The Democratic Party is experiencing internal divisions regarding Israel, with a faction declaring war against the terrorist group Hamas. Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel last month, resulting in over 1,400 casualties and 250 individuals being taken hostage.
The party’s far-left wing seems to be supporting Hamas and their Palestinian supporters. In contrast, more moderate Democrats, including figures like Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and former President Barack Obama, are standing in solidarity with Israel, emphasizing its right to self-defense.
“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,” The Western Journal reported on Thursday.
Obama said: “What Hamas did was horrific and there’s no justification for it.”
But then he added: “And what is also true is that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable. 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 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
Dershowitz unloaded on Obama during his “Dershow” podcast following those remarks.
“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 the professor emeritus, 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 noted further.
The lawyer, who has maintained allegiance to the Democratic Party throughout his life, anticipated that the party would face consequences for Obama’s statements if he actively campaigns for Democratic candidates next year.
“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,” Dershowitz 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.
He elaborated further during a Sunday morning appearance on Fox News with host Maria Bartiromo.
“First, he said the occupation is unbearable. He just lied through his teeth. There is no occupation of Gaza,” Dershowitz said. “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.”
Israel withdrew its forces and citizens from Gaza in 2005, effectively putting an end to the occupation. The subsequent year saw Hamas securing a majority in the enclave’s parliament, and by 2007, the group took control of the strip, removing it from the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.
Dershowitz contended to Bartiromo that while Obama stated, “the attacks by Hamas are not justifiable,” he, in fact, justified them. Dershowitz argued that if life were genuinely unbearable, which he disputed, then any action could be taken to make it bearable. He asserted that Obama’s stance contributed to the risks faced not only by Israelis but also by Americans, suggesting that the threat could extend to a theater near them.