Full transcript: Alan Dershowitz on London Real
3:19 Brian Rose: This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer, author, and political commentator. You are one of the most recognized and sought-after attorneys in the world, and have spent much of your career looking after high-profile clients including O.J. Simpson, Jeffrey Epstein, Mike Tyson, Julian Assange, and, of course, Donald Trump.
3:37 You were the youngest full professor at Harvard Law School in history, at the age of 28, and spent 46 years teaching while also maintaining your legal practice in both criminal and civil law. You’ve written over 40 books, including the bestsellers The Case for Israel and Chutzpah, and your autobiography Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law. Your latest book, War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism, looks at how events on October 7th have changed the relationship between Israel and the United States.
4:05 You have said that Israel may be forced to consider its nuclear options as a last resort to assure its survival, and that a ceasefire would only lead to more civilian deaths in the long run. Alan, welcome back to London Real.
4:19 Alan Dershowitz: Well, thank you so much. I actually taught at Harvard 50 years, 10,000 students, but I’m, I wouldn’t say so proud of my current association with Harvard. Yeah.
4:28 Brian Rose: I mean, let’s start there. What is happening on the ground in America? Because you know, you’re looking at the campus of Harvard and you’re seeing things that I’m guessing you would have never imagined you would have seen during your tenure, where it just seems like there’s, there’s, there’s no control by the faculty over what seemed to be really blatant anti-Semitism, discriminatory practices by the students. What’s happening there on the ground?
4:53 Alan Dershowitz: Well, I’m not surprised.
4:54 Harvard in the 1930s, like Oxford University and like Yale University, was very strongly pro-Nazi. There were all kinds of support for Hitler. Um, Harvard welcomed Nazi uh diplomats. It sent its own faculty to Nazi universities that just fired all of its Jews. Uh, Yale had students pledge not to ever fight against Nazism, as Oxford University did.
5:22 Students have been some of the greatest villains in modern history. Students brought Hitler to power at the University of Munich. Students helped Stalin. Students helped the Ayatollah Khomeini. Students helped Mussolini.
5:34 So I know students. I’ve looked them in the eye. Um, they’re not children. Uh, they’re 20 25 years old. They, uh, know the difference between right and wrong, and many of them have chosen wrong, and they get no pass from me on that.
5:48 Brian Rose: I, I, I heard an interview with Dr. Jordan Peterson, who I think was at Harvard in the ’90s, and, and he said it was, it was nothing like that. Then he said there was expression, but there was also both sides being talked about on campus. Has it changed significantly in even 10 or 15 years?
6:06 Alan Dershowitz: Yeah. Harvard got the lowest ranking from FIRE, the institute that supports free speech.
6:11 The lowest ranking of any university in the United States for free speech. I’ve been retired from Harvard for 10 years. I taught 10,000 students. I was among the most popular professors. Hundreds of students came to my classes.
6:24 I have not been invited back to speak at Harvard in favor of a two-state solution for Israel. Even though I’m a moderate on Israel, I cannot speak at Harvard. When I was invited back by a group, Chabad, to speak at Harvard, the school had to move the talk off campus for fear of my safety. Um, you cannot today, even before October 7th, make the case, moderate case, for a two-state solution. And none of these demonstrations are pro-Palestine.
6:52 Let’s be clear about that. They’re anti-Israel, pro-Hamas. I didn’t see a single sign ever after October 7th calling for a two-state solution. Not a single demonstration has been pro-Palestinian. They call them pro-Palestinian, but they’re anti-Palestinian.
7:09 They’re pro-Hamas. They’re anti- trying to resolve this issue peacefully. They’re pro-Iran. They’re pro-Hamas. They’re pro-Hezbollah.
7:16 They’re pro-terrorism. And now we’re seeing some support for Osama bin Laden. This is extreme radicalism. And let me tell you where it’s going. There will be terrorism in the United States, just as there was in the 1970s.
7:30 Efforts to blow up universities, efforts to blow up recruiting centers, efforts to blow up Fort Dix. Um, it’s going to happen in the United States. And these students, these lovely, wonderful students, are going to join the terrorists, as they did in the 1970s, and they’re going to participate in the blowing up of schools and churches and synagogues. Uh, this is a fight for the heart and soul of the future, not only of America but of the Western world, and many students and many faculty are on the wrong side of that fight.
8:00 Brian Rose: What happened, Alan? Were they infected with the mind virus that was based in Marxism and then amplified by our technology and our social media networks? Is it, is it that simple?
8:12 Alan Dershowitz: No, it’s simpler than that. Uh, it’s all the fault of the diversity, equity, inclusion, ethnic studies programs.
8:20 They have ruined universities. Um, I call for the total abolition of the diversity, um, inclusion, equity, uh, uh, bureaucracy. First of all, they don’t want diversity. They want just skin color diversity. The last thing they want is diversity of opinion.
8:38 They don’t want equality. Equity is the exact opposite of equality. It means identity politics. It means no meritocracy. They certainly don’t want inclusion.
8:48 As the former president of Harvard put it, they exclude Jews, Asians, and other nonprivileged minorities. They want the privileged minorities, African-Americans and, and others. Uh, and these privileged minorities, uh, support Hamas, women for Hamas, gays for Hamas, transgenders for Hamas. My son had an interesting idea. Birthright, which sends Jewish kids to Israel to see their birthright.
9:15 Birthright for Gaza. Let’s send gays for Gaza to Gaza. And it would be cheap, because they wouldn’t have to get a return ticket. They’d all be murdered and would, would be killed by Hamas. This is such absurdity.
9:28 Um, and it, it grows out of a, a mindset that is anti-American, that sees everything in terms of settler colonialist, uh, nonsense, and, uh, and, and there’s no room, no opportunity, uh, for debate. It’s a knee-jerk attitude, and there’s nothing to do with Palestinians. Let’s be clear about that. The two things, it has nothing to do with the Palestinians or ceasefire. If the Palestinians were allegedly oppressed by Syria, uh, and Iraq and Turkey, as the Kurds are, nobody would ever see a demonstration.
10:01 There have been no demonstrations on college campuses to speak of about Darfur, what’s going on there. Uh, very few about Russia and, uh, Ukraine. In fact, a few have been in favor of Russia. This is not about Palestine. It’s not good for the Palestinians.
10:20 This is pure, pure anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, anti-Westernism, anti-Judeo-Christianism. Um, and, and, and, and anti-, anti-, uh, the right, the right approach to things. It’s just anti- and it’s back to the anarchy of the 1970s, but it’s much, much worse.
10:39 Brian Rose: Is it going to get worse before it gets better? And how can we fix it?
10:44 Alan Dershowitz: Alan, It’s getting much worse, because these people who are the Hitler Youth of today are the future of, of tomorrow. And, um, they’re going to become the editors of the New York Times. Already, the New York Times is part of the problem. Look, why does Hamas do this? It does this because it has a winning strategy.
11:04 They call it the CNN strategy. In my book, War Against the Jews, I call it the dead baby strategy. You kill Jews in Israel. You know, Israel is going to try to get the terrorists and try to prevent the rockets. You put your babies and children with the rockets and with the terrorists.
11:20 You know, then inevitably Israel will kill some babies. You then show it to CNN. CNN puts it in the lead, because if it bleeds, it leads. And if it bleeds babies, it leads even more. The media plays a role in this.
11:32 The world that condemns Israel, wash, rinse, repeat. Michael Finnegan, begin again. Begin again. That’s the way they do it. It’s going to happen again and again and again unless three things happen.
11:44 The three things I call for in my book. Hamas must be totally destroyed. People say, “Oh, you can never destroy an ideology.” Yes, you can. When the Nazis were completely destroyed, when there was unconditional surrender, total war, the Germans became one of the best countries in the world.
12:01 The Nazi ideology was destroyed along with the Nazi generals. And you can destroy Hamas’s ideology along with Hamas. So, that’s step one. Step two is you’ve got to go after Iran. They’re the leader of the pack.
12:14 They’re the head of the snake. And Israel, once it cleans up Hamas, must destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity. They deserve it. They declared war on Israel. The United States should supply them with the logistical needs necessary to do it.
12:27 Bunker bombs, etc. Third, the United States should pressure Saudi Arabia to make peace with Israel and become part of the Abraham Accords. The reason that this all started was because Iran wanted to make sure that Israel and the Saudis never made peace. And so the end result has to be the peace treaty between Israel and the Saudi Arabian government. Right.
12:52 Brian Rose: And then, a week ago, you saw a joint statement by Saudi and Iran asking for a ceasefire. That’s not exactly the kind of thing you expect to see in that region, and that probably doesn’t move any peace accord ahead. Was that surprising to you, and is that a step backwards?
13:07 Alan Dershowitz: Exactly what Hamas wanted. It’s a step backwards.
13:10 It’s many steps backward. First of all, a ceasefire will cost many more lives than it will take.
13:15 Brian Rose: Explain that point, Alan, because that, that triggers a lot of people. Explain that.
13:19 Alan Dershowitz: Yeah, a ceasefire would save a few lives in the short term.
13:22 These are lives that could easily be saved by Hamas. Remember, every baby that dies as the result of an Israeli bullet is the responsibility of Hamas. It’s like if I take you as a hostage in a bank, and I start shooting from behind you, and I start killing people, and the police in an effort to try to get me, accidentally kill you. The policeman is not guilty of murder, even though the bullet came from his gun. I’m the hostage taker and guilty of murder.
13:47 So every single death is attributable to Hamas. But yes, a ceasefire would cause some lives to be saved in the short run. But it would guarantee that Hamas will do it again and again and again. It will mean more Israeli deaths, more Palestinian deaths, more babies dying. So sometimes you need to continue the war, just like a ceasefire with Germany in the middle of the war would have cost more lives.
14:13 Sometimes a ceasefire is very, very bad for peace.
14:16 Brian Rose: And so how should this play out in an ideal scenario? Right now Gaza is surrounded, the Israelis are going kind of, you know, street warfare. How should it play out? Should they completely eradicate the entire Gaza Strip from any population, or what is the solution?
14:33 Alan Dershowitz: No. Uh, first of all, the vast majority of Gazans support Hamas. So, I’m not shedding a lot of tears for the father, for example, who got a call from his son in the middle of killing Jews um, on October 7th. And the son’s bragging, “I just killed 10 Jews with my bare hands.” And the father is saying, great, it’s fantastic.
14:52 I’m so glad you did it. I don’t shed a tear if he’s collateral damage or if other people who allow their houses to be used. You know, you hear about 11,000 people being killed in Gaza. It’s total nonsense. The figure is probably closer to 2 or 3,000.
15:07 Why? First, they don’t separate out civilians from combatants. So, a substantial number of the 11,000, first of all, 11,000 exaggeration. It’s probably seven or eight. But a substantial number of them are Hamas terrorists.
15:21 Another substantial number are people who have been accessories to Hamas. For example, the UN people who have been killed. A lot of them are Hamas operatives. Just like the UNRWA is a wholly owned Hamas subsidiary. Let’s take the doctors in the hospital.
15:38 These are doctors that come out on television cameras. They look the camera in the eye and they say, “I swear to you, I’ve been in this hospital 16 years. I’ve never seen a Hamas fighter.” Total lies. These are Hamas spokesmen.
15:52 The IDF showed a photograph, a video of a Hamas fighter, wearing a Hamas uniform, carrying an RPG openly into the front door of the hospital. Duh. The doctor didn’t see that. The doctor didn’t see that behind the MRI machines are machine guns and rocket propellers. So, the doctors are complicit.
16:12 The UN is complicit. UNRWA is complicit. The number of actually innocent people, and I shed a tear for every little child. And by the way, children, they say half the people are children. Yeah, they’re 18, 17, and 15-year-old child soldiers, many of them Hamas recruits, people from the age of 15, and sometimes even lower, and they help build tunnels, and they’re killed by their tunnels.
16:36 By the way, the other people not included in the 11,000 figure are people who were killed by Islamic Jihad rockets or Hamas rockets. We know that about 20% of the rockets fired from Gaza toward Israel fail and land in Gaza. So don’t believe that 11,000 statistic. It’s just a total phony.
16:56 Brian Rose: What about the Al-Shifa hospital?
16:58 I mean, what do we see there? It’s been surrounded now. Obviously, they found some of those weapons. I’ve already seen the video on the inside. What, what’s, what’s Israel supposed to do?
17:07 And then what do they do next? They’re getting a lot of backlash from now the worldwide community to stop. They can only go so far, right?
17:15 Alan Dershowitz: They should ignore the international community. They’re a bunch of hypocrites.
17:19 Um, they, they don’t care. The international community isn’t saying anything about the genocide that’s going on in Darfur today. They’re not saying anything about the oppression of the Kurds. It’s a double standard. They should ignore the international community.
17:32 As far as the hospital is concerned, the media has it all wrong. The media is asking Israel to prove that there were actually command and control centers underneath the hospital. That’s irrelevant under international law. The only thing that’s relevant is, did Israel reasonably believe there were command centers underneath the hospital? Reasonably believe, the United States intelligence told them it was true.
17:57 I think it’s true. It’s probably true. But if it turns out there isn’t a single gun in the hospital, or a single command center, or a single tunnel, Israel would still have been acting within the law if it had a reasonable basis for believing that it was a hospital for combatants. That’s the law. I’m an expert in the law.
18:16 I know the law. And I can tell you that international law doesn’t depend on whether there are actually combatants inside. It’s the reasonableness of the basis on which Israel made the decision. And the decision was entirely reasonable. Not only did Israeli intelligence see the tunnels, so did American intelligence.
18:34 So did other international intelligence agencies. So Israel acted absolutely properly in Al-Shifa. Now, the other hypocrisy, they said, “Oh, they didn’t show the tunnels quickly enough. If Israel had gone in quickly or if they had bombed from the air, they’d be criticized. So they went in slowly, and they did it layer by layer by layer.
18:54 It may take some time.” So, you know, Israel is criticized no matter what it does, just like America is often criticized no matter what it does, and criticized by countries that have no concern for human rights whatever.
19:08 Brian Rose: Alan, play this forward out to one month, one year, 10 years. What is the ideal, or the realistic ideal, scenario for Israel right now? What happens?
19:17 Alan Dershowitz: Well, I would hope the three things that I want to have happen happen: the destruction of Hamas, the destruction of Iran’s nuclear capacity, and peace with the Saudis. Ultimately, the two-state solution is the least worst solution. It’s not perfect, but it’s the least worst.
19:33 Brian Rose: What happens in Gaza? What happens in Gaza?
19:35 Alan Dershowitz: Gaza has to be ruled by the Palestinian Authority. It can’t be ruled by Hamas. Now, the question is, what if the majority of Gazans vote to support Hamas? That can’t be allowed to happen. If the majority of Germans voted to support the Nazi party in 1945 and 1946, the United States would not have ended its military occupation.
19:56 It’s up to the Palestinians if they substitute for their kleptocracy. Remember, the Hamas leaders are living in Qatar in five-star hotels. I know, I’ve been to Qatar. I’ve met the Emir of Qatar. I know how good life is in Qatar for the Palestinians.
20:12 Um, but, uh, you know, that the Palestinians have to determine their own fate. So far, they’ve refused to take yes for an answer. They could have had a state in ’37, ’38, ’47, ’48, ’67, ’92, 2005, and even during the Trump administration they were offered a deal. They’ve said no to everything. Abbas himself has said, he told me personally.
20:36 I had dinner with him. He said to me personally he wished Arafat had accepted the 2000 President Clinton and Ehud Barak offer. It was a serious mistake not to do it. Palestinians have made mistake after mistake after mistake. The only reason they’re still an occupation of any part of what is called Palestine is because the Palestinians have said no to a two-state solution.
21:00 Brian Rose: You mentioned nuclear option. I mean, that’s a very dangerous thing even to speak about. Alan, can you talk about why you talk about that, and is it really a practical option for Israel?
21:11 Alan Dershowitz: It’s not an easy option for Israel, but if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons and threatened to bomb Israel, Israel would have no choice but to deploy its nuclear weapons against Iran. This doesn’t come from me.
21:24 This comes from the leader of Iran. Here’s what the leader of Iran said some years ago. He said, “If we develop a bomb, we will drop it on Tel Aviv. We will kill 3 million Jews. That will be the end of the Jewish state, because this is his words.”
21:37 Israel is a one-bomb state. Israel will then retaliate and drop an atomic bomb, a nuclear bomb on Tehran, killing 10 to 20 million Muslims. And this is the key. And he said the trade-off would be worth it, because it would be the end of Israel, the end of Judaism, but it wouldn’t be the end of Muslim and Islamic rule. So you cannot allow a country that has leaders who express views like that to have nuclear weapons.
22:06 So if Israel is threatened by nuclear Armageddon, it has to take preemptive action. And if that includes the use of tactical nuclear weapons, it would be terrible. It would be a disaster. But Israel is not going to commit politicide. No country in history ever has.
22:22 It will not allow itself to be destroyed. It will use nuclear weapons before it allows itself to be destroyed. We all hope it will not come to that. But uh, it, it, Israel will not allow itself to be destroyed.
22:35 Brian Rose: Alan, you said that Hamas is fighting a CNN war.
22:38 I mean, in how many ways is Israel playing right into Hamas’s plans? I mean, they went and did this. They got the reaction. They got the international reaction. Is this going exactly how Hamas planned?
22:49 Alan Dershowitz: Exactly. And it’s the fault of CNN. And it’s the fault of the New York Times. And it’s the fault of the media. It’s the fault of the United Nations.
22:58 It’s the fault of, uh, Canada. Um, it’s the fault of Spain. It’s the fault of France. All of which have condemned Israel. And they said to Hamas, “Oh, wow.
23:10 You’re successful. We’re helping you. We’re going to do this again and again.” Yeah. Uh, the world is playing right into Hamas’s hands.
23:19 And Israel has finally said enough’s enough. We’re going to buck international opinion, and we’re going to do what the international community should have done a long time ago. What they did for ISIS and al-Qaeda, we’re now going to do to Hamas. And Israel is finally doing the right thing. It should have done it years earlier.
23:36 It should have destroyed Hamas years earlier, before they were hostages. Now it is much more difficult because of the hostages.
23:43 Brian Rose: Alan, you’re good friends with Netanyahu. I think you even met with him recently in the last year. Um, what is your read on him?
23:50 He’s gotten a lot of criticism for either letting the attack happen or for doing this to save his political career. What do you make of Bibi?
23:58 Alan Dershowitz: I had a three-hour lunch with him eight days before these events. Uh, that is the Friday night, one week before the Saturday. Three hours we talked.
24:07 He was in a great mood. I was helping him with trying to come to a compromise on judicial reform. Remember that? You know, that today is, is old news. Uh, look, he is the prime minister, and the prime minister bears ultimate responsibility for what is probably the greatest intelligence failure in modern history.
24:24 Now, there were two intelligence failures. Number one, the failure to see what was going to happen, the attack. But number two, much more serious and much less understandable, um, is the failure of the Israeli military to get to the terrorists uh, within an hour of when this started. They could have saved, uh, hundreds uh, of the 1,200 people, and probably could have prevented the hostage taking of many. Nobody to this day understands why the Israeli army, with its helicopters and its jets and its ground forces, uh, did not get down there, uh, more quickly.
25:00 That will happen after the war is over. There will be an after-the-fact analysis, and this will all come out. There will be no secrets, and it will be a devastating critique of every aspect of the Israeli, uh, government, starting with the prime minister and going down to the head of the IDF, to the head of Israeli intelligence, to the Mossad, to the Shin Bet. No one will survive. No, no person who was in a position of authority on October 7th will be untainted by this report.
25:29 Brian Rose: Yeah, that was really hard to believe. I mean, uh, so, I, in 2018 I went to Israel. I spent some time in Tel Aviv and went to Jerusalem, and I know how small of a land mass it is, and I saw the tweets here in London on Saturday morning, and I could probably, could have gotten to a plane and flown there and got to some of those kibbutzim quicker than the, than the, than the army. And it was just hard to imagine that it wasn’t being stopped sooner. Yeah.
25:53 When you know there was a grandfather, a former general who got in his car from Tel Aviv, drove down to one of the kibbutzim and saved the lives of people with his pistol. Um, you know, it was easier to get by car from Tel Aviv than these multi-million-dollar attack helicopters. Where were they? I just don’t get it.
26:12 Alan Dershowitz: I know a lot about Israel.
26:14 I’ve been there over a hundred times. I do not know the answer to that question. A lot of conspiracy theories floating around about that. Uh, which I’m sure will be dealt with, uh, in the future.
26:25 Brian Rose: What is, what has Israel done wrong in your opinion the last month?
26:29 Alan Dershowitz: Well, what they didn’t, they didn’t anticipate this attack, and they didn’t react more quickly. I think after that they’ve done everything pretty much right. Um, I think their reaction has been proportionate. Um, I think they, um, um, have tried to minimize civilian deaths. And let’s remember, too, when the United States fought a war against terrorism thousands of miles away from its borders in Afghanistan, it killed over 70,000 civilians.
26:58 When it fought a war against Iraq for no good reason, that was the wrong war at the wrong time, but it did, uh, between 270 and 330 civilians died. And now we’re talking about, we don’t know the number, less than 11,000. So, there’s a lot of double standard hypocrisy about that. Civilians die when terrorists hide behind civilians. And the world has to understand that that’s the fault of the terrorists.
27:25 Brian Rose: So, you know, is Israel’s public relations not good enough?
27:29 Alan Dershowitz: Well, you know, when you’re living in a world where there’s a double standard applied to Jews and to the Jewish state, it’s awfully hard to overcome that by effective public relations. Israeli spokesmen who appear on television have credibility. Uh, they’ve generally been accurate in their statements, uh, whereas Hamas has no credibility, and the doctors in these hospitals have no credibility, but the world treats them as morally equivalent.
27:56 That’s very difficult. That’s our problem as well as Israel’s.
28:00 Brian Rose: Will Hezbollah attack?
28:02 Alan Dershowitz: It will attack in a minimal way. It will not attack all out because it knows that Israel has the air force capacity to retaliate, not only against Hezbollah but against Iran.
28:14 Iran’s winning. They’re laughing all the way to the bank. Um, they’re the winners of this whole thing. They haven’t lost anybody. They’ve lost a couple of soldiers, and, you know, uh, but they’re winning.
28:26 They’re laughing. They started this whole thing, and they’re getting away with it, and they’re going to do it again and again and again. That’s why Israel has to. I wish it could bring about regime change. That should have happened during the Obama administration, but it didn’t.
28:39 And so now Israel has no choice but to ultimately, if it can, destroy Iran’s nuclear reactor program.
28:46 Brian Rose: Which they’ve been actively doing, right? They’ve been assassinating nuclear scientists.
28:51 Alan Dershowitz: Mossad has been very busy doing that for the last, actively, five years, and probably 20 years. Has been.
28:58 It started with Egypt back in the 1940s. Uh, you know, these are targeted assassinations designed to prevent civilian deaths. Most of the people who have been killed have been complicit. But it may, Israel may have to take the next step, uh, because Iran is becoming, is coming closer and closer to having, uh, a nuclear arsenal, and that is intolerable to the world. If you think North Korea is dangerous, North Korea is not trying to export, it’s just trying to stay in power.
29:27 Uh, even China, uh, the, the most dangerous uh, country in the world is Iran. If you give them nuclear weapons, they become incrementally more dangerous.
29:37 Brian Rose: Alan, does the Arab world care about Palestinians? I mean, it, it seems to me that Egypt doesn’t want them. And with countries like Saudi and these others, it, it feels like they have to publicly support them.
29:51 But at the end of the day, nobody really wants Palestinians. Prager, you put a video out the other day talking about all the Palestinians that have been expelled from various Arab states over the last 30 years. What is the real relationship between, between all of those actors?
30:04 Alan Dershowitz: Well, first of all, the only country in the Middle East that cares about the Palestinians is Israel. Um, there’s a great movement in Israel for a two-state solution.
30:12 Horribly, tragically, ironically, many of the people who were killed on October 7th were peace advocates who support the Palestinians, who really care about the Palestinians. These are people who brought people in from Gaza to work in their homes, not knowing that some of them were spies reporting back at how to kill their children. But Israel cares about the Palestinians. Uh, many Americans care about the Palestinians. The Arabs don’t care about the Palestinians.
30:37 The Muslims don’t care about the Palestinians. They use them as a tool. Um, for example, is anybody concerned about what’s going on in, um, uh, in Darfur, where you have Muslim versus Christian? There’s no attention being paid to it. No attention to the Kurds.
30:56 The only reason the Palestinians get attention is because they’re perceived oppressors of Jews. And that’s just core antisemitism. So this is not going to help the Palestinians. I didn’t see a single sign at a single demonstration since October 7th calling for a two-state solution. I didn’t see a single sign for that.
31:16 They all call for the end of Israel, but they don’t call for a two-state solution, which would give Palestinians uh, rights to statehood. That’s not what this is about. And it’s not about a ceasefire. The people who are calling for a ceasefire don’t want a ceasefire. They want Israel to be condemned by the international community.
31:35 And by the way, a lot of these demonstrations started before there was any fire to cease. They started on October 8th. They were calling for the end of Israel on October 8th before Israel sent a single troop into Gaza. So this is not about a ceasefire. The ceasefire is designed to get large crowds to make it seem like a peace demonstration.
31:55 But if you look behind the signs calling for a ceasefire, you see signs that call for the Middle East to be cleaned. Cleaned of Jews. That’s a Nazi slogan. Or, or free from the river to the sea. Free of what?
32:08 Free of Jews. And so, um, this is neither about the ceasefire, nor is it about what’s best for the Palestinians. It’s about how to destroy Israel, how to damage the United States, how to attack Western values, Judeo-Christian values, how to impose this kind of Marxist colonial, postcolonialist attitude on the world. That’s what this woke progressive, uh, is all about. It’s really a continuation of the Weathermen of the 1970s, where young kids were trying to blow up their schools at University of Wisconsin, trying to blow up, uh, army bases at Fort Dix.
32:49 We’re going to see more of that. It’s coming to a theater near you. And I predict that the students, these students at Harvard, these students at Yale, these students at Columbia, they will join the terrorists, and they will become a fifth column in the United States and engage in terrorism, much as some students did in the 1970s. So it’s coming to a theater near you if it’s not stopped in the Middle East.
33:10 Brian Rose: Alan, what was your emotional reaction on October 7th?
33:13 Like, what were you feeling? Were you surprised? And were you shocked? And and what’s it been like for you emotionally the last few weeks?
33:22 Alan Dershowitz: Well, I was shocked at the extent of Israeli mess-ups.
33:25 I was shocked at that. I was not shocked about what Hamas did. Everybody knew that. If Hamas, I had predicted this in books I’ve written for 30 years. Um, uh, who is it?
33:36 One of the Israeli prime ministers said, “If Israel’s enemies put down their weapons, there’d be peace. If Israel puts down its weapons, there would be genocide.” And it would be genocide of the kind we saw. There were eyewitness accounts yesterday on CNN, um, with Jake Tapper, in which he had, um, eyewitnesses to massive rapes of women, gang rapes of women, a woman’s breast being cut off and thrown around like a football, people laughing and calling home and seeing how wonderful this was, that they were murdering children in the arms of their parents, burning them, beheading them.
34:13 Uh, that didn’t surprise me one bit. That was anticipated, which is why Israel has to be so certain and why it must keep the nuclear option open. It cannot allow itself to be subjected to that kind of genocidal brutality. It has to protect its citizens at all cost, by any means. And it’s not being helped by people like, by, by Barack Obama, who horribly, uh, created essentially a moral equivalence between, uh, the unbearable life in Gaza, unbearable because Hamas has made it unbearable.
34:48 But if you say something unbearable, you’re basically saying anything is justified. And so although he said, Barack Obama, that the abominable attacks were not justified, in the next sentence he essentially said they were justified because life without them is unbearable. So he’s part of the problem too, and I have severed my relationship with him permanently.
35:11 Brian Rose: Is he running the White House these days? And then to the next question is how has the relationship between the United States and Israel changed?
35:20 Alan Dershowitz: Well, he’s not running the White House. Uh, who is like the house. Look, I think that, um, considering everything, including his age, Biden, is, I will vote for Biden again if he runs against Trump. Um, am I happy with everything he’s done and said? No.
35:42 I also don’t like the fact that the administration conflates, oh, there’s anti-Semitism on university campuses and there’s also Islamophobia. No, there isn’t. There’s no Islamophobia. Uh, Muslims and Arabs on campuses are the most privileged groups. There is no Islamophobia.
35:57 Don’t bring them together. This is kind of virtue pounding. Oh, we’re against Islamophobia as well as anti-Semitism. Why don’t you also come out against this horrible discrimination against Zoroastrians? It doesn’t exist.
36:10 Um, and they’re making it up. Um, so, uh, you know, I do think that it’s going to get much, much worse on college campuses before it gets better.
36:19 Brian Rose: And the relationship between the United States and Israel, is it being strained right now? Uh, did you expect the U.S. to support in such a way and send the carriers, or how is this going to change in the future?
36:33 Alan Dershowitz: Well, I was very pleased that it sent the carriers, um, and sent, um, American assets not only to the Mediterranean but to the Gulf and other places.
36:42 And, um, uh, support for Israel has been, uh, strong, but it’s been strained, and it’s strained by the squad, uh, by horrible people, uh, in Congress, uh, like, uh, Bush, uh, Congresswoman Bush, and Congresswoman Omar, and some of the others. And I’ve made an offer. I will help finance, uh, and I will vote for, and I will campaign for, any Republican or any Democrat from any party who runs against any member of the squad. The squad is anti-American, anti-Judeo-Christian values, anti-civil liberties, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic.
37:17 The Democrats have a problem. They have to deal with it. They have to marginalize it. The best thing that could happen to the Democrats is if these squad members were, in fact, primaried and lost their seats in Congress. But the Democrats can’t say that.
37:33 Brian Rose: But you’re still voting Democrat for now?
37:36 Alan Dershowitz: No, I’m voting for particular Democrats. Um, vote for Biden if he runs against Trump, but I will vote for anybody who runs against AOC or Cori Bush or any of those other people. And I will see if we get a presidential race that’s between two other people, I’ll make up my mind at the last minute. I think Nikki Haley is a terrific candidate and a terrific person.
37:59 I have good relationships with Christie and with some of the others who are running as well. So, I don’t preclude the possibility of voting for a Republican. I have voted for Republicans in the past, with Bill Weld when he was governor of Massachusetts, and others.
38:16 Brian Rose: Just a quick aside, I know you recently met with Zelensky when he was in New York City and had a conversation with him. Um, how does this Israeli war take the focus off the media war that was Ukraine, Russia, and how will that end up changing that entire situation?
38:32 Alan Dershowitz: Well, Ukraine has not behaved very well. It voted to condemn Israel. Um, it has not been a friend of Israel. Um, Ukraine has never been a friend of the Jews. Um, it happened to elect a president whose parents are Jewish.
38:48 Um, and I met with him, and I liked him. He seemed like a nice guy. No sense of humor whatsoever. I guess it’s hard to have a sense of humor when your country is being destroyed. But since he was a comedian, I thought maybe we could have a few laughs together.
39:02 That didn’t happen. And I also met with his chief of staff, who had a good sense of humor. Um, and, um, but, um, uh, it has taken some attention away from from Ukraine. But you’ll notice there aren’t a lot of university demonstrations about Ukraine and Russia and none about Darfur. Uh, there were very few when there were genocides all over the world.
39:25 These college students are very selective, and they don’t get involved unless it’s anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish. They’re very, very selective. They don’t care about who gets killed. They only care about who does the alleged killing. And that’s why it’s so bigoted and so irresponsible.
39:45 Brian Rose: It just came to my head. Tell me if I’m off here, but I saw the reports of, for example, all the Muslims that have died in Yemen, for example. I think it’s over 100,000, and yet no one talks about them. And then you look on, you know, some of the Black Lives Matter movements, and you look at a white police officer, uh, killing a black person, which of course is wrong. But then when they start talking about all the black-on-black violence, no one wants to talk about that.
40:09 And so is there, is there a parallel there? Is this the wokeism where they hone in on one thing, which is kind of anti-American, anti-system, and they refuse to look at the whole picture?
40:21 Alan Dershowitz: Absolutely. It’s completely consistent with that. Uh, you know, more Palestinians were killed by Jordanians during Black September, and that was a ho-hum.
40:30 Nobody noticed. Nobody cared. More Muslims have been killed in Syria. Nobody cares. It doesn’t matter.
40:37 These are not pro-Muslim, pro-Palestine, pro-Arab, dem. They’re all anti-Israel. They’re all anti. They’re not pro. Nobody is seeking a two-state solution.
40:48 Unfortunately, I have a 1:00 legal thing that I have to get to, so I have to leave now.
40:53 Brian Rose: But can I ask you, can I ask you one last question, Alan? Um, anti-Semitism. I mean, I’ve been around for 20 years in cities all over the world. And I can’t remember a single time that I ever heard an anti-Semitic remark by anyone around me or anyone near me.
41:08 And yet, everyone says that it, that it’s everywhere. Now, I know you look at the demonstrations, but like, I’ve never experienced it. Do you think it’s there and I didn’t see it, or do you think it’s only there now with certain populations?
41:21 Alan Dershowitz: Well, I think it changes over time. When I was growing up, uh, I would be accused of killing Christ, and I would always say, “I was in the movies that night.
41:29 I have an alibi. It was my friend Jimmy who did it. I didn’t do it.” We would make a joke of it. Um, uh, and but there was always a little bit of it, but it varies over time.
41:39 There was a long period after the Holocaust when anti-Semitism essentially disappeared. But, for example, when I was at Yale Law School, I was first in my class, editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, had published three articles. I was like the number one draft choice in the NBA for any law firm. 32 law firms turned me down because I was Jewish. That’s 1961, 1962, not that long ago.
42:03 So different kinds of anti-Semitism have arisen during different periods of time. Now we’re seeing it focused on anti-Zionism, but that’s just the disguise for anti-Semitism.
42:13 Brian Rose: Hey, it was great talking to you. I really appreciate it, and let’s do it again sometime. All right, thank you, Alan Dershowitz.
42:20 We appreciate you, and talk to you next time. Thanks, everybody. We’ll see you next time on London Real. Bye.
