TEL AVIV – Renowned Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz on Sunday said he would not be leaving the Democratic party and instead would fight its anti-Israel and far-Left wing from within, the Algemeiner reported.
Dershowitz published an oped on Friday announcing that a win for Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison in Saturday’s Democratic National Committee elections would force him to leave the party. Labor Secretary Tom Perez was selected as chairman, prompting Dershowitz to tell the the Algemeiner that he would remain in the party but “fight hard for it to move toward the center and away from the anti-Israel and far-Left trends” that have recently become du jour.
The Democratic party member and staunch defender of the Jewish state said Ellison’s defeat was “a good sign that we can win, though it will not be easy.”
Still, he continued, “I wish Perez had not appointed Ellison as his deputy. I consider Ellison to be disqualified, due to his association with Nation of Islam leader the Reverend Louis Farrakhan; his denial that Farrakhan is an antisemite; and because he opposed providing the Iron Dome missile defense system to Israel.”
The American Jewish Congress also appealed to DNC members, charging Ellison with “threatening the relationship between America and Israel.”
Dershowitz slammed the Democrats’ increasing tendency to veer to the extreme left as “self-defeating.” However, he did not agree with the view that this trend helped get President Donald Trump elected. Still, he added, “The party should not be responding to its loudest, most radical voices, but rather address the concerns of its centrist base.”
Dershowitz said he hoped to see the Democratic party restored to the days of the late senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Ted Kennedy, as well as former President Bill Clinton.
In Friday’s oped published in The Hill, Dershowitz wrote that if Ellison won:
I will quit the party after 60 years of loyal association and voting. I will become an independent, continuing to vote for the best candidates, most of whom, I assume, will still be Democrats. But I will not contribute to the DNC or support it as an institution. My loyalty to my country and my principles and my heritage exceeds any loyalty to my party. I will urge other like-minded people – centrist liberals – to follow my lead and quit the Democratic Party if Ellison is elected Chairman. We will not be leaving the Democratic Party we have long supported. The Democratic Party will be leaving us!