Former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent sparred with pro-Israel lawyer Alan Dershowitz Thursday over Israel’s influence on U.S. involvement in the Iran war.
Dershowitz claimed on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” that President Donald Trump did not get involved in the war for Israel’s interests and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had not been pulling any strings during his talks with the president. Kent, who argued that U.S. involvement serves Israel’s interest, stated that the U.S. allows Israel more influence over the nation than any foreign country should have.
“I would more accurately describe it as an echo chamber that was created around President Trump,” Kent said. “So what the Israelis do a very effective job of is they do punch way above their weight class. And this is on us. This is our fault. We give them more access than they should have, than any foreign country should have. So what I witnessed over the last year was official engagements from members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the Israeli government, come and have official engagements with members of our government and say things like ‘Iran can’t have any enrichment. The policy has to be zero enrichment.’ When in fact, President Trump had just said the policy was no nuclear weapon.”
Kent said the intelligence community agreed that Iran was not on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon and was not an imminent threat to the U.S. He resigned from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) over the Iran war, stating that the Israelis influenced the U.S. to get involved in the conflict.
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“The only thing that was imminent was the Israelis conducting that attack. That drove us into this conflict,” Kent continued. “And that should make every American take pause and think ‘what is our relationship with this country of Israel?’ Why are we letting them drive us into yet another war in the Middle East, how vital is it that we have control over the Strait of Hormuz?”
Dershowitz argued that Israel didn’t hold outsized influence over American foreign policy.
“Israel hasn’t really influenced the United States. The United States has much more influenced the activities, even the self-defense activities, of Israel,” Dershowitz said.
Netanyahu and Israeli leaders visited the White House on Feb. 11 and convinced Trump to launch strikes on Iran with a plan some administration officials described as “farcical,” The New York Times reported on April 7. Several U.S. cabinet officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, voiced skepticism about Israel’s plan for attack and regime change.
Trump remained determined to kill the ayatollah and destroy the Iranian military, according to the Times.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. preemptively launched strikes in Iran because Israel told them that they would attack Iran, which could potentially cause Iran to attack American forces. He added that the strikes in Iran would cause higher American casualties.
After host Piers Morgan outlined the evidence that Israel pulled America’s strings, Dershowitz argued it is an “antisemitic trope” to claim that Israel caused the U.S. to get involved in the war.
“That’s the oldest antisemitic trope in history, that Israel, that the Jews are pulling the strings. Nobody tells Trump what to do,” Dershowitz said. “Trump decides what to do. What Israel said and what the United States together said is we have intelligence that all these people are meeting in the same place, so this is the time to do it. But the United States and Donald Trump did not start a war based on Israel’s interest, they started a war based on American interest. Jews comprise 2% of the American population, half of whom don’t even support Israel … Trump complains to me, ‘why don’t Jews vote for me? I’m so good. Why don’t they vote for me?’”
“Trump does not go to war to satisfy Israel’s legitimate interests rather than the legitimate interests of the United States,” Dershowitz continued.
The State Department wrote in a Tuesday report that the U.S. was involved in the war “at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally.”
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