In his July 3, 2009, op-ed (‘Has Obama turned on Israel?’), Dershowitz’s article stated:

“A majority of American-Jewish supporters of Israel, as well as Israelis, do not favour settlement expansion. Thus the Obama position on settlement expansion, whether one agrees with it or not, is not at all inconsistent with support for Israel.”

Klein told the Jewish Tribune that Dershowitz “claimed to me that the editor changed the words ‘substantial number’ to ‘majority.’ I told him he should demand a retraction. I haven’t seen it yet.”

[The Jewish Tribune asked the Wall Street Journal for verification of the change but received no answer before deadline.]

Klein, who has criticized President Barack Obama’s policies in several publications, including the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, said that Dershowitz, author of The Case for Israel, “clearly cares for Israel. He firmly believes that a Palestinian state and a freezing of settlements will lead to peace.

“He’s a fervent liberal supporter of Israel and of liberal Democrats,” Klein continued. “So I believe he has a blind spot when it comes to Obama and it will take a lot more before he finally criticizes Obama’s policies towards Israel.

“And I think it will happen, because Obama is not a friend of Israel. You’re beginning to see it already. People like Malcolm Hoenlein [executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations] expressing concern about Obama. That didn’t happen a month ago. That’s new.”

Klein’s description of Dershowitz’s views were confirmed with a look at an answer to a frequently asked question on Dershowitz’s web site: “The Arab-Israeli conflict should end with a two-state solution under which all the Arab and Muslim states – indeed the entire world – acknowledge Israel’s right to continue to exist as an independent, democratic, Jewish state with secure and defensible boundaries and free of terrorism. In exchange, Israel should recognize the right of Palestinians to establish an independent, democratic, Palestinian state with politically and economically viable boundaries. For these mutually compatible goals to be achieved, extremists on both sides must give up what they each claim are their God-given or nationalistic rights. Israeli extremists must give up their claimed right to all of biblical Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel), and their claimed right to maintain Jewish settlements on, or to continue the military occupation of, disputed areas that would be allocated to the Palestinian state. Palestinian extremists must give up their claimed right to all of ‘Palestine,’ including what is now Israel, as well as the alleged right of millions of descendants of those who left or were forced out of what is now Israel during the war of 1947-1949 to ‘return’ to their ‘ancestral homes’ in Israel.

“Unless these claimed rights are mutually surrendered in the interest of achieving a pragmatic, compromise resolution to the conflict, there can be no enduring peace. But if these claimed rights are surrendered, peace can be achieved.”

Concerning the White House event, Klein said that the fact that the only American Jewish leaders invited were those who wouldn’t challenge the president’s policies “undermines Obama’s public statement that he wants to hear all opinions.

“We’re very visible in the organized Jewish world and we’re usually invited. Yet he’s willing to speak to evil haters of America, like [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and [Venezuelan leader Hugo] Chavez.

 “Already the AJC [American Jewish Committee, which attended the gathering] put out a release that Obama is committed to Israel’s security. We in ZOA will continue to tell the truth.”