Dershowitz Ends Relationship With Obama: A ‘Villain’ in the Israel–Hamas Conflict

President Barack Obama addresses the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 28, 2015. John Moore/Getty Images

Former President Barack Obama should be ashamed of comparing the Hamas terrorist group’s massacre of Israelis with its subsequent occupation of Gaza as it gives license to anti-Jewish forces to “brutalize innocent civilians,” said Harvard Law School Professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz.

“Barack Obama has been a villain in this whole thing,” Mr. Dershowitz said in a Nov. 8 interview with The Rich Zeoli Show podcast. “And Obama obnoxiously and obscenely compared these brutal murders to Israel’s disputed and controversial occupation. And that will just encourage groups like Hamas to continue to brutalize innocent civilians, not only in Israel but around the world. So I think that Obama … shame on him for what he did. And I used to vote for him, I would never, ever support him, vote for him, or actually talk to him again. My relationship with him is over.”

Speaking during a Nov. 4 interview with the Pod Save America podcast, President Obama insisted that while there was no justification for the massacre of over 1,400 Israelis by Hamas on Oct. 7, “what is also true is that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” adding that “nobody’s hands are clean“ and that ”all of us are complicit to some degree.”

In his interview, Mr. Dershowitz slammed the 44th president’s claim that Israel is occupying Palestinian territory. President Obama “compared these massacres, these rapes, these beheadings to Israel’s occupation of Gaza, which doesn’t exist.”

“Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005. They not only removed all settlers and all soldiers, but even dug up their dead bodies from graves, and took them out of the Gaza Strip.”

Mr. Dershowitz doubled down on his criticism of President Obama in a Nov. 10 interview with Fox Business. “First he said that the occupation is unbearable. He just lied through his teeth. There’s no occupation of Gaza. And if life’s unbearable in Gaza, it’s because Hamas has been in control, the kleptocracy. People have stolen billions of dollars that were intended for humanitarian aid,” the legal scholar stated.

Although President Obama did not outright justify Hamas’s attacks, he made them “justifiable” since his claim that life in Gaza is “unbearable” could be construed as giving license to “do anything you want.”

“What he did was contribute to the risks to not only Israelis, but Americans, because it’s coming to a theater near you. If Hamas is not stopped in its tracks from doing the terrorist acts, they will bring them to the United States,” Mr. Dershowitz said.

“And these students, these young Hitler—young students that are marching around calling for the death of Israel, will be participating in terrorist attacks against the United States as they did in the 1970s when students tried to blow up the University of Wisconsin … . This is a very serious matter and Obama is pouring gas on the fire.”

The bomb attack Mr. Dershowitz referred to was an incident that took place in August 1970 when a group of radical anti-Vietnam War activists bombed the Sterling Hall in the University of Wisconsin.

Campus Anti-Semitism

Mr. Dershowitz went on to criticize the proliferation of anti-Semitism on American campuses.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

“Remember that students brought Hitler to power,” he said, adding that the same thing happened in the case of communist dictator Joseph Stalin and the Iranian Ayatollahs. “These young people today—they’re not wearing swastikas, but they’re wearing green headbands—they are the modern-day version of Hitler Youth. And there’s no excusing them,” he told Fox.

“And there’s no excusing the faculty members and this bureaucracy of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion,’ which excludes Jews and Asians and is against diversity, [that] is part of the problem.”

Harvard came under fire after multiple student organizations co-signed a letter insisting that the Israeli government is “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” including Hamas massacre of 1,400 Israelis. This led to backlash from alumni and donors.

The University of Pennsylvania faced heavy criticism for allowing a literary event on campus in September which its leaders admitted would feature “several speakers who have a documented and troubling history of engaging in anti-Semitism by speaking and acting in ways that denigrate Jewish people.”

Speaking about such university actions, Mr. Dershowitz said that he is “so proud of so many wealthy people, Jewish or not Jewish, [like] Jon Huntsman … who’ve stopped contributing to schools like Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and other schools that are not doing enough to stop this.”

Jon Huntsman Jr. is the former governor of Utah. Last month, the Huntsman Family halted donations to the University of Pennsylvania due to the institution’s response to the Hamas attack. Over the past three decades, the family has donated tens of millions of dollars to the university.

Mr. Dershowitz said that America needs a “reckoning about the history of anti-Semitism and anti-Christian attitudes, anti-patriotism attitudes.”

“What we’re hearing on college campuses is the hatred of America, hatred of Western tradition, a hatred of the Judeo-Christian tradition, a hatred of Israel. And that’s intolerable. We need you, presidents of universities, to address this problem directly.”

The legal scholar said that he thinks President Obama “always had a deep hatred of Israel in his heart. He hid it very well.”

“He called me to the Oval Office, and he said to me, ‘Alan, you’ve known me for a long time. You know I have Israel’s back.’ I didn’t realize he meant to paint a target on. He has never been supportive of Israel. And finally, his true feelings have come out now that he’s no longer president and doesn’t have [to be] elected.”

President Obama “should be ashamed of himself. He should apologize, but he won’t.”=

The Epoch Times reached out to the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama for comment.