If Israel was not the nation of the Jewish people, the media would show markedly less "obsessive attention of their imperfections," Harvard law professor and legal analyst Alan Dershowitz tells
Newsmax TV.
Appearing on "America's Forum," Dershowitz expounded on recent remarks by
economist and commentator Ben Stein that there exists "Jew hatred" within the mainstream media.
The coverage of the violence between Israel and Hamas is steeped in anti-Semitism, he told host J.D. Hayworth.
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"On the same day Israel killed 10 or 15 people in Gaza, in Syria 700 people were killed that day and it didn't even make page 27 of the newspaper," he said. "There were 160,000 Arabs and Muslims killed in Syria during the course of this civil war and it's been a back-page story. Whereas when Hamas hides its fighters amongst civilians, and Israel has no choice but to respond … by directing its fire to civilian areas, civilians are killed, and then Hamas shows these civilians on television.
"There's an obsessive focus on Israel's imperfections."
Europe, Dershowitz said, is home to "old-fashioned anti-Semitism," where contempt for Jews is masked as anti-Zionism in England, France, and parts of Italy. He referenced well-known
leftist Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo, a former member of the European Parliament, who said he would like to kill Israelis and suggested Europeans raise money to buy more rockets for Hamas.
"If that's not anti-Semitism I don't know what is," Dershowitz said.
Europeans are the "grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the people who supported Hitler and who brought us the Holocaust," he said, so it should not be a surprise that "Europe's disease for thousands of years has been anti-Semitism."
While there are many Jews in the historically liberal news media, Dershowitz said the left has made a litmus test out of hating Israel for those in the industry, taking pointed aim at Slate magazine, which he said has many Jewish writers.
"[Slate] has become one of the most anti-Israel and indeed, crossed the line to anti-Semitic, publications in America," according to Dershowitz.
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