Are Hamas as thick as they are evil?!

[Newbutoldfather]

After seeing masked, uniformed well-fed Hamas soldiers humiliating emaciated hostages, does anyone even feel a shred of sympathy for them?

Can’t they even understand how bad this looks and what the consequences will be both for themselves and, more importantly, for the rest of the Palestinians?

It would be hard for them to be as thick as they are evil, because they are extremely evil, but I think they might have achieved it…

https://www.meconcern.org/2017/05/23/palestine-killer-of-christian-identified/

Apologies - posted twice by accident

These owners were arrested without good reason just this week, for being Palestinian. There were even Israeli Jews who even came out to support them after their discriminative treatment. Why can you not just accept it's wrong without trying to point score?

Killed by a member of Hamas, before oct 7th.

How do you know it was without good reason? The official reason is that they were selling material inciting terrorism which in most countries, including UK, is a good reason . I suggest you and @LoremIpsumCici just dont want to believe it. I dont think the authorities said selling a book with Jerusalem in the title was inciting terrorism. I think the allies of people arrested made that connection.

If you had read my post properly you would see that that's not what I said.

Feel free to read it again and get back to me with a relevant point if you have one.

Do you really believe that? That there was a legitimate reason for this and that what happened was reasonable?

Well diplomats from Ireland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, Finland, Italy and EU representatives disagree with you. They have said it's an attack on freedom of expression and fundamental democratic values.

The point is that what I 'believe' is of no importance. Neither you nor I have the evidence to know either way. None of the reports I have read list all those diplomats, so I'll take your word for it. Im certainly not a fan of controlling freedom of expression or banning books (thought Hamas are pretty keen on it) but I am a fan of clamping down on terrorism and a good way of avoiding getting arrested is not indulging in it. We'll see what happens.

The Irish embassy listed those diplomats so you can take their word for it.

You say you're not in favour of banning books or curtailing freedom of expression yet here you are defending it.

Anyone Israel brutalises/arrests is a terrorist. All those doctors, nurses, children even. I can't believe people still buy it.

I don’t think it was point scoring. I was bringing the discussion back to the thread title.

It looked like you were using the murder of this man 18 years ago to "both sides" what happened on Sunday.

Oh? Well this IS a thread about Hamas..

And it’s worth reminding everyone what Hamas do to their own people when they dissent.

Yes. I think going back 18 years to score a point is a bit much but that's just my opinion. I don't think you have to do that every time someone mentions something bad that Israel has done.

Perhaps if you don’t want your catalogue of Israeli wrong doings to be interrupted you should post on a thread that isn’t specifically about Hamas …
If you post on this thread you can hardly complain when people revert to the thread topic 🙄

My catalogue? I didn't bring up the raid on the bookshop. Also it's not my fault if Israel continues to commit crimes every day and people mention them.

I just find the constant whataboutery, to the point that posters appear to be googling to find what they feel are comparable atrocities committed by the other side going back nearly 20 years a bit tiresome and desperate.

I also think you're reaching to argue that you were posting to fit in with the thread topic to be honest. Unless the topic is just every bad thing done by Hamas in the last 20 years, in which case you'd be correct.

It would be better for discussion about treatment of bookshop owners to have a dedicated thread, if people want to discuss it. Neither the initial derail about the Jerusalem booksellers nor the response about the Christian booksellers in Gaza appear relevant to the question of whether Hamas now are as thick as they are evil.

You’re completely wrong if you think I needed to Google. It’s a story I haven’t forgotten.

It’s a shame you and other posters find the story of the murdered Christian book seller tiresome and irrelevant. There are usually many references to historical wrong doing by Israelis on here ..

Anyway - back to the thread title

Please don't twist my words like that. It's petty and unfair.

You know what I meant. The constant reaching to find something to blame Palestinians for and the whataboutery is tiresome. Saying I find this man's murder tiresome is outrageous and hurtful.

No - I said you found the story tiresome and irrelevant? I genuinely thought that’s what you were saying?

OK well if you don't get it after I've said it twice then there's no point saying it again.

My first posts on this thread were all about how evil Hamas is- the conversation had moved on so I suggest you retract this serious accusation as it is kind of suspicious that you aren’t saying it to nonJewish posters who also happen to not condemn Hamas in each and every post.

They weren’t being heard anyway and had not been for as long as Netanyahu has been in power.

”How do you know?”
See BBC news:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4znw1ex1eo

and
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/jerusalems-educational-bookshop-owners-arrested-as-books-on-israel-palestine-conflict-confiscated

Btw, the charges have been dropped
”The booksellers were initially charged with "inciting and supporting terrorism", but their attorney Nasser Odeh said this was changed to "disturbing the public order" while they were interrogated.
According to reports, the two men will be released from detention today, 11th February, and will be placed under house arrest for a week.”

I guess seizing a copy of Haaretz newspaper in Arabic with a photo of the hostages and calling that “incitement and support of terrorism” just didn’t hold up in court.

It was a criminal acting alone murder too, it wasn’t sanctioned by Hamas. The link she posted clearly stated that the killer of the Christian bookshop owner in Gaza was caught, convicted and condemned to death by Hamas.

There is a difference between crime by criminals and state violence by police/military.

I agree, to take one of my examples showing how you don’t have to be Hamas or a sympathiser you can still get crushed by the state as it is fundamentally racist towards Palestinians and turn it into a derail is a diversion we don’t need.