The central premise of Dershowitz is that "international law, and those who administer it, must understand that the old rules" do not apply in the unprecedented war against a ruthless and fanatical foe, and that "the laws of war and the rules of morality must adapt to these [new] realities." This is not the first time such a rationale has been invoked to dispense with international law. According to Nazi ideology, ethical conventions couldn't be applied in the case of "Jews or Bolsheviks; their method of political warfare is entirely amoral." On the eve of the "preventive war" against the Soviet Union, Hitler issued the Commissar Order, which mandated the summary execution of Soviet political commissars and Jews, and set the stage for the Final Solution. He justified the order targeting them for assassination on the ground that the Judeo-Bolsheviks represented a fanatical ideology, and that in these "exceptional conditions" civilized methods of warfare had to be cast aside:
In the fight against Bolshevism it must not be expected that the enemy will act in accordance with the principles of humanity or international lawany attitude of consideration or regard for international law in respect of these persons is an errorThe protagonists of barbaric Asiatic methods of warfare are the political commissars. Accordingly if captured in battle or while resisting, they should in principle be shot. It was simultaneously alleged that the Red Army commissars (who were assimilated to Jews) qualified neither as prisoners of war protected by the Geneva Convention nor civilians entitled to trial before military courts, but rather were in effect illegal combatants. Plus ³change, plus c'est la mꭥ chose.
