Dershowitz: Hamas Emulated ISIS in Synagogue Attack
Tuesday, 18 Nov 2014 02:35 PM
Hamas was copying the Islamic State (ISIS) in its bloodthirsty attack on Jews praying inside a Jerusalem synagogue Tuesday, renowned legal expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax TV.
"Hamas today tried to emulate ISIS," Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said to J.D. Hayworth on "America's Forum."
"These were essentially beheadings — people came in with axes to try to behead rabbis at prayer," he said of the actions of Hamas, a hardline Islamic resistance movement that is considered to be a terrorist group.
Story continues below video.
Four rabbis were killed when they were attacked with meat cleavers, axes and a gun by two Palestinians at a synagogue in Jerusalem. Six others were wounded. Three of those that were killed were American citizens.
Dershowitz said that he personally knew one of the rabbis who was killed.
"I know his family from Boston," he said. "His mother was my children’s teacher. His father was my colleague at Harvard, he was a man of peace and they came in with the intention of beheading to emulate ISIS."
"This has to stop and there has to be a reprisal, but it’s very hard to understand what the reprisal should be because these people acted alone probably,
"But they were inspired and incited by statements made by not only Hamas, but by [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas of the Palestinian authority," he added.
"The major issue has to be to get together with Abbas and with King Abdullah [of Saudi Arabia] and to turn this away from becoming a religious conflict because you can’t solve religious conflict rationally," Dershowitz explained.
"If people are told and they were told by leaders of the Palestinian movements to take revenge against Israelis for trying to pray on a mountain top, if this remains a religious conflict, it will just continue because there will be no stopping Hamas," he said.
In a separate interview on Newsmax" "The Steve Malzberg Show," Dershowitz accused Abbas of speaking "out of two sides of his mouth."
"When he speaks to the Americans, when he speaks to President [Barack] Obama, he speaks the language of peace and then when he speaks in Arabic, which Memory.com translates, you catch him," Dershowitz said.
"He talks about how these people are heroes and martyrs, he writes letters of condolences to murderers' families, and the message is quite clear: Keep doing it and you'll be praised and your children will have parks named after them … and they'll go to heaven and be in parade.
"It's very hard to fight religious fanatics and one would have hoped that Abbas would try to resolve the tensions as Netanyahu has along with King Abdullah of Jordan. But Abbas has not been part of the solution to this problem, he's been part of the problem."
He said the response to the attack revealed a deep divide between the morality of Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
"The Palestinians cheer, the Palestinians call for revenge, the Palestinians celebrate. I'm not talking about Hamas, now. I'm talking about the Palestinian authority, which creates posters, which names parks after these murderers," he said.
"On the other hand, Prime Minister Netanyahu goes on television and calls for Israelis not to take revenge, calls for Israelis not to take the law into their own hands.
"So you can't create any moral equivalence between the Israeli side and the Palestinian side and the world has to understand that because when they suggest moral equivalence, what they do is they incentivize Palestinian terrorists to continue to engage in these horrendous acts of terrorism."
In light of the attack, Dershowitz called for extra security at places of Jewish worship around the world.
"At the moment there’s going to have to be protection of synagogues, by the way, not only in Israel, but in New York as well," he said.
He said he was at a synagogue in New York City on Sunday where he and former New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer held a mock trial of the biblical character Abraham which was attended by 1,500 people.
"Imagine if there were an attack directed against an American temple, an American synagogue of that kind. There has to be very, very good security for places of worship and places where Jews gather because remember, Hamas’s goal is not just to destroy Israel, it’s to kill Jews," Dershowitz said.
"Leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have said, 'We hope all the Jews in the world come to Israel so we don’t have to go around the world killing them individually. We can kill them all at once.'
"This is a major terrorist organization akin to ISIS and it has to be destroyed in the same way that ISIS hopefully will be destroyed by American air power."
Related Stories:
© 2014 Newsmax. All rights reserved."Hamas today tried to emulate ISIS," Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said to J.D. Hayworth on "America's Forum."
"These were essentially beheadings — people came in with axes to try to behead rabbis at prayer," he said of the actions of Hamas, a hardline Islamic resistance movement that is considered to be a terrorist group.
Story continues below video.
Four rabbis were killed when they were attacked with meat cleavers, axes and a gun by two Palestinians at a synagogue in Jerusalem. Six others were wounded. Three of those that were killed were American citizens.
Dershowitz said that he personally knew one of the rabbis who was killed.
"I know his family from Boston," he said. "His mother was my children’s teacher. His father was my colleague at Harvard, he was a man of peace and they came in with the intention of beheading to emulate ISIS."
"This has to stop and there has to be a reprisal, but it’s very hard to understand what the reprisal should be because these people acted alone probably,
"But they were inspired and incited by statements made by not only Hamas, but by [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas of the Palestinian authority," he added.
"The major issue has to be to get together with Abbas and with King Abdullah [of Saudi Arabia] and to turn this away from becoming a religious conflict because you can’t solve religious conflict rationally," Dershowitz explained.
"If people are told and they were told by leaders of the Palestinian movements to take revenge against Israelis for trying to pray on a mountain top, if this remains a religious conflict, it will just continue because there will be no stopping Hamas," he said.
In a separate interview on Newsmax" "The Steve Malzberg Show," Dershowitz accused Abbas of speaking "out of two sides of his mouth."
"When he speaks to the Americans, when he speaks to President [Barack] Obama, he speaks the language of peace and then when he speaks in Arabic, which Memory.com translates, you catch him," Dershowitz said.
"It's very hard to fight religious fanatics and one would have hoped that Abbas would try to resolve the tensions as Netanyahu has along with King Abdullah of Jordan. But Abbas has not been part of the solution to this problem, he's been part of the problem."
He said the response to the attack revealed a deep divide between the morality of Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
"The Palestinians cheer, the Palestinians call for revenge, the Palestinians celebrate. I'm not talking about Hamas, now. I'm talking about the Palestinian authority, which creates posters, which names parks after these murderers," he said.
"On the other hand, Prime Minister Netanyahu goes on television and calls for Israelis not to take revenge, calls for Israelis not to take the law into their own hands.
"So you can't create any moral equivalence between the Israeli side and the Palestinian side and the world has to understand that because when they suggest moral equivalence, what they do is they incentivize Palestinian terrorists to continue to engage in these horrendous acts of terrorism."
In light of the attack, Dershowitz called for extra security at places of Jewish worship around the world.
"At the moment there’s going to have to be protection of synagogues, by the way, not only in Israel, but in New York as well," he said.
He said he was at a synagogue in New York City on Sunday where he and former New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer held a mock trial of the biblical character Abraham which was attended by 1,500 people.
"Imagine if there were an attack directed against an American temple, an American synagogue of that kind. There has to be very, very good security for places of worship and places where Jews gather because remember, Hamas’s goal is not just to destroy Israel, it’s to kill Jews," Dershowitz said.
"This is a major terrorist organization akin to ISIS and it has to be destroyed in the same way that ISIS hopefully will be destroyed by American air power."
Related Stories:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting. Your comments are needed for helping to improve the discussion.