Dershowitz Goes Off on Obama Over Israel Comments: 'I'm Ashamed That I Was Your Friend'
Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz on his podcast Wednesday called former President Barack Obama an “enemy of the Jewish people.”
Last week, while speaking at an Obama Foundation event in Chicago, the 44th president addressed the Israel-Hamas war saying that both sides of the conflict harbored some semblance of responsibility.
On October 7, Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel from the Gaza Strip killing approximately 1,400 Israelis and kidnapping over 200 more.
The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry claims more than 9,000 Gazans have been killed since the war broke out.
“What Hamas did was horrific and there’s no justification for it,” Obama stated.
“And what is also true is that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” he added, which drew applause from the audience.
“If you want to solve the problem, you have to take in the whole truth, and you have to admit nobody’s hands are clean, that all of us are complicit to some degree,” Obama said.
🚨🚨🚨Obama says Israel is engaging in “OCCUPATION” Of Palestinian land.
Then makes a moral equivalency between the State of Israel and Hamas.
Hard to quantify how radical and extremist this world view is coming from a former President who funded Iranpic.twitter.com/cXwT8WBUcC
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 5, 2023
Obama’s drawing of a moral equivalency between the two sides drew a sharp rebuke from Dershowitz on his “The Dershow” podcast on Wednesday.
“You can’t make those kinds of comparisons Barack Obama. I have to tell you what you did is just despicable. It’s beneath contempt,” said Dershowitz, who is Jewish and has been a strong defender of Israel for decades.
“Whatever respect I had for you, I have absolutely lost. Fortunately, so have many other Americans lost respect for you,” he added.
“I’m ashamed that I was your friend. I’m ashamed that I invited you to my birthday party. I’m ashamed that I accepted your invitation to the Oval Office. I’m ashamed that I allowed you to fool me into thinking that you actually supported Israel. You do not,” Dershowitz said.
Dershowitz, a lifelong Democrat, predicted his party would pay a heavy price for Obama’s comments should he decide to campaign for candidates in 2024.
“It was not a slip of the tongue. It was a very carefully contrived statement, trying to create a sense of equality and moral unclarity and moral comparison between something that can never be excused – murder, rape, beheadings – and something that is controversial politically and that you Barack Obama didn’t do very much to help the Palestinians get out of,” the professor said.
“You have been an enemy of justice, an enemy to Israel, and an enemy to the Jewish people, and an enemy to decency. And I’m embarrassed I ever thought as highly of you as I obviously did. I was fooled by you. I’ll never be fooled again,” Dershowitz concluded regarding the former president.
Appearing on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” Friday, he further explained his anger towards Obama.
“First he said the occupation is unbearable. He just lied through his teeth. There is no occupation of Gaza,” Dershowitz told host Maria Bartiromo.
“If life is unbearable in Gaza, it is because Hamas has been in control. The kleptocracy. People have stolen billions of dollars that were intended for humanitarian aid and put it in their own personal bank accounts in Qatar,” he added.
Obama ‘lied through his teeth,’ there is no occupation of Gaza: Alan Dershowitz pic.twitter.com/E2M5yFfeB6
— Mornings with Maria (@MorningsMaria) November 10, 2023
Dershowitz further argued there is no Israeli occupation of the West Bank either, saying the Palestinian Authority’s capital of Ramallah is a beautiful city.
Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, which included removing over 9,000 Israeli citizens living in settlements in the region to the pre-1967 Six Day War boundary.
In 2006, Hamas won a majority in the parliamentary elections and the following year the terrorist group seized control Gaza from the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, which administers the semi-autonomous areas of the West Bank, The Associated Press reported.
As part of the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1994, Israeli forces had agreed to a framework for Palestinian self-government.
Violent flareups followed, causing Israel to go back into Gaza, before withdrawing again in 2005.
Dershowitz contended though Obama said “the attacks by Hamas are not justifiable. He made them justifiable, because if life really is unbearable, as it’s not, then you can do anything you want to make it bearable and what he did was contribute to the risks of not only Israelis, but Americans because it’s coming to a theater near you.”
“I think he always had a deep hatred of Israel in his heart. He hid it very well,” Dershowitz said of Obama. “And finally his true feelings have come out now that he’s no longer president.”
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