Alan Dershowitz. Photo: Reuters / Andrew Innerarity.

My dispute with Alan Dershowitz over Qatar is nothing personal — as some have foolishly suggested — but rather cuts to the core of Jewish life and death.

Hamas murders Jews. Qatar pays for it. Alan Dershowitz defends Qatar as being “the Israel of the Gulf states.” And this whitewash allows Qatar to continue to fund Hamas resulting in more dead Jews.

It doesn’t get more serious than that.

Don’t believe me? Ask yourself why an unhinged Dershowitz has attacked me over my simple question of whether he ever accepted money from Qatar. He will never answer the question because he knows how damning the reply is.

Instead, he has tried to defame me (he is currently being sued in one of America’s ugliest defamation cases) as being as craven as he is in agreeing to meet the emir of Qatar or ever wanting Qatar’s blood-soaked money. In lying so brazenly about me, Dershowitz makes himself complicit in the efforts of disgraced lobbyist Nick Muzin, who took millions to whitewash Qatar, and, according to The New York Times, warned one of Qatar’s critics, “Be very careful… Honestly, I know they are after you.” It is the revolting Muzin whom Dershowitz quotes in his defamation of me, and in so doing the Harvard law professor disgraces himself as a jurist with contempt for facts.

Dershowitz claims he went to Qatar on the advice of Israeli officials which is directly contradicted by Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer who said, “We oppose this outreach effort in the Jewish and pro-Israel community… anyone claiming that these trips received the ambassador’s blessing is not saying the truth.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likewise came out against the Qatar junkets that lured Dershowitz. While addressing a delegation of Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, Bibi praised engagement with Arab Gulf states but added, “I’m definitely not talking about Qatar.”

Finally, Dershowitz’s claim that he went to Qatar to improve Israel-Qatar relations is belied by his very own statement to The Wall Street Journal, which exposed Dershowitz’s trip as “an influencing campaign” and added that “some of the people who traveled to Doha — including Mr. Dershowitz — say they feel duped because they hadn’t known the trips were part of a state-lobbying effort” to lift the boycott against Qatar for sponsoring terrorism.

Alan, the Qatar game is up. It’s time to repent.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, ‘America’s Rabbi,’ whom The Washington Post calls ‘the most famous rabbi in America,’ is the international bestselling author of 32 books, including his most recent, ‘The Israel Warrior.’ Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.