Alan Dershowitz, Harvard law professor emeritus, predicted Hamas will release a "couple of hostages" before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, but that won't be enough to stop the war in the Middle East.
He made the prediction Sunday on Newsmax.
"They will be the Americans," said Dershowitz on Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "That will be a kind of a homage to Trump, saying, All right, at least we're releasing the Americans."
But all of the hostages must be released, and the primary goal for ending the war has to be to create a situation where "this could not ever recur," said Dershowitz.
The United States and the incoming Trump administration can't tolerate the use of hostages to determine policy, so "Israel has to be allowed and encouraged to continue with its victories against the enemies of democracy and the enemies of peace," he added.
Meanwhile, Dershowitz said he believes Hamas fears Trump, as does Iran.
"I think that the president-elect ought to tell Iran, Look, you have 60 days to dismantle your nuclear program, and if you don't do it, we'll do it," he said. "Threats from Donald Trump work."
Hamas, however, keeps increasing its demands because it has a "false sense" that the "useful idiots" who are protesting on American college campuses are being supported, Dershowitz said.
"These young men and women have blood on their hands, and we ought to make it clear that they are doing evil things by one-sided protests against Israel, without ever condemning Hamas," he added. "Have you ever heard of a protester on any American campus calling for a two-state solution? You have not. That's because they don't want Israel to survive as the nation-state of the Jewish people. They want one state, a Palestinian state."
Meanwhile, Trump will be tough with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, because he "knows better than anybody" that diplomacy only works with such parties if it's backed by the credible threat of force, said Dershowitz.
"Diplomacy alone will never work," he said. "That's why the Iran deal that was allowed by President Obama was a failure from the beginning because it rewarded Iran, it rewarded terrorism. It gave them billions of dollars to send to Hezbollah and Hamas. It's a disaster. "
Obama's presidency, he added, will be remembered as the "worst foreign policy presidency in modern American history." He created many of the circumstances which led to Oct. 7, which led to the hostages," said Dershowitz. "That has to be reversed, and President Trump can reverse that by being tough, by threatening the use of force … but if the diplomacy fails, he has no choice."
And if red lines are passed, "there must be force, tragic as it is, and as terrible as it is to use force," he said. "Force is the engine of diplomacy and President Trump knows that as a negotiator, probably better than any prior American president."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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