As to the American Revolution, one of the major differences is that the colonies actually had a chance of winning because Britain wasn't willing to commit enough of their forces to subdue their fellow Englishmen. Also I admit that my history classes were a bit biased, but I'm fairly sure that the colonies never sent saboteurs into Britain with the purpose of blowing up Parliament, or targets with even less strategic value. But yeah, other than that I guess Hamas and the 13 colonies operated exactly along the same lines.