Alan Dershowitz talks to Ynet studio
(צילום: ירון ברנר)
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz thinks the U.S. is not doing enough to support Israel. In an interview with Ynet studio, Dershowitz said the Americans did a good job on Sunday while Israel was under attack from Iran, but must do more to bring about regime change in Tehran.
"What is ultimately needed is the United States support for some kind of regime change, for the destruction of the Iranian nuclear arsenal. Just imagine what would have happened [on Sunday] if Iran were backed by a nuclear arsenal? And its going to happen. It may not happen this week or this month, but it will happen," he said.
Dershowitz believes Israel is entitled by law to act against Iran.
"Iran had declared war on Israel officially. Israel is entitled to respond disproportionately in any possible way; it's entitled to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, it's entitled to bring about regime change," he said.
"Israel is also free to act because, in the early 1990s, Iran attacked its embassy, not some consulate building, not some building with military people but the actual embassy building in Buenos Aires, killing some 23 people, so Iran cannot say that Israel acted improperly by attacking the building that was being used to house the generals from Iran."
U.S. President Joe Biden, in Dershowitz's view, is wrong to stop Israel from retaliating, although the law professor is not convinced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was wrong to heed the president's warnings.
"Ultimately the world will recognize that it was a disastrous failure to allow the Iranian regime to continue," according to Dershowitz. He likened it to the failure of Britain and France to act against the Nazi regime in the 1930's ahead of WWII.
"This is an opportunity. The failed attack by Iran on Israel provides a complete legal and moral justification for regime change and, unless regime change occurs, there will be no peace in the Middle East. If regime change were to occur, that would mean the end of Hamas, the end of Hezbollah and the end of Houthis, he said. "The road to peace is the regime change. Without that there will be no peace in the Middle East."
Dershowitz does not think that under former president Donald Trump the Iranian attack could have been prevented. He said successive administrations failed to act sufficiently against Iran, adding that it is important to maintain bipartisan support for Israel in the U.S. and warning that this is at risk. He blamed the progressive wing in the Democratic party and the "so-called peace activists," whom he said were exposed when they cheered for Iran as it launched its attack on Israel.
Dershowitz said that, despite his criticism of the current president, he may vote for Biden in the November elections and rejected Trump's description of any Jew that would vote for the president as crazy. "If he wants to call me a crazy American Jew, that's fine," he concluded.