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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I do, and I don't think theirs is an irrelevant position. Desiring a free state for Palestinians is a valid position. Those people are not at all Hamas apologists, and should not be treated as such.

There is one noxious position that seems to characterize all Hamas apologists:

"The people had no other way to fight for themselves and get attention except for doing something drastic, as they did."

That position has no validity given what Hamas did. First, it conflates Palestinians and Hamas. Two different things. Palestinians do not want war. Many of them near the border worked in Israel. If anything, they want to be free of Hamas' subjugation, and to live in Israel, or a free state like Israel. Second, it is a frivolous attempt at expansion of the almost always frivolous argument that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Third, it plainly states that murder of innocents is an acceptable political act.

If one argues that Hamas was somehow pushed to do what it did here, that person is knowingly ignoring objective reality and completely avoiding the real and obvious reasons we all know Hamas did what it did. I do not understand why anyone would seek to so obscure issues except out of bias, ignorance, or ill intent.

Speaking of obscuring, trying to explain why Hamas did what it did is not apology.

It's a little odd that we are still stuck here on the semantics of how to condemn Hamas, when Israel is killing thousands of people in Gaza and Israeli settlers are acting against Palestinians in the West Bank.