Wednesday on FNC’s “Hannity,” Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and 2024 presidential hopeful Cornel West squared off against one another over the conflict between Israel and Hamas after a Hamas-staged terror attack on southern Israel.
Partial transcript as follows:
HANNITY: 2024 presidential candidate, former Harvard professor Cornel West said, the students were largely right but they lacked nuance. He joins us now with reaction, along with attorney, also Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz is with us. Thank you both for being with us.
I would usually — you always call me Brother Sean, I call your brother Cornel. I’m not — I’m not that happy with you tonight.
CORNEL WEST, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I understand. We could talk about why we —
HANNITY: Because we have 31 groups from Harvard. Harvard’s supposed to be – – I always thought the top of the top, to get into Harvard, what a — what an accomplishment, what an achievement, what academic excellence you must show, a cut above everyone else, and 31 student groups blaming Israel, blaming the victim.
And your answer to this is they are largely right? Hamas that murdered children, Hamas that murdered innocent people? WEST: You do rest to what I said though, Brother.
HANNITY: Okay.
WEST: You do rest of what I said.
HANNITY: They are largely right but lacking nuance.
WEST: No, not — I didn’t say lack nuance. That’s the title of the piece.
HANNITY: Okay.
WEST: My actual words were, I just be very honest.
HANNITY: I got it here in front of me.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: — words too.
The words were that Israel’s policies of war crimes and collective punishment against Palestinian set of context.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: I read it to you. Israel and the United States are primarily —
WEST: And Hamas must take responsibility for killing innocent people. Anybody who kills innocent people are engaging in barbaric acts.
HANNITY: You said Israel —
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: No matter who they are, what color, what nation and so forth.
HANNITY: Israel and the United States are primarily responsible —
WEST: The United States has supported and enabled this —
HANNITY: You explain to this audience. I want you to explain, how is Israel and the United States responsible for beheading 40 children? How?
WEST: I’m talking about the context. Five hundred and forty-five Palestinian children died in August 2004, not one American said a word. I believe a Palestinian baby has the same value as an Israeli baby. So when you have that kind of vicious hatred and revenge, you get response of hatred and revenge.
They are all wrong. They’re all war crimes. They’re all to be condemned, but you cannot simply look at this particular moment without the larger backdrop of a ugly occupation and the ugly attacks chronically against Palestinian.
HANNITY: Those are not your words — largely right, Israel and the United States are primarily responsible for this attack.
Professor Dershowitz?
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, FOX NEWS LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I complained when Palestinian children were killed but I explained why they were killed. Here is one of the leaders of Hamas. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry. The elderly excel at this and so do the children.
This is why we have formed human shields of the women and the children. Hamas is the ones responsible for the killing of Palestinian children. Also, Hamas has a term, it’s called the CNN strategy.
And the CNN strategy is induce Israel into killing Palestinian children by using them as human shields, then parade the bodies out on CNN and you’ll see what happens, people like Cornel West will engage in crocodile tears, blame it on Israel when the entire blame is on the Palestinians Hamas for using their children, their children as human shields and then using their children as shield —
HANNITY: Professor —
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: What is Hamas’s charter?
WEST: I have the same outrage when Palestinian babies are killed, when Jewish babies or Israeli baby.
DERSHOWITZ: It shouldn’t be the same outrage.
WEST: I want you to have the same indignation when Palestinians are killed.
DERSHOWITZ: Not when they’re killed — not when they’re killed by Palestinians when — that you can’t make a moral comparison when Nazi kids were killed in the bombings of Dresden, I didn’t have the same comparison when Jewish kids were put in gas chambers and crematoriums.
You’re a professor of theology, don’t you understand the moral difference between deliberately murdering a kid and having collateral damage because they’re human shields? You’re running for president of the United States, what would you do?
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: Oh, I tell you what I would do —
DERSHOWITZ: Wait, wait, wait, let me tell you when they ask a question. Let me ask a question.
WEST: Okay.
DERSHOWITZ: What would you do if they were firing — if terrorists were firing at American children in America and the terrorists were hiding behind Palestinian children? Would you allow the killing of Americans to continue or would you go and get the terrorists even if it meant possibly collateral damage on Palestinians? What would you do?
WEST: I’ll tell you exactly what I would do. First, truth and morality tend to be two casualties in any context of war. I would want to tell the American people the truth. I would tell them what the context is, how we found ourselves in this situation.
HANNITY: You’re not answering the question —
WEST: I would not jump for a military invasion and a genocidal attack on a —
DERSHOWITZ: A genocidal attack?
WEST: On Gaza.
DERSHOWITZ: No, no, it’s not a genocidal attack.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: This is like Warsaw 1943. Where do they go?
DERSHOWITZ: Where do they go?
WEST: Yes.
DERSHOWITZ: Let me tell you where they go. They go to the U.N.
WEST: U.N.?
DERSHOWITZ: U.N. is keeping —
WEST: From Gaza to Geneva?
DERSHOWITZ: They go to — no, no, no, the U.N. has places in Gaza. They go to the Rafah crossing —
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: Eleven U.N. people have been killed in the last few days.
DERSHOWITZ: They go — they go to Egypt. They go —
WEST: Egypt — they can’t get out? Come on, brother.
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: Let me make another thing clear. Gaza City is very dense.
WEST: Absolutely, it’s dense.
DERSHOWITZ: But Gaza itself, the Gaza Strip, there’s lots of room. The Israelis have said, get out of Gaza City, go to Rafah, go to Canones (ph), go to other places. And you know what Hamas is say?
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: But no water, no food, no electricity, all in the dark?
DERSHOWITZ: You know what Hamas is saying? Hamas is saying don’t go.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: I’m not here to defend Hamas. I’m not defending Hamas. You ever lie on me like that, Brother. I’m defending the suffering and — of Palestinians.
DERSHOWITZ: I want to hear —
WEST: Hamas itself committed war crimes. Anybody who commits war crimes are barbaric. I’m saying that explicitly.
But I want you to say, if the Israeli Defense Forces are killing children, are they barbaric, too?
DERSHOWITZ: No, no, no.
WEST: Are they ever barbaric?
DERSHOWITZ: No, no, no. If they target — if they target children —
WEST: Have they ever targeted children?
DERSHOWITZ: No.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: Never ever —
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: Never, in the history —
WEST: In 70, 80 years.
DERSHOWITZ: — have they ever targeted a child.
WEST: Oh, buddy, you got to get off the crackpot, man. Please? Please?
DERSHOWITZ: They never targeted a child.
WEST: They kill one innocent person —
DERSHOWITZ: Not purposely, no.
WEST: To 1948 —
DERSHOWITZ: Not purposely.
WEST: Are they that pure? Are they that pristine? Come on, brother.
DERSHOWITZ: You don’t have to be very pure not to kill a child, not to kill a child.
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: Because they’re being used as human shields.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Let me show something we show on this program last night. What I’m about to show this audience these are cartoons that are air in Gaza for young children that are taught to hate the Jewish people. You just watch this for a second, and I’ll have you both comment. Watch that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARACTER (translated): The Jews teach their children to slaughter, to destroy, to kill, and to shoot.
SONG (translated): To throw stones with her tender hands on the vicious faces of the enemy, the enemy saw here, he hated her childhood, he hated her heroism, he aimed the gun. He shot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Professor West —
WEST: Yes.
HANNITY: — if you brainwash and indoctrinate young children, that you’re teaching them to hate from that young age, not good.
WEST: No.
HANNITY: Here’s the problem, here’s the problem with your —
WEST: Any kind of inculcation of hatred is immoral and wrong.
HANNITY: Here’s the problem I have with your thesis.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: — brother and others are if there’s any hatred of anybody —
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: Would you condemn Black Lives Matter Chicago for justifying the Hamas murder by using these little airplane things and coming down on the music event? I want to hear —
WEST: I would certainly condemn it.
DERSHOWITZ: You condemn Black Lives Matter?
WEST: I would condemn anybody, not a matter of skin.
DERSHOWITZ: Okay, I’m glad to hear it.
WEST: This is morality and spirituality, my brother.
DERSHOWITZ: Okay, so you condemn Black Lives Matter.
WEST: But part — part of our challenge though and this is this is important just as a leader you see, he asked me what I would do. I would say we’ve got to end occupation. We got to make sure that Palestinians have the same dignity, the same rights as Israelis.
HANNITY: Let me ask you a question.
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: You know I support that. You know I support the two state solution, but Hamas doesn’t support two-state solution.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Professor West, I want to ask this question. Would Gaza be facing annihilation if Hamas did not attack and kill all these innocent Israelis?
DERSHOWITZ: Of course not.
WEST: Gaza has been facing —
HANNITY: He’s not answering. Would they be facing an imminent annhiliation?
WEST: — this chronic process of annihilation since 2000 —
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: And 2000 and what? 2000 and what?
WEST: Since 2006 and ’07, and Gaza was taken over by Hamas. I’m not pro- Hamas. I’m pro-democracy, but I’m concerned about the suffering of Palestinian folks.
DERSHOWITZ: Israel didn’t fire a single rocket until Hamas fired 5,000 rockets.
WEST: Israel controls the land, the air —
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: Only after Hamas took over.
WEST: — the food going in, the trade coming and so forth. But it was already under occupation since 1967.
DERSHOWITZ: No, no, no, the occupation ended 2005. Learn your history.
WEST: Oh.
DERSHOWITZ: Sharon left every American — every Israeli settler, every Israeli soldier left. In 2006, it was like Singapore, it could have been the nicest place in the Mediterranean, then Hamas overthrew them —
WEST: You don’t think New York would be under occupation if another country own its air, its space, its food going in?
DERSHOWITZ: It didn’t own it between 2006 and 2008.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Let me end with this, here’s a sad fact, this debate could not be held on Harvard’s campus today, correct?
DERSHOWITZ: That’s right. I would not be allowed to speak to Harvard.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: To go up to Harvard — I am offering to go up to Harvard and do and I will moderate it.
WEST: We’ve debated before —
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: I don’t think Harvard will let Professor Dershowitz or Professor Brother Hannity on campus.
WEST: Well, you could go with me.
HANNITY: We all go and have a public debate.
WEST: You could go with me, I can tell you that, but the truth is going to be difficult —
HANNITY: Would you all like to see that in this audience?
WEST: Absolutely.
HANNITY: We’ll bring our audience with us.
WEST: Let’s do it.
HANNITY: Thank you. Appreciate it.
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: You know what? If they’re going to Harvard, go to Columbia. They won’t allow it.
HANNITY: I agree with you. We’re going to ask them tomorrow.
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