The Trials of Zion Read online

  BOOKS BY ALAN DERSHOWITZ

  The Case For Moral Clarity: Israel, Hamas and Gaza

  The Case Against Israel’s Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace

  Is There a Right to Remain Silent? Coercive Interrogation and the Fifth Amendment after 9/11

  Finding Jefferson: A Lost Letter, a Remarkable Discovery, and the First Amendment in an Age of Terrorism

  Blasphemy: How the Religious Right Is Hijacking Our Declaration of Independence

  Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways

  What Israel Means to Me: By 80 Prominent Writers, Performers, Scholars, Politicians, and Journalists

  Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights

  America on Trial: Inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our Nation

  The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved

  The Case for Israel

  America Declares Independence

  Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge

  Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age

  Letters to a Young Lawyer

  Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000

  Genesis of Justice: Ten Stories of Biblical Injustice That Led to the Ten Commandments and Modern Law

  Just Revenge

  Sexual McCarthyism: Clinton, Starr, and the Emerging Constitutional Crisis

  The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century

  Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case

  The Abuse Excuse: And Other Cop-Outs, Sob Stories, and Evasions of Responsibility

  The Advocate’s Devil

  Contrary to Popular Opinion

  Chutzpah

  Taking Liberties: A Decade of Hard Cases, Bad Laws, and Bum Raps

  Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case

  The Best Defense

  Criminal Law: Theory and Process

  Psychoanalysis: Psychiatry and Law

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by Alan M. Dershowitz

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Grand Central Publishing

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  www.twitter.com/grandcentralpub.

  First eBook Edition: October 2010

  Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-446-55851-8

  Contents

  Books by Alan Dershowitz

  Copyright

  Prologue: American Colony Hotel

  I: Decision

  II: Habash Ein

  III: Faisal Husseini

  IV: The Investigation Begins

  V: Shimshon Regel

  VI: History Will Solve the Mystery

  VII: Flix Movie Theater

  VIII: TNT

  IX: The Dossier

  X: Rishon L’Zion

  XI: Poison

  XII: The Van

  XIII: Kidnapped

  XIV: The Trip

  XV: Abe Ringel

  XVI: Hostage

  XVII: The Photo

  XVIII: Double Cross

  XIX: The Deal

  XX: The Stakes

  XXI: The Tactic

  XXII: Yassir

  XXIII: The Question

  XXIV: The Button

  XXV: The Meeting

  XXVI: The Answer

  XXVII: The Threat

  XXVIII: Rendi

  XXIX: The Photographer

  XXX: The Confetti

  XXXI: The Attempted Escape

  XXXII: The Autopsy

  XXXIII: The Photos

  XXXIV: The Verdict

  XXXV: Emma

  XXXVI: Catch and Release

  XXXVII: The Blackboard

  XXXVIII: Dennis Savage

  XXXIX: The “Talk” and the “Story”

  XL: The Tell

  XLI: The Truth

  XLII: Elizabeth Mitchell

  XLIII: The Family Connection

  XLIV: Rashid Redux

  XLV: The Promise

  XLVI: The Hunch

  XLVII: The Rest of Avi’s Story

  XLVIII: The Discovery

  XLIX: Armageddon

  L: God’s Work

  LI: The Explosion

  LII: Arish Sopher

  LIII: The Interrogation

  LIV: The Whole Truth

  LV: The Lab

  Epilogue: The Gulfstream

  Acknowledgments

  This book is lovingly dedicated to the memory of

  my mother, Claire Dershowitz, who died in 2008 at

  the age of ninety-five. She always encouraged and

  defended me. She would have liked this book.

  PROLOGUE

  American Colony Hotel

  East Jerusalem, Sometime in the Not-Too-Distant Future

  PRESIDENT BILL MOORE was a man of many talents, but choreography was not one of them. Yet the entire enterprise on which he had staked his presidency, along with the credibility of the United States, could now be threatened by his inability to choreograph the dance between two reluctant suitors, Prime Minister Amnon Ezratti of Israel and Mahmud Yassin, the Hamas leader who would soon become president of the newly established Palestinian state. Ezratti was willing to shake hands with Yassin, but his government could not survive the traditional Arab kiss on the cheek from a man widely regarded by Israelis as a mass murderer. Last-minute intelligence had alerted Ezratti to Yassin’s carefully designed plan to kiss him precisely in order to embarrass and perhaps topple his government.

  Moore, who towered above Ezratti and Yassin, had assured his old friend Amnon that he would position himself so as to prevent a kiss, even if it took a not-so-gentle shove. “Remember, I played hockey at Dartmouth,” Moore whispered to the Harvard-educated Ezratti. The Israeli prime minister offered a subdued chuckle in recognition of Moore’s expectation that those around him would always laugh at his often lame attempts at humor. That’s what people do when presidents tell bad jokes.

  Yassin huddled with his acting prime minister, Suri Chalaba, the leader of Fatah. Yassin had beaten Chalaba decisively in the last election, and there was no love lost between them. Chalaba had been appointed to his position as a symbol of unity, but it was expected that he would soon be replaced by a Yassin loyalist. The two men stayed in close proximity at public events in order to reduce the risk of an assassination attempt by supporters of the other.

  “So this is what it comes down to,” Ezratti mused to Moore. “After so many thousands killed, peace depends on your ability to stop that son of a bitch from planting his big Arab lips on my pockmarked Jewish chin.”

  “They don’t write about this kind of stuff in the history books,” Moore said with a look of solemnity returning to his handsome face. Ezratti forced a smile, masking his apprehension over the future.

  “Okay. Let’s do it. The world is waiting,” Moore announced, adjusting Ezratti’s tie, then Chalaba’s, and finally his own, as the robed Yassin looked on w
ith bemusement.

  “This is a historic moment,” Yassin said. “The end of a long journey and the beginning of an even longer one.”

  Ezratti didn’t like the last part, interpreting it—as many doubting Israelis did—as a way for Yassin to preserve the option of destroying the Jewish state, either demographically or violently. Many Palestinians were equally doubtful, believing that Ezratti would never dismantle the remaining Jewish settlements that still dotted the Palestinian state-to-be or end the targeted assassinations of suspected terrorists.

  “Friends don’t need peace treaties,” President Moore reminded the old adversaries. “Enemies do.” Moore was well known for his unsentimental pragmatism—surprising to some from a man of such deep religious beliefs. “Let’s sign and see if time, and a few well-placed American soldiers, can’t turn you from hot enemies into cold enemies. And then, maybe, by the end of our lifetimes, into decent neighbors.”

  “And don’t forget a few well-placed American dollars,” Yassin quipped, reminding the president of his pledge to give the new Palestinian state $35 billion to resettle the refugees.

  “You won’t let me forget,” Moore replied. “So let’s get on with the most expensive handshake in history.”

  President Moore paused for a moment, crossed himself solemnly, and whispered a prayer. Ezratti, who was agnostic, looked on a bit awkwardly, while Yassin and Chalaba turned away.

  The four men, with their small entourages and security details, proceeded to walk, almost march, through large doors in the west wing of the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem. Entering a poorly air-cooled courtyard, they made their way to the cordoned-off podium area. Chalaba stood directly behind Yassin, watching his every move. The audience, sweating profusely in the early-summer heat, consisted of cabinet members, diplomats who had been instrumental in bringing the parties together, and media representatives from around the world. TV cameras transmitted live images to millions of viewers. The public had been excluded for security reasons, despite President Moore’s request to invite some important donors and political friends. When it came to security, the president had a vote but the Secret Service held the veto.

  President Moore, with his patented toothy smile, briefly introduced the two signatories, placing his large arms around their shoulders. “Now for the handshake that seals the deal,” Moore said out loud. “And don’t even think about kissing him or I’ll knock you on your ass,” he whispered to Yassin without moving his lips.

  Yassin smiled. He had a plan of his own. Like an anxious lover calculating a conquest, he knew that any attempt to kiss his enemy now would be thwarted. But later, at the reception… He had already alerted an Al Jazeera cameraman to be poised.

  Yassin thrust his hand forward, tossing a head fake at the same time to disarm Ezratti, who stepped back nervously. Moore took Amnon’s hand and brought it toward Yassin’s. At the precise moment their hands touched, a massive explosion rocked the entire area. Everyone near the podium was killed instantly along with several people in the audience. The blast was seen and heard on television screens throughout the world, just before everything went black.

  It was not the worst terrorist attack in history. Thirty-one people were killed and more than a hundred injured—a fraction of the casualties suffered on September 11, 2001. But it was certainly the worst political assassination in history. Never before had so many heads of state and leading officials been murdered at the same time.

  The Martyrs of Jihad, a small offshoot of Hamas with close connections to Iranian religious figures, immediately claimed credit, but both the CIA and the Mossad were skeptical, because fringe groups frequently claim credit for terrorist acts in order to raise their profiles and gain new recruits. Within hours a young Muslim radical named Faisal Husseini was seen videotaping the crime scene from the roof of a nearby building. He was arrested by the Israeli police and accused of being a member of the Martyrs of Jihad. He was also suspected of being one of those responsible for the attack. After less than an hour of interrogation by the Shin Bet—the Israeli security service—Husseini confessed to having planted the bomb on behalf of the Martyrs of Jihad, who believed that all of Palestine, including what was now Israel, was holy Muslim land and that the two-state solution was heresy.

  Habash Ein, a Christian Arab graduate of Hebrew University Law School with a master’s from Yale Law School, was appointed to represent Husseini. This was done to mollify the Palestinians, who were furious that the case was being tried in an Israeli court, despite the fact that the American Colony was in the part of Jerusalem slated to become the capital of the new Palestinian state. The explosion had put everything on hold—including Palestinian statehood.

  The arrest of Husseini did not slow down the investigations being conducted by the Israeli Mossad, or by the American CIA, FBI, and Secret Service. Both Israel and the United States claimed jurisdiction over the horrible crime that had killed their leaders. They were determined to solve it and to prosecute those responsible. The United States did not seek to extradite Husseini for trial in America—at least not yet. Their investigation was far from complete. Let Israel take the first shot at bringing Husseini to trial, the Americans reasoned. A rush to judgment—especially in such emotionally laden cases—often produced the wrong result. If the Israelis got it right, the Americans could always bring him to the United States later and execute him—assuming the Israelis didn’t execute him first, under a rarely used law that authorized capital punishment in extraordinary terrorism cases involving multiple victims.

  The new president of the United States, former vice president Christine Randall, declared a week of mourning and solemn prayer, while at the same time raising the terror-alert level to red. The acting prime minister of Israel, former minister of justice Tal Bar-Lev, asked his people to “sit shiva” in memory of the murder victims, while sealing the borders with Palestine and placing its air force on the highest level of preparedness. The Palestinian parliament could not agree on a new president or prime minister, but the spiritual leader of Hamas called for jihad, which he said involved purification through vengeance. The supreme leader of Iran characterized the deaths as “Allah’s revenge” against infidels who would give sacred Islamic land to “Zionist crusaders,” while demanding that Russia bolster Iranian air defenses against a possible Zionist attack.

  I

  Decision

  Cambridge, Massachusetts, a Few Days Later

  DAD! I’ve got incredible news!”

  Abe Ringel’s quiet morning was interrupted by the exuberant appearance of his twenty-six-year-old daughter, Emma. She’d only recently moved back to Cambridge after finishing law school at Yale, and Abe still hadn’t gotten used to her being home. In fact, while he read the morning newspaper, still filled with accounts of the devastation in Jerusalem and its political aftermath around the world, and drank his single cup of decaf—he was hyper enough without caffeine—he’d almost forgotten she was in the house. There was no forgetting her now. Her energy was palpable. Before he had a chance to ask what the news was, she’d begun speaking in rapid-fire sentences.

  “I’m going to the Mideast. I’ve gotten a job with a Palestinian human-rights group,” Emma Ringel gushed, thrusting a printed-out e-mail into the lap of her father. Her words tumbled out breathlessly. “Remember my friend Habash from Yale? He hired me!”

  “Habash Ein?” Abe set his paper on the kitchen table and retrieved the e-mail from his lap. As he read, a look of recognition passed over his face. “You used to bring him by for dinner, didn’t you? Isn’t he the guy they appointed to represent the guy who bombed the American Colony?”

  “Yeah! It’s so exciting!” Emma threw herself into a chair and grabbed the e-mail back from Abe. Since she’d finished school, the number-one topic of conversation in the Ringel household had been what her first job should be following her clerkship. She’d had offers—quality offers—thanks to her great grades and good, if controversial, pedigree. The daughter of Abe Ring
el, famous defense attorney, part-time Harvard Law teacher, and celebrity in his own right (“TV ham” according to Emma), was sought after by law firms, corporations, and various do-gooder organizations around the country. But she’d turned down each job offer, much to Abe’s confusion. She told him she was waiting for the perfect job. It hadn’t occurred to Abe that she might leave the country. And now that the topic of going to Israel was raised, his stomach was uneasy.

  “Habash needs help with the Husseini case.” She misconstrued the look on Abe’s face. “Jealous, Daddy? It’s your kind of case. But don’t try to horn in on me if I get to do it.”

  Abe didn’t take the bait. “No way you’re going to the Mideast now,” he replied reflexively. Forty years of defending people in courts around the world made it hard for Abe to announce a decision without providing a detailed explanation. “It’s a tinderbox over there, especially with the leadership all dead. At least we have a vice president to take over for Moore. The Israelis have an interim prime minister, but the Palestinians have nobody. There’s going to be civil war on top of the existing war. Maybe two civil wars.”

  His words hadn’t done a thing to dampen Emma’s determination. In fact, a smile lit up that face that looked so like her mother’s, with her brown eyes and long black hair. “It’s the perfect time. It’s so exciting. I can make a difference.”

  “You’ve already accepted a clerkship with Judge Wolf. You can make a difference working with him.” When Emma didn’t say anything, Abe continued, “You can’t just pick yourself up and go to a battle zone! You have a commitment to the judge.”

  She smiled, about to play her trump card. “That’s the beauty of it. Judge Wolf agrees. He’s holding the clerkship for me for a year.”

  Abe was rarely outmaneuvered, and he didn’t like the feeling. Especially at the hands of his own daughter. “You told him first, before me!”

  “I had to find out whether he would hold it before I told you.”

  “Asked me, you mean.”

  “No, Daddy, told you.” Emma crossed her arms over her chest, and her chin tilted in a display of stubbornness. She got that streak from him. “I’m an adult. I don’t need to ask you anymore, but I would love your approval.”