Prof. Alan Dershowitz Should Rethink His Attack on Me

By Ronn Torossian

Saturday night on Zev Brenner’s radio show, Professor Alan Dershowitz lashed out at me for my opinion piece published week ago which suggested that  “Defending Dershowitz is Not a Jewish Issue.”  Since my piece was published on Arutz Sheva and other sites, I have been inundated with messages of support from leaders of American Jewish organizations, and others. What I wrote was – and is – absolutely warranted.

As the allegations against him and his client, Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex criminal, remain in the headlines, The Jewish Week quoted my op-ed in part, and Dershowitz referred to that Jonathan Mark column as “scandalous.” Mark mentioned my commentary that, “I do not believe he is a good spokesman for Israel or the Jewish people,”, and “As a proud Jew, I find the argument that [Dershowitz] should be protected because of his Jewishness to be despicable.”

I stand by my comments – as well as the part which Mark, unfortunately, did not include; that Dershowitz deserves fair play as far as the complaint that was levied against him which rests on an accusation and is not proven.

During the interview with Brenner, Dershowitz complained that The Jewish Week called me for comment, but he seems to have missed the fact,which Mark’s article stated, that my comments were made online and in email format.  The Jewish Week did not talk to me.  He asked for an investigation into, “What is [t]he relationship between Ronn Torossian and  The Jewish Week?” Let me make it easy –  I own a PR agency, I am involved in Jewish communal life and write on Jewish issues. A Jewish newspaper quoted me, in part.  There’s no conspiracy between me and this Jewish newspaper.

Dershowitz’s attack against me on the Zev Brenner program was virulent.  He called me a “liar”, and said that I was “lying through my teeth;” then added I was a “despicable human being.” He admits that we have never personally met, making his visceral hatred for me stunning.   The opinion of so many against him must hit him hard, understandably so.  Alan Dershowitz, self-proclaimed defender of Jews, is being told that his Jewish credentials do not entitle him to a defense for an alleged crime that has zero to do with Jewishness or Israel. I was and am right about that, unless it is proven that these allegations were meant to discredit him and are false.

Read the rest here.