Alan Dershowitz: Why I’m Becoming a RepublicanI first registered as a Democrat in 1959. The party’s hostility to Israel is too much.
By Alan M. Dershowitz
April 20, 2026
I am a lifelong Democrat. I started campaigning for the party’s local candidates as a teenager in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been a registered Democrat for 67 years, made speeches for John F. Kennedy as a college student, and can count on one hand the number of Republicans I’ve ever supported for any office.
I still disagree strongly with the GOP on abortion, the separation of church and state, immigration, healthcare and taxes, among other things. Yet I’ve decided to bite the bullet and register as a Republican.
The Democratic Party has become the most anti-Israel party in U.S. history. Last week all but seven Senate Democrats voted for an arms embargo against the Jewish state, and an avowed enemy of Israel, Abdul El-Sayed, is gaining ground in the Democratic campaign for U.S. senator from Michigan.
There is no denying that the hard left, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party has moved from the fringe to the mainstream. Until recently there was an age gap, with younger voters more strongly opposing Israel, but recent polls suggest that the trend now includes Democrats of all ages. Republicans have their own antisemitic fringe, but for now it remains a fringe.
I believe that the Democratic Party’s hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center and toward a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world. So I intend to work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House and Senate, and I urge those who share my concerns about the increasing influence of radicalism in the Democratic Party to vote, campaign and contribute for continued Republican control of Congress. I will contribute money to Republican candidates, campaign for them, make speeches at Republican events, and urge pro-Israel Americans to change party affiliation or at least vote against Democrats. Until something changes, I will vote Republican for representative, senator and president.
I wish I could designate myself as a “foreign-policy Republican,” but there’s no such option, so I have to go whole hog. By registering as a Republican rather than an independent, maybe I can have some influence on moving some Republican policies toward the center. I have given up on trying to change the Democratic Party. My main goal is to send a message that many traditional Democratic voters can’t accept what it is becoming—a replica of left-wing European parties that are hurting their countries.
Americans generally tend toward political moderation, but both parties have become more extreme, in part due to low-turnout primaries that attract passionate ideologues. Younger voters, who tend to be more extreme, are playing a more active role in politics. They may moderate as they get older, but the trend among Democrats is unmistakable: a hard left turn that is most evident in changing attitudes toward Israel. If the Democrats pay a heavy electoral price, perhaps they’ll wise up and move back to the center, where I (and others) could rejoin it. I don’t know if that is a realistic possibility, but it’s worth a try.
Mr. Dershowitz is a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of “The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies—and How to Refute Them With Truth.”
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/alan-dershowitz-why-im-becoming-a-republican-86c19b66?st=tYQuj1
