Dershowitz Calls for Mideast Peace: 'Israel Should Give Up Arab Land'

Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of Law at Harvard, advocated the gradual return of Palestinian territories now occupied by Israel as a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees in an address last night at MIT.

He said the Israeli government, over a period of "perhaps twenty years," should gradually return the territories, "not in return for paper but in return for a guarantee of security."

Dershowitz, who identified himself last night as a member of the American peace movement, said that he is now "at odds with the movement" in their support of the Arab cause in Palestine.

He said the major value of the American peace movement should be "a preference for peace over war." The peace movement, identified with such persons as Abbie Hoffman, Angela Davis and Daniel Ellsberg '52, Dershowitz said, advocates violence.

"The Palestinians," he said, "were wrongly expelled, but it does not follow that they should take back their lands by violence."

Dershowitz, who called himself "pro-Israeli", last night described Israel as "a flawed socialist state," but not, as Daniel Berrigan had stated, "a criminal state with racist ideology."

"I am following the liberal light," Dershowitz said, "no liberal should be anything but pro-Israeli."

Dershowitz proposed that Israel settle the crisis by declaring on principle that all territories would be returned in exchange for peace.