Newsmax
Alan Dershowitz: ISIS is America's Hamas
Friday, September 12, 2014 10:22 AM
By: Melissa Clyne
ISIS is America's Hamas and it is hypocritical to condone the United States' actions to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) while criticizing Israel for doing the same with Hamas, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said Friday on Newsmax TV's "America's Forum."
"ISIS is an extremist Islamist organization that doesn't play by the rules, has prepared to behead Americans, smuggle Americans and Europeans into America with evil intentions on their mind," Dershowitz said. "The only difference is, ISIS is much further away from the United States than Hamas is from Israel, but they use the same tactics."
Soon, he predicted, ISIS will adopt Hamas' strategy of using innocent civilians as shields.
"They have captured a lot of hostages, innocent people, and they are going to start embedding their soldiers, their fighters, among these hostages," said Dershowitz. "Instead of beheading Americans, they are going to take Americans, hold them in front of their soldiers and say you can't get at us unless you're prepared to kill innocent civilians, which is exactly what Hamas has been doing for the last 10 years."
Dershowitz has written an e-book on the issue: "Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel's Just War Against Hamas."
President Barack Obama's remarks about "hunting down terrorists that threaten the U.S. wherever they are" echoes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's same promise.
"Netanyahu has said we will hunt down terrorists wherever we find them," he said. "They've gone after terrorists in Qatar, Europe; and the U.S. started with an air campaign to destroy the missiles. Ultimately, Israel had to put boots on the ground because of the terror tunnels. If we had tunnels coming into the U.S. from Mexico or from Canada, there's no doubt we would put boots on the ground to destroy those tunnels on the ground. Why criticize Israel when your own countries are doing it?"
There is no logical way to reconcile the hypocrisy of those who approve of America's posture against ISIS while condemning Israel's with Hamas, Dershowitz said.
"When your own country is being threatened, you're willing to apply a different standard than you are when the neighboring country is being threatened?" he asked.
Dershowitz expressed concern that as a lame duck president, Obama may "mortgage the issue of Iran" to get a good short-term solution for the Islamic State.
"Iran may be working with the U.S.," he said. "I sure hope that doesn't diminish our interest in making sure Iran doesn't develop nuclear weapons. If somebody says ISIS may be a five year problem, Iran with a nuclear bomb is an eternal problem."
Though Secretary of State John Kerry has not referred to the attack on ISIS as a "war," Dershowitz said it is in fact a war and the president ought to seek Congressional approval for it.
"We've gone to war in the past without seeking congressional approval and it generally did not work out all that well," he said. "We're going to get some sort of congressional approval, but it would be much better if the president sought and obtained approval for what will be a long-term war."
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http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ISIS-Hamas-Alan-Dershowitz-war/2014/09/12/id/594290/?ns_mail_uid=837898&ns_mail_job=1585740_09122014&s=al&dkt_nbr=ntpmgppx
