Dershowitz hopes Trump will make him proud

OWN CORRESPONDENT

“I can predict exactly what will happen in the next four years. It will be unpredictable. That is both Trump’s strength and his weakness,” he said at the city’s Temple Bet El. 

Turning to the Middle East, Dershowitz said: “The primary obstacle to peace is the Palestinians’ unwillingness to recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.

“(Former President Barack) Obama was wrong when he said that Israel was created because of the Holocaust. Israel was created because of Zionism, a movement that long predated the Holocaust.

“I think President Obama honestly believes that he has done what is good for Israel. He is wrong. Jimmy Carter hates Israel. He is anti-Israel. President Obama is not. But the Security Council Resolution is just dumb. They could have taken the Jewish areas of Jerusalem out of the resolution, but they didn’t.”

The four main settlement blocs could all be incorporated into Israel and traded for other land. The farther-flung settlements were a provocation, but the settlements were not the primary obstacle to peace.

“In the last eight years Israel’s military has remained strong and it has maintained a qualitative edge over other armies. The US supported Israel when it went into Gaza. Nobody should call Barack Obama anti-Israel. Nobody should call Barack Obama anti-Semitic.”

He said nobody yet knows what Obama’s role would be as a former president. Some former leaders have had immensely positive roles after their terms. It was important for Israel to try to increase its ties to China, Russia, Africa, South America…

“We have a great weapon, emet, truth. We need to teach our children not the propaganda, but the nuances, the complexities and they will be prepared to make the case for Israel,” he stressed.

“The case for moving the embassy is strengthened by the Security Council Resolution. The threat of violence should not deter us. That encourages more acts of violence.”

Americans should take a stepped approach – state the policy of moving its embassy to west Jerusalem and talk to Arab allies about it. It should not just be moved now.

The American Jewish advocacy group, J Street, had “moved left of the hard left in Israel. They supported the UN Security Council Resolution. Nobody in Israel supported the UN resolution. It declares the Kotel and the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem to be occupied territory. I do not consider J Street to be a pro-Israel organisation.”

Dershowitz had strong words for the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement (BDS).

“No university in the US will accept BDS, because we will fight fire with fire. If you implement BDS against Israel, we’ll implement BDS against your university.”

By courtesy of Detroit’s Temple Beth El Assistant Rabbi Megan Brudney and Cantor Rachel Gottlieb Kalmowitz

• Former South African Tessa Goldberg was the Beth El executive director for many years.