Selling doormats in Beirut (AP)
Dershowitz: Defending the freedom to become
lawyers
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By Reuven Koret March
18, 2001
My email brought me a photo, reportedly from
Beirut, in which a magazine vendor is hawking doormats bearing the Star
of David in the configuration of an Israeli flag.
Well, we in Israel have become rather hardened to
these symbolic assaults. We see Israeli and American leaders hung in effigy
by Arabs on a nightly basis on TV. Our flags are routinely torn, burned
and dragged through the streets.
But there was something intriguing about this particular
item for sale, perhaps in its sheer ordinariness. What is more prosaic
than a doormat? And since the photo shows that the doormat is the only
item other than magazines for sale, there would seem to be demand among
the Lebanese consumer for this novelty item.
One is inclined to take it as a compliment. Imagine
Ahmed and Fatma coming over for a dinner party and being greeted by the
Israeli flag spread before them as a welcome mat even before they enter
the doorposts of the host's home.
A proud Israeli might swell with pride: aren't we
special! I think of the Jewish daily prayer, the "sh'ma" enscrolled
in a mezuzah, in which the Lord commands us to think of His Law whenever
we come in and go out of our houses.
The flag-mat consumers in Lebanon must think of
Israel every time they come and go. So it serves as a kind of mezuzah
for Moslem feet, a sort of sh'ma for their blessed soles. Or perhaps I
had it all wrong: maybe they purchased it not for use as a doormat, but
as a prayer mat! I imagined the faithful, bottoms up and faces down, lips
touching the Israeli flag, five times a day. Maybe our Israeli flag-mat
fans in Beirut were closet Zionists.
Playing in Peoria, and on the Web
Since I don't have easy access to the Beirut street scene, I sought
additional insight on the Internet. Perhaps I could add an Israeli flag
doormat to my shopping cart at an ecommerce site, or snag a flag- shag
at an online auction.
To find out where I could click to buy, I did a
web search for "Israeli
Flag" and "doormat."
Impressive results! 62 sites contained that combination
of phrases. Alas, reviewing the results, I was initially disappointed.
Nearly all related, not to Arab doormats but to an American one. Matthew
Hale from East Peoria, Illinois is head of the World Church of the Creator,
one of the fastest-growing white supremacist groups in America. He gained
notoriety when one of his disciples, Benjamin Smith, went on a racially
motivated shooting spree on Independence Day weekend in 1999, shooting
blacks, Jews, and Asians in Indiana and Illinois, killing two people and
wounding nine before apparently killing himself during a police chase.
The original Church of the Creator was founded in
1973 by a one-time Florida legislator who invented the electric can opener
and then killed himself in 1993. Members have been linked to the 1991
murder of a black Gulf war veteran in Florida, a plot to assassinate black
and Jewish leaders, the bombings of synagogues, and other hate crimes.
Hale revived the church in 1996, adding the "World" to the group's
name, claimed the title of "Pontifex Maximus" for himself, and
used the web to spread his message of racial hatred.
Well, it turns out that Hale also uses an Israeli
flag, or something resembling one, as a doormat in his World Headquarters,
actually a home office in a spare room of his dad's place. He explains
its spiritual significance in an editorial
on his website.
"While it is always pleasant to wipe one's
feet on it, we do not merely have the Jewish flag as a doormat to show
our dislike of the Jews, but also to show our people everywhere that the
Jews can be defied, and that not only are we anti-semites, but that we
rejoice in our anti-semitism. This helps to break the belief within the
psyche of many that the Jews cannot be opposed without some kind of punishment,
whether from "on high" or from anywhere for that matter, and
… such a step is vital before the masses may be expected to oppose
them."
The desecration of the "Jewish flag" is,
for Hale, a symbolic call for Racial Holy War. And here lies one common
bond with their Lebanese comrades who advocate Jihad-Arabic for "Holy
War"-against the Jews and the Zionist entity that seeks to defend
them.
Jewish Lawyers Defending Jew Haters
But what was really remarkable in my web research was discovering who
was defending Hale. In February 1999, the Illinois Bar's Committee on
Character and Fitness rejected his application to join the ranks of the
state's lawyers. The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and Jewish
attorney Alan Dershowitz rushed to his defense. Dershowitz said he would
help Hale appeal the inquiry panel's ruling. "Character committees
should not become thought police," he said. "It's not the content
of the thoughts I'm defending, it's the freedom of everybody to express
their views and to become lawyers."
The Anti-Defamation League, while calling Hale's views "abhorrent,"
said that denying him a law license "sets a dangerous precedent."
They were concerned about the "slippery slope" that might lead
to discrimination against other would-be lawyers for other reasons. "At
another time, in another place," the ADL said at the time, "we
could envision a circumstance in which another Committee on Character
and Fitness could follow this lead to reject a candidate because that
candidate has expressed support for abortion, opposition to school prayer
or other moral views contrary to the majority of his or her community."
After the Smith rampage five months later, however, the group apparently
had second thoughts. Harlan Loeb, Midwest civil rights counsel for the
Anti-Defamation League, said Hale's assertion that he bears no responsibility
for the attacks defies common sense, "as if holding a match next
to a gasoline tank has no connection to the ensuing fire."
"He has set in motion a process to which he's inextricably wedded,"
Loeb said, adding that his link to the shooting deserved legal scrutiny.
The ADL called on the Justice Department to launch an immediate full-scale
investigation into the World Church of the Creator. Asked if the ADL regretted
issuing a statement earlier this year on the denial of Hale's law license,
Loeb said, "As an agency that is a strong supporter of the First
Amendment, we stand by our commitment that viewpoint discrimination is
murky territory."
But now that "we've made our statement on the free speech and free
expression issue," he said, his group "will devote all of our
energy to exposing Matt Hale for what he is.''
Dershowitz, who had volunteered to donate prospective fees gained in would-be
defense of Hale to anti-racist groups, never had a chance to earn his
retainer. Hale rejected his offer but expressed appreciation for the wave
of national publicity that Dershowitz had brought him and his Church.
More Uses for the Israeli Flag
But perhaps we've strayed a bit far afield. What is the connection between
the Israeli flag on the floor of Hale's home office and the Israeli flag
doormats sold by street-vendors in Beirut? The answer, unfortunately,
is that while they themselves may be petty racists and moral perverts,
their friends have guns, and bombs, and a religious passion to use them
to kill Jews and other infidels in service to their respective holy wars.
Over the weekend, Reuters reported that during a rally by the Islamic
Jihad movement in Gaza City, young children were placed on stage, pretending
to be suicide bombers. A 10-year-old boy clad in a white shroud climbed
into a coffin-like box covered with an Israeli flag, as another boy tossed
a firecracker to mimic the sound of a bombing.
Last week, the bus driver who deliberately drove into Israelis waiting
at a bus stop, killing eight, said he had no regrets. He was acting on
behalf of his people, he said. So too was the suicide bomber who killed
himself along with pedestrians in Netanya.
The weekend news also brought a report of the apprehension of members
of a Palestinian terrorist cell reportedly responsible for the shooting
deaths of eight Israelis. The cell reportedly was led by a commander of
Force 17, Arafat's elite military unit, who directed them, supplied their
weapons, and chose their targets. Its plans to carry out a terrorist bombing
early last week, reportedly foiled by Israeli security forces, was apparently
a key reason for the strict closure imposed on Ramallah, where the cell
was based.
Still, the world objects to Israeli limits on the movements of Palestinians.
The US State Department, along with some civil rights groups, have called
for easing the travel restrictions and allowing Palestinian workers to
return to their jobs in Israel. The critics of the closure policy say
the Palestinians have a human right to work in our country.
Well, we who live in that country also have a human right to live. You
will forgive us if we don't rush to put out the welcome mat.
 
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