While a two-state solution is needed between Israel and the Palestinians, that alone won't stop the violence being perpetrated against Israeli Jews, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz tells
Newsmax TV.
"There's been violence against Israeli Jews even before there was an occupation," Dershowitz told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth. "The violence started in 1929, it persisted all the way through '67. It's continued since."
If Israel ended its occupation immediately as it already has in Gaza, the violence would probably increase rather than decrease, he said.
Watch Newsmax TV on
DirectTV Ch. 349, DISH Ch. 223 and Verizon FiOS Ch. 115. Get Newsmax TV on your cable system –
Click Here Now
"Look what happened when Israel left Gaza, there was far more violence, far more rocket attacks, more terror tunnels," he said. "So there is no relationship between the occupation and the violence. The violence is part of the unwillingness of many within the Palestinian people to accept the nation state of the Jewish people. That's where the violence comes from."
Part of the problem, he added, is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't have the power on his own to work out a two-state solution.
"He'd like to be Nixon and China. He'd like to be the one to bring about the two-state solution, but he has a Cabinet that gives him a lot of difficulty on that issue," Dershowitz told "Newsmax Now" host John Bachman.
Many people were hoping for either a wider victory by Netanyahu in the last election or a narrow victory which would've required him to have a national coalition government with the Labor Party, but he has neither, Dershowitz said.
"He has a weak coalition which makes it harder for him to do what he'd like to do," he said.
"As Bill Clinton once said to me at a dinner that we were at together when he was president, he said, 'The problem with Israel is it's a democracy, damn it,'" Dershowitz said.
"You can dictate to Jordan, you can dictate to Saudi Arabia, you can tell other countries what to do because they have no democracy, but in a democracy, it's up to the people and it's up to the coalition."
Dershowitz, a Democrat, said he disagrees with President Barack Obama and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein on a joint strategy with Russia in dealing with the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria, telling "Newsmax Prime" the plan would be a "fundamental mistake."
"We do not want Russia to fill the vacuum that we have left because they're not going to just fight ISIS and then leave," he said. "They're going to fight ISIS and for whatever vacuum been created, they're going to try to fill it … along with their allies in Syria, [President Bashar] Assad, and their newly found allies in Iran, and it's going to be much harder for the United States. It will weaken America's position."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.