Alan Dershowitz Assembles Legal ‘Dream Team’ to Defend Netanyahu, Gallant at ICC

Photo Credit: Miriam Alster / Flash 90

Professor Alan Dershowitz at Tel Aviv University, December 11, 2016.

Celebrated Harvard Law Professor (emeritus), author and attorney Alan Dershowitz has announced he is assembling a legal “dream team” of top lawyers to defend Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

The ICC this past week issued arrest warrants for the two Israeli leaders, claiming they are suspected of committing war crimes against Palestinian Authority Arabs in Gaza.

The case was filed in the Court by South Africa, with a host of other anti-Israel nations joining to provide support.

“This case will be tried in a courtroom in The Hague. It will also be tried in the court of public opinion, both in the US and throughout the world,” Dershowitz wrote in an op-ed published Monday by the Wall Street Journal.

“For that reason, I am assembling a team of world class lawyers from around the globe to help defend Israeli leaders against the false charges.”

Among those who agreed to join Dershowitz in his effort to defend the Jewish State were the following:
* Former US attorneys general Michael Mukasey and William Barr,
* Former Solicitor General Seth Waxman,
* Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, and
* Former Canadian attorney general and minister of justice Irwin Cotler.

Other former judges, government officials, prosecutors and current professors and criminal lawyers have also signed on, including former New York Governor and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

In addition, distinguished lawyers Kendall Coffey (former US attorney in Southern Florida), Floyd Abrams, Susan Estrich, Nathan Lewin, Benjamin Brafman, Arthur Aidala, Ron Sullivan and other former prosecutors are joining the team, as are Nadine Strossen, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Mark Levin, a former chief of staff for Attorney General Ed Meese who now has a widely watched TV show.

“Interestingly, David Boies — one of America’s most famous litigators — has agreed to work with us. He and I have been involved in antagonistic litigation against each other for years, but we agree on this issue, and he is enthusiastic about joining me in this effort,” Dershowitz wrote.

“Without making comparisons to the Holocaust, the ICC — which along with the International Court of Justice has shown bias against Israel for years — would probably have issued warrants against the Jewish fighters in the Warsaw ghetto along with the Nazis who were seeking to murder them. By pursuing these illegal and unjustified warrants, the ICC has lost its credibility. The US should sanction the institution. This process is already under way in Congress and should be pursued,” he wrote.