Muslim Legal Defence & Education Fund

(WASHINGTON D.C., 11/21/08) - An American Muslim legal group today announced the filing of a complaint with the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers demanding disciplinary action against Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz.

The Muslim Legal Defense and Education Fund (MLDEF) says Dershowitz violated rules of professional conduct when he advocated the commission of war crimes and the use of torture.

MLDEF will hold a conference call today at 11 a.m. (EST) to discuss its complaint. Media professionals may call 510-220-1414 to receive the phone number and password.

In an article published in the Jerusalem Post and the New York Daily News on March 11, 2002, Dershowitz advised the Israeli government to establish a “waiting list” of Palestinian villages scheduled for destruction as a means of deterring future suicide bombers. In so doing, he has violated Rule 8.4 (d) of the “Rules of Professional Conduct” which states: “It is professional misconduct for a lawyer [in Mass.] to engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.”

As an officer of the legal system Prof. Dershowitz has sworn an oath to uphold the laws of the State of Massachusetts and of the United States. The latter includes international treaties and conventions to which the United States is a signatory.

The destruction of villages is a Nuremberg War Crime and is contrary to Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which states: “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed,” and “collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

The Geneva Convention is a ratified treaty and is therefore a valid Federal law of the United States.

“Traditionally the international community has only had the capacity to deal with ethnic cleansing and genocide, through humanitarian assistance for the victims or through war crimes tribunals, after it has occurred, said MLDEF Chair Al-Hajj Talib Karim Esq. “A much more effective approach would be to censure those who are in the midst of laying the pseudo-legal foundation for war crimes in the hope that the momentum towards such acts is slowed or stopped,” said Karim.

He added, “Surely the Board of Bar Overseers would have reprimanded a Massachusetts lawyer who advocated in a Nazi-era newspaper for the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. Such behavior is prima fasciae unbecoming of a lawyer, and those who advocate such things ought to be disciplined.”     Wow, if Rush Limbaugh said a week ago “I can just imagine American Muslim activist groups trying to suppress Americans’ First Amendment rights, and trying to coercively shut down one side of the debate about how the West ought to fight,” people would have called him a religious bigot. “Oh, no, American Muslim groups would never do such a thing!” But here it is, in the Muslim Legal Defense and Education Fund’s own words.

Incidentally, while I’m not an expert in the rules relating to lawyers’ conduct, I very much doubt that the MLDEF has a leg to stand on even setting aside the First Amendment; while the rules do bar “conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice,” I don’t believe that this has ever been interpreted as covering op-eds that urge government entities to engage in certain ways, even if those ways ultimately prove to be illegal or unconstitutional. But even if the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers decides to interpret the prohibition this broadly just based on its text, the First Amendment would most certainly trump any such interpretation.

The Muslim Legal Defense & Education Fund’s call for the bar to sanction Alan Dershowitz made me think — when the Illinois State Bar rejected Matthew Hale, the leader of a racist and anti-Semitic religious movement, on “moral character” grounds, what did the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith say? Did it speak up in favor of Hale’s First Amendment rights (as Dershowitz himself did), or did they take the view that lawyers should indeed be legally barred from expressing certain ideas? Sad to say, at least some American Jews have urged that anti-Semitic views be legally repressed — not realizing, I think, how quickly such a doctrine could be turned around to suppress the views of others, such as Dershowitz. (This is not to say that Dershowitz’s views are remotely morally akin to Hale’s — but only that when the law starts punishing even genuinely evil speech, a lot of controversial speech, which some may see as evil, becomes jeopardized.)