Reprinted from John’s Substack:
On 1 December 2025, I was on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” talking about the April 2006 email correspondence between Jeffrey Epstein and Alan Dershowitz and how that related to Dershowitz’s efforts to smear me and Steve Walt in 2006, when our famous article on the Israel lobby had just come out in the London Review of Books. His efforts were part of a broader campaign to discredit us and seriously damage if not ruin our academic careers. Of course, we now know that Epstein was closely involved with Dershowitz in that smear campaign.
Dershowitz watched my interview with Piers and then they did a followup interview. It is amazing to me, given the viciousness of Dershowitz’s attacks on me and Steve in 2006 and afterwards, to hear him now describe himself as merely engaging in a rational-legal academic debate. Nothing could be further from the truth. It struck me that Dershowitz’s response shows how much has changed since 2006 in terms of the lobby’s position (and Israel’s) in our public discourse. Dershowitz was clearly on the defensive in his interview with Piers, which is a stunning transformation for someone who in the past ferociously attacked anyone who criticized Israel in the slightest way.
