A Muslim legal group filed a disciplinary complaint with a local bar organization against Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz yesterday, claiming he overstepped professional boundaries in an op-ed he wrote last year.

The Muslim Legal Defense and Education Fund (MLDEF) said Dershowitz went too far in an opinion piece on terrorism in Israel published in March in the Jerusalem Post.

In the article, Dershowitz proposed that whenever Palestinian terrorism resumes after a moratorium, Israel should retaliate with military action against a Palestinian village after giving residents 24 hours’ notice.

In a complaint filed with the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers, the MLDEF said Dershowitz’s proposal would violate an article of the Geneva Convention that innocent people cannot be punished for a crime they did not commit.

Because the U.S. ratified the treaty, it is federal law. As a lawyer, a MLDEF spokesperson said, Dershowitz is bound to obey this law and cannot encourage others to break it.

“As attorneys we swore to uphold each law in the United States whether we agree or not,” said Sareer A. Fazili, a member of the board of directors of MLDEF. “Dershowitz called for collective punishment. I find it amazing—a whole village cannot be considered a co-conspirator. Simple due process is violated when you attempt to punish more people than are allegedly guilty.”

Dershowitz said he was outraged at what he called MLDEF’s attempt to censor his right to free speech.

“No bar is going to discipline a lawyer for expressing his views on the Middle East,” said Dershowitz yesterday. “In America, you don’t have to defend your right to speak. Maybe that’s the way it’s done in Egypt or Iran, but that’s not the way it’s done in America.”

John C. Mirick, chair of the Board of Bar Overseers, said that all complaints about ethical conduct are directed to the Office of Bar Counsel for investigation. That office then recommends either dismissal or further action.

All proceedings are confidential. Officials in the Office of Bar Counsel did not return repeated phone calls.

Dershowitz said he has no intention of backing down and does not need to defend himself. He does not believe the bar will take action against him, he said.

“The bar association is not going to accept this complaint,” he said. “It will end up in the circular file where it belongs and they [MLDEF] know that.”

The last time a lawyer attempted to have Dershowitz censured, that lawyer was disciplined himself, he said.

“The only thing is whether they discipline the group for filing a frivolous complaint,” he said.

Fazili said that MLDEF does not want its complaint to be viewed as a conflict between Muslims and Jews.