Chomsky and Dershowitz

On Endless War and the End of Civil Liberties

Howard Friel

• Publisher: Olive Branch Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781566569743
• eBook ISBN:
  9781623710354
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Through the lens of a careful assessment of the political views of MIT's Noam Chomsky and Harvard's Alan Dershowitz—the two protagonists of a Cambridge-based feud over the past forty years—author Howard Friel chronicles an American intellectual history from the U.S. war in Vietnam in the 1960s to the contemporary debate about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Major findings reveal the consistency of Chomsky's principled support of international law, human rights, and civil liberties, and a reversal by Dershowitz from support in the 1960s to opposition of those legal standards today. Friel's volume argues that a Chomskyan adherence by the United States to international law and human rights would reduce the threat of terrorism and preserve civil liberties, that the Dershowitz-backed war on terrorism increases the threat of terrorism and undermines civil liberties, and that the incremental but steady transition toward a preventive state threatens the permanent suspension of civil liberties in the United States.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Advance Praise For
• Chomsky and Dershowitz
• Copyright
• Contents
• Part I Introduction(s)
• Part II Aggresive Warfare→ Terrorism
• Part III Dershowitz’s Case Law
• Part IV From The Bill of Rights to Authoritarianism
• Notes
• Bibliography