# The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies  ## Metadata - Author: Alan Dershowitz - Full Title: The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies - Category: #books ## Highlights - The loudest and most disruptive examples of this genre of expression comes from hard-left, woke, progressive, anti-Israel (and anti-American) extremists. ([Location 49](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=49)) - Israel has acquired additional land only as a response to aggressive wars waged against it in 1948, 1967, and 1973. ([Location 78](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=78)) - The Palestinians could have had a state when Israel was established as part of the two-state solution that the United Nations proposed and that the Jews accepted, and the Arabs rejected. In 2000–2001 and 2007, it was offered statehood on 100 percent of the Gaza Strip and 96 percent of the West Bank, with land swaps for 4 percent of current Israel, and with a capital in East Jerusalem. ([Location 80](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=80)) - They believe that their religion forbids them from accepting a non-Muslim political entity in what they regard as Muslim holy land. ([Location 85](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=85)) - The following points are not subject to rational dispute: 1) had Hamas not broken the cease-fire that was in existence on October 6, 2023, invaded Israel, and murdered 1,200, and kidnapped 250 innocent children, women, and men, there would be no war in Gaza; 2) if Hamas did not employ innocent Gazans as human shields, the death toll among civilians would be considerably lower; 3) if Hamas were to end its belligerence and turn over those responsible for October 7, the war would end; 4) if Hezbollah had not begun to fire thousands of rockets into Israel on October 8 and thereafter, there would be no war in Lebanon; 5) if Israel were to stop defending itself, Hamas would repeat October 7, and Hezbollah would keep firing missiles at Israel. ([Location 96](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=96)) - Tags: pink - Israel is not a “settler-colonial” state. It was established as a national liberation movement for the Jewish people, who have had a continuous presence in what is now Israel for thousands of years. The Zionist movement successfully fought against both Ottoman and British colonialism and established a vibrant democracy in place of tyrannical colonialist rule. ([Location 104](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=104)) - Tags: pink - Israel has not denied the Palestinian people statehood. Israel accepted the two-state solution proposed by the UN in 1947–1948, but the Palestinian leadership rejected statehood because it opposed the establishment of any… ([Location 106](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=106)) - Tags: pink - Israel did not cause the Palestinian refugee problem. Had the Arab states not attacked the new state of Israel in 1948, there would have been no… ([Location 110](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=110)) - Tags: pink - Palestinian leaders have exacerbated the problem by creating refugee camps, rather than integrating their fellow Arabs, the way Israel integrated a similar number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. The United Nations has contributed to the refugee problem by establishing a special agency, UNRWA, that is… ([Location 112](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=112)) - Tags: pink - Israel is not guilty of apartheid. Israel is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state in which Arab citizens vote, serve in every branch of the government, and have more civil liberties and human rights than… ([Location 115](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=115)) - Tags: pink - Israel is not guilty of genocide. To the contrary, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed fewer civilians in relation to combatants than any nation in history that has fought against terrorists who use civilians as human shields. Israel is not deliberately “starving” the civilians of Gaza; it has… ([Location 117](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=117)) - Tags: pink - Hamas does everything in its power to maximize civilian deaths both among Israelis and Palestinians. Hamas takes innocent civilians as hostages and uses them as… ([Location 121](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=121)) - Tags: pink - The Israeli military presence in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon does not violate international law. It is lawful to maintain a military occupation and presence in captured or enemy territory as long as belligerency continues, as… ([Location 124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=124)) - Tags: pink - Israel has repeatedly offered to end its occupation of the West Bank (with some land swaps) in exchange for peace. The Palestinian… ([Location 128](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=128)) - Tags: pink - A two-state solution is possible only if Hamas no longer controls Gaza and Hezbollah no… ([Location 130](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=130)) - Tags: pink - Peace in the region is possible only if Iran no longer attacks Israel through its surrogates. Iran demands the right to destroy “the little Satan,” Israel, by arming and mobilizing Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and other terrorist organizations that repeatedly attack Israel.… ([Location 134](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=134)) - Tags: pink - if Israel’s enemies—led by Iran—stopped attacking Israel, there would be peace. If Israel stopped defending itself, there would be genocide. ([Location 141](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=141)) - Tags: pink - You must speak for the cowards who remain silent. ([Location 154](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=154)) - Tags: pink - The reality is that Israel is an anti-colonialist democracy comprised primarily of refugees and the descendants of indigenous Jews, Muslims, and Christians exercising their right to political self-determination. ([Location 172](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=172)) - Tags: pink - They came to what the Romans had named Palestine, deliberately in order to hide its Jewish origin. ([Location 184](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=184)) - Tags: pink - The land they cultivated was not taken away from its rightful owners by force or confiscation by colonial law. It was purchased, primarily from absentee landlords and real estate speculators, at fair or often exorbitant prices. ([Location 186](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=186)) - Tags: pink - Jerusalem, in fact, has had a Jewish majority since the first population figures were gathered in the early nineteenth century. According to the British consul in Jerusalem, the Muslims of Jerusalem “scarcely exceed[ed] one quarter of the whole population.” ([Location 213](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=213)) - Tags: pink - Tel Aviv has been a predominantly Jewish city since European Jews founded it on sand dunes in 1909. ([Location 218](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=218)) - Tags: pink - Contrast the millennia-long Jewish presence in Palestine to the lack of presence or history of English settlers sent to places like New Zealand by Great Britain as part of its colonial enterprise. New Zealand is a perfect example of a colonialist-settler state. Israel is the opposite. Calling Israel a colonial-settler state is a reflection of ignorance, bigotry, or both. ([Location 225](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=225)) - Tags: pink - The Reality: Israel offered Palestinian statehood in 1937–1938, 1947–1948, 1967, 1993, 2000–2001, and 2007 and each time the Palestinian leadership refused. ([Location 236](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=236)) - Tags: pink - Nor could the Jews be expected to accept Muslim rule over them, especially since the grand mufti made it clear that most of the Jews would be transferred out of Palestine if the Muslims gained complete control. ([Location 259](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=259)) - Tags: pink - The Peel Commission implicitly recognized that it was not so much that the Arabs wanted self-determination as that they did not want the Jews to have self-determination or sovereignty over the land the Jews themselves had cultivated and in which they were a majority. ([Location 272](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=272)) - Tags: pink - Even if turning down the Peel proposal resulted in no state for the Palestinians, that was preferable to allowing even a tiny, noncontiguous state for the Jews. When the British convened a meeting between the parties, “the Arabs would not sit in the same room as the Jews.” Further, they responded to the Peel plan with massive violence directed at Jewish civilians, as well as at British police and civil servants. ([Location 276](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=276)) - Tags: pink - As soon as Israel declared its independence, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon attacked it, with help from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Libya. Arab armies, with the help of Palestinian terrorists, determined to destroy the new Jewish state and exterminate its population. ([Location 284](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=284)) - Tags: pink - The pattern of past and future fighting was thus established: the Arabs would target soft civilian areas—cities, towns, kibbutzim, and moshavim—trying to kill as many children, women, elderly, and other unarmed civilians as possible, while the Israelis would respond by targeting soldiers, military equipment, and other lawful targets. ([Location 289](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=289)) - Tags: pink - A key part of the Arab plan was the complete “marginalization” of the Palestinians. The Jordanians wanted the West Bank, and the Egyptians wanted the Gaza Strip. Neither wanted an independent Palestinian state. ([Location 296](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=296)) - Tags: pink - After the Six-Day-War of 1967, which resulted in Israel capturing the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, Israel signaled its willingness to negotiate land for peace. However, the Arab League met in Khartoum and issued the infamous “Three No’s”: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel. ([Location 301](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=301)) - Tags: pink - Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban, to quip: “I think that this is the first war in history that has ended with the victors suing for peace and the vanquished calling for unconditional surrender.” ([Location 304](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=304)) - Tags: pink - Had the Arab armies won, there would have been genocide because the grand mufti declared “a holy war” and ordered his “Muslim brothers” to “murder the Jews. Murder them all.”13 There were to be no survivors or refugees. ([Location 347](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=347)) - Tags: pink - Even Mahmoud Abbas, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, has accused the Arab armies of having abandoned the Palestinians after they “forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.” ([Location 368](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=368)) - Tags: pink - Indeed, a significant number of Palestinian refugees simply moved from one part of Palestine to another. Some preferred to live in an area controlled by Arabs rather than Jews, just as the Jews who had lived in cities that came under Arab control chose to move to the Israeli side of the partition. The Jews who moved a few miles (even those who had no choice) were not called refugees, but the Arabs who moved the same distance were. It was the most unusual definition of refugee in history. ([Location 382](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=382)) - Tags: pink - But instead of integrating the refugees into a religiously, linguistically, and culturally identical society, they were segregated into ghettos called refugee camps and made to live on the UN dole, while being fed propaganda about their glorious return to the village down the road that had been their home for as little as two years. ([Location 390](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=390)) - Tags: pink - At about the same time that 472,000 to 750,000 Arabs became refugees from Israel, tens of millions of other refugees had been created as the result of World War II. In virtually all of those cases, the refugees were displaced from locations in which they and their ancestors had lived for decades, sometimes centuries—certainly more than the two years required for being considered a Palestinian refugee. For example, the Sudeten Germans, who were moved en masse out of the borderlands of Czechoslovakia, had lived there for hundreds of years. The Jews of Europe—what remained of them after the Holocaust—had lived in Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Soviet Union for hundreds of years. ([Location 392](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=392)) - Tags: pink - Between 1948 and 1967, tens of millions of other refugees became productive members of their new societies. Yet for the nearly twenty years that Egypt and Jordan controlled the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the Palestinian refugee population remained in camps, growing in size and desperation. Even King Hussein of Jordan, who could have helped solve the refugee problem, acknowledged that the Arab nations have used the Palestinian refugees as pawns since the beginning of the conflict: “Since 1948 Arab leaders … have used the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This is … criminal.” ([Location 403](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=403)) - Tags: pink - In the years following the establishment of the state of Israel, as many as 750,000 so-called Arab Jews became refugees from the lands in which they had been born. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands was not very different than the number of Arab refugees from Israel. ([Location 412](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=412)) - Tags: pink - When Egypt occupied the Gaza strip and Jordan occupied the West Bank between 1948 and 1967, the residents of those occupied territories did not have all the same rights as the citizens of the occupying nations. Yet no one accused Egypt of apartheid. Israel has repeatedly offered to end its occupations in exchange for peace and mutual recognition, but the Palestinian leadership has refused to accept these offers. ([Location 504](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=504)) - Tags: pink - Hamas and Hezbollah, directed by Iran, by contrast, has committed at least four categories of war crimes. ([Location 519](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=519)) - Tags: pink - First, Hamas waged an aggressive war against Israel, crossing its border and murdering, raping, and kidnapping civilians. Hezbollah and Iran have fired thousands of rockets at Israel. Second, they have targeted civilians with its rockets. Third, they have dressed terrorists in civilian clothing, thus eliminating the important distinction between combatants and civilians. And fourth, they have used civilians as human shields. ([Location 520](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=520)) - Tags: pink - Unlike Hamas and Hezbollah, which began this war, Israel has acted in self-defense. Under international law, it has the right and obligation to defend its citizens by all reasonable and lawful means. ([Location 524](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=524)) - Tags: pink - Hamas actively recruits terrorists from the age of thirteen. This brutal strategy, itself a war crime, raises discomfiting questions about Hamas’s fatality claims: an eighteen-year-old with an RPG or an assault weapon is as much a combatant as a thirty-year-old, even if Hamas categorizes him or her as a “child.” ([Location 530](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=530)) - Tags: pink - Every civilian death in wartime is a tragedy, and Hamas knew it was signing the death warrants of many civilians when it attacked Israel and then hid its war machinery among Gaza’s civilian population. ([Location 564](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=564)) - Tags: pink - Many military experts agree with John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, that the “steps that Israel has taken to prevent casualties [in Gaza] is historic in comparison to all these other wars.” The twenty-five-year military veteran has advised other Western democracies to follow Israel’s example, because “Israel has taken more steps to avoid harming civilians than any other military in history.” ([Location 571](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=571)) - Tags: pink - Hamas has blocked entry of food, stolen it, and even attacked food trucks designated for Gaza’s civilian population. ([Location 614](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=614)) - Tags: pink - The ICC has failed its aspiration to be a neutral court of objective law and instead it chose to become a partisan court of “politics.” ([Location 625](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=625)) - Tags: pink - According to its own founding documents, the ICC is precluded by the treaty that created it from investigating any individual from a state that is willing and able to conduct a genuine investigation of that person. Israel is conducting ongoing investigations of alleged war crimes and will continue to do so. ([Location 626](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=626)) - Tags: pink - It is clearly established, by international law and the law of war, that a military occupation that resulted from a legitimate war may continue as long as belligerency persists. ([Location 677](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=677)) - Tags: pink - The first is whether the West Bank is “occupied” as distinguished from “disputed,” territory. Scholars disagree. Those who argue that it is not “occupied,” as a matter of international law, point to the fact that this area never rightfully “belonged to” any recognized, legitimate political entity. It was captured by the British from the Turks during World War I and became part of the British mandate. The UN then proposed that it become the Arab part of a two-state solution. The Arabs rejected the UN proposal and attacked Israel. Following the war of independence, Jordan illegally occupied the West Bank until it was captured from them by Israel after Jordan unlawfully attacked Jerusalem in 1967. Since then, it has been subject to dispute. ([Location 692](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=692)) - Tags: pink ## New highlights added August 7, 2025 at 3:27 PM - In 2001 and 2007, Israel offered to limit civilian settlements to less than 10 percent of the area of the West Bank in exchange for peace.30 The Palestinian leadership did not accept the offer or even make a counteroffer, and more settlements followed. ([Location 709](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=709)) - Tags: #pink - Accordingly, if there is to be any hope of a realistic peace process that includes the Gaza Strip, Hamas cannot remain in control. Indeed, Hamas is a barrier even to a peace process limited to the West Bank, because Hamas might well win an election on the West Bank. ([Location 738](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=738)) - Tags: #pink - Iran is the key player in its current warfare in the Middle East. It controls Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other terrorist groups that attack Israel on a regular basis. ([Location 747](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=747)) - Tags: #pink - Hashemi Rafsanjani—the former “moderate” President of Iran—threatened Israel with nuclear destruction, boasting that an Iranian attack would kill as many as five million Jews. Rafsanjani estimated that even if Israel retaliated by dropping its own nuclear bombs, Iran would probably lose only fifteen million people, which he said would be a small “sacrifice”32 from among the billion Muslims in the world. “He seemed pleased with his formulations.”33 Former president Mohammad Khatami has threatened to use Iran’s missiles to destroy Jewish and Christian civilization: “Our missiles are now ready to strike at their civilization, and as soon as the instructions arrive from the leader Ali Khamenei, we will launch our missiles at their cities and installations.” ([Location 757](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=757)) - Tags: #pink - As the late Israeli diplomat Abba Eban once aptly put it, the Palestinian leadership never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. ([Location 781](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=781)) - Tags: #pink - The Palestinian leadership allied itself with Nazism and Hitler in the 1940s, with Egyptian tyranny and anti-Semitism in the 1950s, and with international terrorism from the 1960s forward. ([Location 782](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=782)) - Tags: #pink - The Palestinian people have suffered more from the ill-advised decisions of their leaders than from the actions of Israel. ([Location 796](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=796)) - Tags: #pink - If the perceived enemy of the Palestinians were not the Jews, there would be little concern for their plight as well. This was proved by the relative silence that greeted the massacre of Palestinians by Jordan during “Black September” in 1970, or the killings of Palestinian Authority leaders in Gaza during the Hamas takeover in 2007. There has been relative silence, too, about the more than four thousand Palestinians—mostly civilians—killed by Syria during that country’s current civil war. It is only when Jews or their nation are perceived to be oppressing Palestinians that the left seems to care about them. ([Location 804](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=804)) - Tags: #pink - “In his telling of it, he implied that Jews must have special empathy for others while non-Jews have no special need to be empathetic. Brennan has not … held other countries to a higher standard based on the ethnic and religious origins of their citizens…. In short, because Jews endured genocide, they have to live according to a higher standard than those who perpetrated genocide.” ([Location 816](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DK27VF71&location=816)) - Tags: #pink