[int_19h]

Thing is, that motivation doesn't make the heinous acts any less heinous.

When Viet Kong tortured and executed civilians who happened to be opposed to their ideology, that was wrong.

When South African revolutionaries bombed churches, that was wrong.

We should absolutely be holding Israel to account for all its crimes, but that does not imply whitewashing Hamas.

[hashim]

Is that what you see happening? Because I see most Western powers continuing to fund and enable Israel to act with impunity while reserving their harshest criticism for Hamas - the resistance movement set up in 1984, 40 years after Israel invaded Palestine, by the children who had grown up knowing nothing else. An occupier does not get to set the terms of how a desperate occupied people resist, least of all after 80 years, which was a lot longer than Vietnam lasted, and is much worse than South African apartheid. There's a reason Mandela was vehemently pro-Palestine. We can talk about how Hamas and the Palestinian people chose to resist their occupiers and hold them accountable for their relatively benign crimes once the occupation is ended. Right now, Westerners can't even admit that occupation exists, so we're nowhere near that, and virtually any criticism of Hamas is actually an attempt at deflection and maintaining the status quo of the last 80 years.

[int_19h]

I'm not a "Western power". I am a person, and as such I am entitled to make my own personal judgments on ethical matters.

(But, yes, what Israel is doing is occupation, and most Western countries are explicitly or implicitly supporting it, including materially. And that is also wrong.)