Dershowitz: Anti-Israel Professors ‘Use the Classroom as a Propaganda Podium’

The Algemeiner reports: Retired Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz on Wednesday encouraged university students not to back down from difficult discussions surrounding Israel on campus, urging them to make complex, cogent cases rooted in history when faced with propagandistic attacks.

Dershowitz, an advocate of the two-state solution and critic of Israeli settlements, was invited to speak at Columbia University by the local chapter of Students Supporting Israel on the First Amendment and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While organizers expected his talk to be interrupted by groups including Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, it ultimately proceeded without incident.

Touching on some of the tensions leading up to his appearance, Dershowtiz observed that “the one issue that is very hard to have a serious, nuanced discussion on at a university campus today is Israel.” He contended that too many professors “use the classroom as a propaganda podium,” teaching students not how to think, but what to think.

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