Trump/Hitler
© Trump image from Reuters
Donald Trump's recent strategy to deal with ISIS — executing their families, whether or not they are involved in terrorist activities — is probably one of the coldest suggestions to come from Trump yet. Akin to executing the families of the Oath Keepers, the Ku Klux Klan, or another right-wing terrorist group, Trump's idea has managed to incense a lot of people — including Israeli counter-terrorism expert and former consultant to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Boaz Ganor.

During a Wednesday appearance on Fox and Friends, Trump said that not only would he "bomb the sh*t out of" ISIS — he'd hunt their loved ones down and kill them too, because YOLO — though he would "do his best" to avoid "collateral damage":
"I mean one of the problems that we have and one of the reasons that we're so ineffective, is they're trying to, they're using them as shields. A horrible thing. They're using them as shields. But we're fighting a very politically correct war. And the other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. But they say they don't care about their lives. You have to take out their families."
Trump has traditionally refused to say how he would stop ISIS, explaining that he doesn't want the enemy to know his big, beautiful strategy — but he's perfectly happy making it clear that, whatever he does, he has no problem blasting through scores and scores of helpless women and children to accomplish it. Ganor says that Trump's plan is not only horrific — he is basing his ISIS strategy on committing war crimes:
"Any deliberate attacks aimed against civilians is a war crime, regardless if they are family members of terrorists or presidents or presidential candidates."
"Adopting this policy is immoral and against the common liberal democratic values," Ganor, the founder and executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, explained. "Deliberate attacks against the terrorist families is blurring the moral differences between the terrorist organizations and the state which is fighting terrorism. This by itself might benefit the terrorists which are trying to claim that they are fighting a moral war against relentless and immoral entity."

Ganor says that slaughtering entire families might feel great to someone like Trump, but it will actually have little impact on terrorism. "They might just spend more time and resources" on protecting family members, he said. "Nevertheless, I don't think that the threat to kill their families will deter terrorist leaders from being engaged in terrorist activities."

Finally, engaging in such a horrific strategy would completely destroy the lines between "us" and "them," Ganor says, eliminating "one of the most important pillars of counterterrorism: the differences of morality."


Comment: The Gaza Platform: Online digital mapping of Gaza assault refutes every Israeli lie, shows evidence of deliberate war crimes


"The American-led campaign in Syria and Iran is too little and too late, and it will not lead as such to a military decisive victory on ISIS," he added. "This does not mean by any way that the U.S. should adopt savage policy, illegal or immoral military activity. There is a lot that still can be done and improve without adopting such policies."

Watch Trump show himself as the monster he is, below: