I applaud the U.S. Supreme Court for declining to reconsider its important gay marriage decision because I strongly support gay and transgender rights.
At the same time, I adamantly refuse to support gay and transgender organizations that have turned against Israel.
The same is true of Black, Women, environmental, immigrant and other left organizations that seek the support of Jews for their righteous causes but then turn against the righteous cause of Israeli survival.
I demand mutuality as the price of my public advocacy for organizations that support good causes. And I urge other good people to do the same: even if you support these causes, as I do, do not support anti-Israel organizations advocating on behalf of these good causes.
Find other ways to support the causes themselves without empowering organizations that oppose Israel's right to exist and to defend itself against those who would end its existence.
Nor will I prioritize the rights and interests of others over those of Jews.
As the great sage Hillel the Elder put it more than 2000 years ago, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I?"
Universality requires mutuality.
I will be for others who are for me.
I will not be for others who want to destroy me and the values I cherish.
For too long, Jews have been central to the advocacy of the rights of others, only to see so many of those others turn against us.
We've tried to build bridges, but too many of these bridges have gone in only one direction.
Jews were instrumental in advocating the rights of Blacks.
Jewish leaders and rabbis helped to establish the NAACP and the Legal Defense Fund.
Jewish lawyers were at the forefront of the legal strategies which ended segregation and that held rogue police officers accountable for unlawful shootings of Black citizens.
Yet, the organization Black Lives Matter (BLM) circulated material praising the Hamas murderers of Oct. 7, 2023, and Black groups on many campuses led efforts to delegitimize Israel.
Gay rights organizations are a particularly troubling case in point.
Jews have been the religious group most supportive of gay rights, despite biblical religious prohibitions against gay sex.
Yet, many gay groups and gay activists have led campaigns against Israel and in favor of its enemies. This despite the indisputable reality that most of Israel's enemies who are supported by many gay groups discriminate against gays, even to the point of murdering them.
Israel, on the other hand, is among the most gay-supportive nations in the world and Tel Aviv was recently selected as the most gay friendly city in the word.
Not a single city of Israel's enemies even made the list.
Gays who support Israel's enemies apparently hate Israel more than they love fellow gay Arabs and Muslims. "Gays for Hamas or Intifada" says it all.
They are analogous to "Jews for antisemitism."
The same is true for some feminist groups and activists, for some environmental, as well as for many liberals and leftists who support some of the most repressive, anti-democratic and totalitarian regimes and nations over democratic Israel.
Students tell me that some do-gooder campus groups have an anti-Israel litmus for joining.
At Berkeley more than a dozen groups — including gay and feminist student organization — will not allow Zionists to speak.
This is hypocrisy on stilts that can be explained by only one word: antisemitism. And please don’t respond by saying that the leaders of many of these anti-Israel groups are self-identified "Jews."
Yes, they are, and so too were leaders of other antisemitic movements, such as Stalin-ism, Musollini-ism, and Castro-ism.
Self-hating Jews have been on the forefront of many anti-Jewish movements, just as some self-hating Catholics have been on the forefront of many anti-Catholic movements.
Nor is it a satisfactory answer to say that these groups are anti-Zionist, not antisemitic.
Singling out only the nation state of the Jewish people and its national liberation movement is antisemitic in effect even if not always in intent.
In the Soviet Union anti Zionism became the cover for rampant antisemitism, as it is in many other places and contexts.
Under the widely recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition, singling out Israel for unique condemnation can be a form of antisemitism.
So, no more "me for you, and you for my enemy."
I will continue to support just causes, but I will refuse to support any organization that supports these causes while opposing the just cause of Israel’s right to exist and defend itself as the nation state of the Jewish people.
I urge others to consider doing the same.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and the author most recently of "The Case for Color Blind Equality in the Age of Identity Politics," and "The Case for Vaccine Mandates," Hot Books (2021). Read more of Alan Dershowitz''s reports — Here.
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