I want to roll my eyes every time I see somebody take this stance, not simply because it is tiresome and it takes no courage to say, but mostly because it ignores the context. Every time. It not only overlooks how and why neocolonialism lead to Hamas, it overlooks why Hamas would resort to crude tactics like taking hostages (as if the Zionist régime was always open to dialogue), it overlooks why a substantial percentage of Palestinian adults support Hamas, it overlooks the decades of atrocities that Zionist authorities have been committing against the Palestinians since day one, and most of all, it overlooks the overwhelming amount of power that the Zionist ruling class has in this situation.

My response: fine, you don’t have to like Hamas, but to focus on condemning it repeatedly is to lose sight of the very conditions and the ruling class that gave rise to Hamas in the first place; it’s a bland inaction that gets us nowhere. If you say ‘Hamas is the real problem’ or ‘Hamas is just as bad as the IDF’ then I’m afraid that you have missed the point completely.