Dershowitz defeats Finkelstein, University of California Press

This is quickly becoming an Alan Dershowitz blog. Oh, huge hat tip to Mark in Mexico.

On Tuesday, Front Page Magazine published this article from Professor Dershowitz, Why is the University of California Press Publishing Bigotry?

Well, the UCP will publish the book referred to in the above article, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, but with significant changes. The author of that book is Norman G. Finkelstein, a DePaul University political science professor. The Anti-Defamation League has called Finkelstein a holocaust-denier.

From Marcella Bombardieri of the Boston Globe:

In the latest chapter of a fierce academic feud, Alan M. Dershowitz, the celebrity Harvard Law School professor, tried to pressure the University of California Press not to publish a book critical of Israel that also attacked his scholarship.

The press is publishing the book despite Dershowitz's efforts, but with significant changes. The book will no longer include author Norman G. Finkelstein's claim that Dershowitz did not write, ''The Case for Israel," nor will it use the word ''plagiarize" in its argument that the Harvard law professor inappropriately borrowed from another work, according to the director of the press.
An article in the July 11 issue of the left-wing magazine The Nation asked, ''Why would a prominent First Amendment advocate take such an action?"

But Dershowitz argues that he wasn't trying to quash the book altogether, just to fight back against libel and prevent the book from getting the imprimatur of a respected publisher. ''It should be published. Let it be devastated in the marketplace, but I don't think a university press should be publishing this kind of garbage," he said in a phone interview yesterday. ''Harvard University Press would never publish trash like that."

Dershowitz sent letters, which he declined to provide to the Globe, to a variety of University of California Press officials, and even to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is an ex officio member of the University of California's board of regents.

''I told the UC press, 'If you say I didn't write the book or plagiarized it, I will own your company,' " said Dershowitz, who argued that Finkelstein's accusations are a ploy for publicity. ''The First Amendment protects mistakes that are inadvertent, but it doesn't prevent willful lies."

Good for Dersh. As regular readers of Marathon Pundit are aware, DePaul University suspended Professor Thomas Klocek for sticking up for Israel in front of some pro-Palestinian students there. More on that sad story in this Jay Ambrose column, Ghost of McCarthy on campus.