Intellectual Laziness Watch, Dershowitz edition

Alan Dershowitz, writing at the Hudson Institute’s website, says my reporting of his unhappy encounter with the term "moser" was "irresponsible:"

An article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by Ron Kampares was even more irresponsible. It “reported” the following:

“Most recently, Alan Dershowitz likened him to a “moser”, a Jewish traitor deemed in some interpretations as worthy of a death sentence.”

This was written days after I had made it clear that I wanted no harm to befall Goldstone.

Ignore the Google Alert-defying misspelling of my name: My article was written and distributed to papers on Feb. 2 and posted here on Feb. 3. The first time Dershowitz, as far as I can tell, made it clear he meant Goldstone no harm was on Feb. 3, on the Forward website. As far as I can tell, because the phrase he cites, elsewhere in his Hudson piece, as proof of his benign intentions is:

I repeatedly emphasized, in subsequent interviews, that “I certainly did not mean to imply that any physical harm should come to Goldstone.”

If by "repeatedly," he means "once," yes, that appeared in the Forward, a day after I wrote my piece. Here’s Google on the phrase: Its only appearance prior to this Hudson entry is in the Forward on Feb. 3.

Moreover, Dershowitz gave his interview to Israel Army Radio (listen here if you want full context) on Jan. 31; I wrote my piece Feb. 2. How is this "days" after he made it clear he wanted no harm to come to Goldstone? Where did he make this clear outside of the correspondence with the radio host he describes?

Additionally, we blogged and published Dershowitz’s explanations as soon as they came out.

Finally and more substantively, what distinction is Dershowitz making here? He admits believing Goldstone is a traitor; why is that distinct from moser? He says the terms mean different things in the United States and Israel; how so? How does one exempt Goldstone from physical harm and the other does not? In Israel and in the United States, treason carries a possible death sentence.

Which is not to say I believe Dersh is being disingenuous — I believe him when he says he does not want Goldstone to come to harm — but both terms, "traitor" and "moser", are so loaded that it is incumbent upon Dershowitz to make the qualification and not on the listener to infer it.

UPDATE: A reader points out that Dershowitz, in the original radio interview, quotes the following from the Amida, in its original Hebrew:

And for the informers may there be no hope.

Here’s the entire passage:

And for the informers may there be no hope. And all heretics in a moment should disappear and all enemies of your people should be destroyed, and all evil people you should quickly uproot and smash and obliterate and shame and humiliate and defeat quickly in our days.

Again: How is this designation less menacing than "moser," or "traitor" for that matter?