Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, gathering on his experience from seeing Vietnam War protesters he defended in the 1960s and 1970s turn to terrorism, said Thursday on Newsmax that he has a "great fear" that the same fate could happen with some of the pro-Palestinian protesters gathering at the nation's colleges and universities.
"I defended a lot of these protesters against the Vietnam War, and what happened is quite a few of them turned from being protesters to being terrorists," Dershowitz told "Wake Up America." "They became members of the Weather Underground."
He noted that one of the protesters who he advised was the late Kathy Boudin, who ended up serving 22 years in prison after her conviction in the 1981 robbery of a Brink’s money truck.
"Then she was hired back at Columbia University to teach after she finished her prison term," said Dershowitz.
He added that his other great fear is that universities are beginning to "capitulate" to the protesters.
"Northwestern University agreed to give full scholarships to a handful of Palestinian students," Dershowitz said. "Who knows who these students are going to be … you don't give in to unlawful conduct. That just encourages more unlawful contact. Imagine if the Ku Klux Klan were to protest on campuses and say [they] demand a Ku Klux Klan professor of racism. Nobody would ever do that."
The current protesters, he said, "are revolutionaries" who want to see an end to democracy and free market capitalism.
"You don't capitulate and give in to revolutionaries," said Dershowitz.
"Many of them are still calling for a cease-fire," said Dershowitz. "Do they not know that Israel has accepted the cease-fire and that Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken has said the only thing that stands between the people of Gaza and a cease-fire is Hamas?"
The war in Gaza, Dershowitz added, is giving "these radical anarchist communists" an excuse to "try to undo what's great about America."
"We have to fight back with every tool consistent with the First Amendment, consistent with due process," he said. "It is not free speech to take over a university building. It is not free speech to break windows. It is not free speech to harass and threaten Jewish and other students. Those are not elements of free speech."
Dershowitz said he's pulling together a group of lawyers who will start suing the individuals, not universities, as it is individuals who "break in and make it impossible for students to go to class."
"We will take away their cars and we will take away their scholarships, and we will sue them and make it clear that you pay a price when you try to attack Jewish students and make it impossible for them to go to classes," he said.
Dershowitz also on Thursday called it a "disgrace" that President Joe Biden hasn't spoken out publicly about the demonstration, and slammed reports that Palestinian refugees into the country as a "terrible idea."
"No Arab country, no Muslim country will take in Palestinians and now we're going to take in people without vetting them the way we're taking in people from the borders, and it's just to increase the number of potential terrorists," said Dershowitz. "You don't reward illegality. You punish it."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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