The Democrats’ war on Israel just cost them Alan Dershowitz

A lifelong Democrat, Dershowitz now believes the Republican tent is the only home for political pragmatists

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Stop the presses! Alan Dershowitz has become a Republican.

It’s true. The well-known U.S. lawyer, political commentator and longtime liberal Democrat has decided to join the GOP. While it’s no secret that his political views have changed in recent years, including the shift from being a critic of U.S. President Donald Trump to joining his defence team in the first impeachment trial in 2020, this is remarkably different.

Dershowitz explained his reasons for switching parties in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. It’s a fascinating example of a prominent individual coming to terms with a different political reality, similar to Whittaker Chambers, Sidney Hook, George F. Will, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and many others.

What led to his decision will interest many, and may not surprise some.

“I am a lifelong Democrat,” he wrote in his opening paragraph on April 21. “I started campaigning for the party’s local candidates as a teenager in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been a registered Democrat for 67 years, made speeches for John F. Kennedy as a college student, and can count on one hand the number of Republicans I’ve ever supported for any office.”

Dershowitz’s second paragraph contained a rather intriguing segue. “I still disagree strongly with the GOP on abortion, the separation of church and state, immigration, healthcare and taxes, among other things,” he noted. “Yet I’ve decided to bite the bullet and register as a Republican.”

The obvious question is why he opted to do this. It’s largely related to foreign policy, and more specifically, the way that Democrats think about Israel.

“The Democratic Party has become the most anti-Israel party in U.S. history. Last week all but seven Senate Democrats voted for an arms embargo against the Jewish state, and an avowed enemy of Israel, Abdul El-Sayed, is gaining ground in the Democratic campaign for U.S. senator from Michigan,” he stated forthrightly. Moreover, he believes there’s “no denying that the hard-left, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party has moved from the fringe to the mainstream. Until recently there was an age gap, with younger voters more strongly opposing Israel, but recent polls suggest that the trend now includes Democrats of all ages. Republicans have their own antisemitic fringe, but for now it remains a fringe.”

He’s right. The Democrats were largely supportive of Israel when he was an active party member and supporter. That’s not the case today.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted between March 23 and 29 found that “60 per cent of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53 per cent last year.” While this figure can be explained by the war in Iran, the next figure can’t. “Eight in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents currently have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 69 per cent last year and 53 per cent in 2022. Democrats under 50 are slightly more likely than older Democrats to say they have a very unfavorable view of Israel (47 per cent vs. 39 per cent).” As for Republicans, Pew Research found that “more Republicans and Republican leaners have a favorable than unfavorable view of Israel (58 per cent vs. 41 per cent).”

Dershowitz, who is pro-Israel and wrote a well-received book to this effect, would surely have been horrified by these numbers on the Democratic side. This doesn’t resemble the party he once knew and defended every chance he could. Pew Research’s findings either justified his position since he became an Independent in 2024 or confirmed his suspicions about the growing tide of anti-Israel sentiment. The Republicans are much closer to his way of thinking on this issue than the Democrats.

“I wish I could designate myself as a ‘foreign-policy Republican,’ but there’s no such option, so I have to go whole hog,” Dershowitz wrote in his Wall Street Journal op-ed. “By registering as a Republican rather than an independent, maybe I can have some influence on moving some Republican policies toward the centre. I have given up on trying to change the Democratic Party. My main goal is to send a message that many traditional Democratic voters can’t accept what it is becoming—a replica of left-wing European parties that are hurting their countries.”

Unsurprisingly, he left a caveat at the very end of his piece, but he’s realistic enough to know it won’t happen. “If the Democrats pay a heavy electoral price, perhaps they’ll wise up and move back to the centre, where I (and others) could rejoin it. I don’t know if that is a realistic possibility, but it’s worth a try.”

I don’t agree with Dershowitz’s unnecessarily negative view of certain Republican ideas and policies. I know that his liberal positions on everything from taxes to abortion have a very small, select and uninfluential audience in Republican circles. I strongly doubt that the professor emeritus at Harvard Law School will be able to shift the GOP in any desired direction.

That being said, I don’t think there’s any reason why Republicans shouldn’t welcome Dershowitz to the party and movement. There’s more than enough room for differences of opinion in the U.S. conservative political tent. He’ll find that most party members will agree to disagree with him on certain issues, support him when they find common cause, and won’t make him feel uncomfortable about domestic issues and foreign policy positions on Israel and around the world.

Alan Dershowitz, Republican. The impossible just became possible!

Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.