http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/alan-dershowitz-bill-clinton-benjamin-netanyahu-peace/2014/09/16/id/595014/Alan Dershowitz: Bill Clinton Is Wrong About NetanyahuTuesday, 16 Sep 2014 05:24 PM
By Bill Hoffmann
Famed civil-rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz says Bill Clinton's view that Benjamin Netanyahu is "not the guy" for a peace deal with the Palestinians is wrong and the Israeli prime minister would like to hammer out an agreement.
"Netanyahu. He is the guy," Dershowitz said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
In a C-SPAN video showing Clinton at Sen. Tom Harkin’s steak fry in Iowa, a unidentified spectator tells the 42nd president: "Netanyahu himself said that he does not want peace. If we don’t force him to make peace, we will not have peace."
Clinton responds: “First of all, I agree with that. But in 2000, [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Barak, I got him to agree to something that I’m not sure I could have gotten [former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin to agree to, and Rabin was murdered for giving land to the Palestinians."
"But Netanyahu is not the guy," the spectator interrupts.
"I agree with that," Clinton says.
"[That response] does surprise me. I know both President Clinton and Netanyahu very well. I've talked to each of them about the other and that certainly isn't the view that I got," Dersehowitz said.
"President Clinton has to understand Israel is a democracy. He doesn't get a vote. The people of Israel decide who their prime minister is going to be and they have decided it's going to be Netanyahu. He is the guy.
"He's the guy who's going to make peace or he's not going to make peace. He's going to make it without compromising Israel's security."
Dershowitz a veteran Harvard Law professor and Newsmax contributor believes Netanyahu "would love nothing more than to have the legacy of the man who with a sense of toughness and with Israel's security in mind, brought about peace."
But there are limits, according to Dershowitz.
"I have to tell you what kind of peace he's not going to make. He's not going to do what [former prime minister Ariel] Sharon did in Gaza,'' he said.
"He's not going to unilaterally leave. There needs to be some continuing military presence and control over the border, particularly with ISIS."
Dershowitz, author of the new e-book, "Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel's Just War Against Hamas," doesn't believe Clinton's view will pose a problem for Hillary Clinton, should she run for president in 2016.
"Hillary is very good at disassociating herself … [Her views are] very supportive of Israel," he said.
Bill Clinton ... is generally saying the Israelis want to make peace…. He is wrong about Netanyahu.''
Dershowitz agrees that the United States can take a page from Israel's military operation against Hamas in its war against ISIS.
"You're not going to win this war and destroy ISIS from the air," Dershowitz said.
"I had dinner with Benjamin Netanyahu just days before this war [against Hamas] began.
He was so reluctant to send in troops. He didn't want to do it.
"He didn't want 63 Israeli young children, 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds to die. He knew that would happen. He didn't want to do it. Once he saw the tunnels and once he saw that Hamas was embedded so clearly among civilians, there's no choice but to put troops/boots on the ground."
Dershowitz said that hopefully, the United States can avoid using its own ground troops.
"Maybe they can persuade Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the surrounding countries that really have a stake in this to put some of their own soldiers at risk, rather than calling for America," he said.
"One great thing about Israel is they never ask America for a soldier. They always defend with [their] own soldiers."
Topic: Bill Clinton Slanders Benjamin Netanyahu (Read 1364 times)