Quote: “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it again and again. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its 7 October onslaught - ed.] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”
maybe “blaming Hamas entirely” would have been better, but I was trying to maintain the format of the comment I was replying to.
Gotcha. I think there’s a very careful distinction here between justification and reasoning, and it’s all too easy to get the wording wrong. Israel created reasons for Hamas to do what they did, but that does not mean Hamas is justified in their violence. I blame Hamas entirely for the terrorist attack, but I don’t blame just them for how we got here. The conservative Israeli government is also to blame for this state of affairs, but they’re not responsible for the terrorist attack.