lead of Rabbi Dayan, pray to their God, issue whatever curses they wish and wait for God to strike down the objects of their curses. But let’s stop doing God’s dirty work for him, by taking his law into our own hands.

This is a perfect test of whether the religious zealots on both sides who are always invoking God really believe in his power. If they do, why don’t they place their trust in his justice.

This reminds me of a debate I once had with Rabbi Meyer Kahane who claimed that God wanted Israel to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Jewish temple in its place. I urged him to leave it to God. I’ve also used this argument with Christian friends who claim Jesus is the true Messiah. I argue that we should wait for his return to resolve this contentious issue. If he comes back and says “nice to see you again,” then you win. But if he says “nice to see you,” we win.

The point is that if it is God who wants Israel not to give up any of the land, or if it is Allah who demands that Israel give up all of its land, then let us leave these issues in God’s hands and stop killing people in his name.