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4.2.12 WC: 191694 What changed? In Waterstones one day I found myself in the Israel and Palestine section. To this day I don't know why I actually pulled it off the shelf, but I picked up a copy of Alan Dershowitz's The Case for Israel. In my world view the Jews and the Americans controlled the media, so after a brief look at the back, I scoffed thinking "vile Zionist propaganda". But I decided to buy it, eagerly awaiting the chance to deconstruct it so I could show why Israel had no case and claim my findings as a personal victory for the Palestinian cause. As I read Dershowitz's systematic deconstruction of the lies I had been told, I felt a real crisis of conscience. I couldn't disprove his arguments or find facts to respond to them with. I didn't know what to believe. I'd blindly followed for so long, yet here I was questioning whether I had been wrong? I decided to visit Israel to find the truth. I was confronted by synagogues, mosques and churches, by Jews and Arabs living together, by minorities playing huge parts in all areas of Israeli life, from the military to the judiciary. It was shocking and eye-opening. This wasn't the evil Zionist Israel that I had been told about. After much soul searching, I knew what I had once believed was wrong. I had to stand with Israel, with this tiny nation, free, democratic, making huge strides in medicine, research and development, yet the victim of the same lies and hatred that nearly consumed me. Not all people were so positively influenced, a woman in England asked the manager of a large book store for a copy of Zhe Case For Israel. He responded, “there is no case for Israel.” I have devoted much of my 7" decade to the defense of Israel (while continuing to criticize many of its policies, especially regarding settlements.) This has earned me the title of “the Jewish State’s lead attorney in the court of public opinion” and “America’s most public Jewish defender.” It has also earned me the title of “Ziofascist,” “Jewish Nazi,” “tool of the Likud,” and “Israel Firster.” It is these latter titles that have brought about the most recent change in my life during my 8" decade. Until recently, I was always known as a liberal Democrat aligned politically with the likes of Senator Ted Kennedy, President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator Hubert Humphrey, Justices Arthur Goldberg and William Brennan, the Reverend Martin Luther King, and Judge David Bazelon. The organization with which I have been most closely associated has been the American Civil Liberties Union, on whose national and local boards I have served. The causes with which I have been most often associated were freedom of speech; opposition to the death penalty; due process for criminal suspects and defendants; the separation of church and state; racial, gender, religious, wealth and sexual orientation equality; and political accountability . Indeed, when I have been considered for judgeships and other government positions requiring Senate confirmation, I was generally regarded as “too liberal” to be confirmed. 355 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017442