Dershowitz scolds ZOA for ‘flapping’ for Trump

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz was jeered at the Zionist Organization of America’s annual dinner on Sunday for suggesting that the organization must be a home to “all Zionists, not just right-wing Zionists.”

“ZOA must be a home in which (Theodor) Herzl and (Louis) Brandeis would be as comfortable as (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky; in which (David) Ben-Gurion would comfortable as (Menachem) Begin, and in which (Isaac) Herzog would be as comfortable as (Benjamin) Netanyahu,” Dershowitz said in a speech, after receiving the “Mortimer Zuckerman Award” at the ZOA’s annual Louis D. Brandeis Award dinner held at the Grand Hyatt in New York. “I don’t ever want to see the ZOA – and I am not suggesting this is happening – become the mirror opposite of J Street because that causes tremendous division within the Zionist community.”

Dershowitz suggested that Jewish American organizations should focus on consensus issues within the mainstream of Israel and most in the American Jewish community, such as the Iran deal, combating the BDS movement, opposing unilateral actions at the UN, protecting Israel’s security, and fighting anti-Semitism. “Those are issues we can be united about,” he said. “They are enough to keep us busy forever.”

“Why do we have to get into issues that divide the Jewish community, that divides the Israeli community?” he asked.

Dershowitz stressed that Israel must always remain a bipartisan issue, especially during presidential elections. “We should never, ever have a presidential election which is a referendum on Israel. Why? Because we can lose.”