Aslan vs. Emerson: A Daily Beast Debate
The battle between Israel and Hamas has sparked another conflict—between our columnists.
Steve Emerson thinks Hamas is a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah. Reza Aslan believes that by most definitions, Israel could be considered a terrorist state. The two recently debated their differences of opinion via their laptops.
Reza Aslan is a fellow at the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, Middle East analyst for CBS News, and a featured blogger for Anderson Cooper 360. He wrote the New York Times bestseller No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. Aslan is co-founder and creative director of BoomGen Studios as well as the editorial executive of Mecca.com.
Steve Emerson is Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and author of 5 books and countless articles on terrorism. His most recent book is Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.