Calling Democratic National Convention ‘anti-Jewish, anti-Israel,’ American jurist Alan Dershowitz bolts Democratic Party, hints at possible bombshell presidential endorsement.
By David Rosenberg, World Israel News
Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz has left the Democratic Party, accusing the party’s leadership of promoting antisemitism and anti-Zionism at last month’s Democratic National Convention.
A life-long Democrat, the 86-year-old jurist announced his departure from the Democratic Party in an interview with Zev Brenner late last month.
Declaring himself an independent, Dershowitz did not endorse former President Donald Trump, but hinted at a possible presidential endorsement in the final days before the November election.
“I am no longer a Democrat,” Dershowitz told Brenner. “I am an Independent.”
“I want to see how they deal with Iran,” Dershowitz continued. “I want to encourage the current administration to support Israel.”
Dershowitz castigated his former party, claiming the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month had become a platform for antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric.
“I was so unhappy. It was the most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist convention I’ve experienced,” he said. “I was disgusted at the Democratic National Convention. Absolutely disgusted.”
The attorney and liberal activist chastised Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris over her decision to snub Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his July address to a joint session of Congress.
As vice president, Harris also serves as President of the U.S. Senate, who by tradition presides over Senate sessions when a foreign dignitary is present.
“A lot of things pushed me in that direction,” Dershowitz continued, accusing Democrats of blocking Josh Shapiro – the popular governor of the swing-state Pennsylvania – from being nominated as Harris’ running mate amid fears Shapiro’s Jewishness could turn off some Democratic voters.
“I understand that if his name [were] John Sheppard, not Josh Shapiro, he would have been the democratic nominee.”
“I don’t think that Kamala Harris is antisemitic. I don’t think that she didn’t pick Shapiro just because he was Jewish, [or] just because she doesn’t like Jews.”
“I think that she got a lot of pressure. We know she got a lot of pressure from the hard left of the Democratic Party, and she knew that if she nominated Josh Shapiro…there would have been demonstrations.”
Dershowitz excoriated a number of far-left lawmakers in the party’s progressive wing who were invited to address last month’s convention, calling New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “miserable anti-Zionist bigot.”
“They had Liz Warren, who is one of the most anti-Jewish people in the Senate. Then they had Bernie Sanders, who is one of the most anti-Jewish people in the Senate.”
Dershowitz also took aim at Al Sharpton, decrying the controversial reverend and Democratic activist as “one of the worst antisemites in modern American history…the guy who provoked a pogrom in Crown Heights.”