Before I respond to anything in this comment, I want to make a note about its nature and content.

It does not, in fact, address basically anything I said. Rather than address what I said, 90% of your comment is just an attempt to rehash pieces the history of “Israel” and Hamas, with some true elements, some misleading elements, and some outright false elements. It is unclear why you wrote most of it and its presentation is incoherent, without clear connection between paragraphs or points. It’s like you are summarizing bits and pieces of Wikipedia and injecting your own takes every so often.

Anyways. I will simply repeat myself where necessary, which is to say, repeat most of my previous comment in one way or another.

In my last comment, I took issue with your presentation of Hamas as terrorist. You claimed, “Using indiscriminate armed violence against civilians for political goals or under political pretenses is about the most reasonable definition of terrorism I can come up with.” and I responded to this with two paragraphs explaining how this is misleading at best and is itself deployed in a racist way via its inconsistent application. I made note of how it is used inconsistently repeatedly and challenged you to consider your own use of the term. In your reply, you did not engage with any of this. Instead, you wrote this:

Yes, plenty of other people perform indiscriminate attacks upon civilians, and many states, including in the west use arbitrary violence against other civilians or even their own. I’m sure people are aware that they are terrorists outside of Hamas.

You are right, plenty of people use the label to further their own goals and the ‘terrorist’ label is mostly used if not misused to discredit groups of people or political movements. Since it doesn’t really seem like the term is going to go anywhere soon, I think it is important to give a precise meaning to the term for this very reason.

This does not address what I said or how I challenged you. I did not ask “how is the term used?” I gave you plenty of direction: it is used inconsistently and in a racist manner. I asked you what function that serves. Is, “discredit” the entirety of your thought process for why a colonized people would be targeted with demonizing language applied inconsistently? You should spend more time thinking about it. I’m not exactly being subtle, here.

Re: precision, that is actually what I am pointing out to you. The term is not applied consistently, i.e. it has more meaning than what you might go and try to look up in a dictionary. You are actually being less precise, using a false facade of semantics, missing the actual semantics going on here. And still trying to push back despite conciliatory language.

I next responded to your boorish claims about Hamas doing lots and lots of terrorism, saying: “Such as? How does this compare to “Israel”? The surrounding comprador states? The US? Canada? Do you apply this logic and labeling frequency consistently or as suggested by dominant propaganda?”

The entirety of your response to that appears to be:

Do we really need to mention every single act of terror committed by the Hamas or otherwise since the dawn of time? This is just shitty rhetoric, the same kind that Zionists use all the time.

This is childish behavior. You claimed, “Hamas have carried far too many terrorist attacks over a far too long period for us to have any doubts that they are indeed ‘terroristic’ as our friend put it”. (PS this chauvinist is not my friend). I asked you to back up your false claim (because we both know you can’t) with examples and to critically examine what you are saying by comparison to relevant countries, including the occupying power and its imperial backer. Rather than do so, you are pretending I have asked the world of you, to name every single “terrorist attack” (you named zero). This is dishonest and bad faith behavior and unless you are literally a child you should know better.

Answer the question or just be honest that you can’t.

I then challenged you to contextualize this in terms of settler colonial genocide, of which there are many precedents following similar models, also with the same kinds of backers from what is now the OECD. The absurdity would be clear if you were honest about this and actually tried to answer. I stated, “When First Nations fought against settlers, were they terrorists and similarly illegitimate? What would you think of someone who watched their genocide and spent their focus on villifying militant groups and alleged specific acts with racialized language while using no such emphasis for the much greater volume of such violence to enact genocide? Many indigenous groups have recognized the need to oppose settlers themselves and settlerdom, the people who stole their and their parents’ land and houses and killed their relatives. You simply dismiss such people as terrorists? Without chauvinist glasses of the oppressor you would probably call them freedom fighters.”

You simply ignored this in its entirety.

The rest of my comment was similarly ignored. Repeating it,

While it is nice to keep it mind, the fact that they also do other things besides terrorism is not an argument.

Of course it is when the absurd premise is to ignorantly broad brush them with the label. The vast, vast majority of the activities of Hamas cannot be described as terroristic, much more so than their accusers.

Or should we also refrain from calling the Israeli state terrorist because it also does other stuff besides indiscriminately and arbitrarily targeting Palestinians?

Do you call “Israel”, which is infinitely more guilty of this and is itself the settler colonial occupier, a terrorist state at its every mention? Do you jump into conversations to ensure it is understood as such?

“Israel” engages in a genocidal campaign of land theft and ethnic subjugation. Describe the actual acts and see how much value your attempt at labeling possesses in terns of delegitimation.

Instead, you populated the rest of your response with an uninvited and, as stated before, problematic attempt to summarize Hamas. The point of doing so is not clear. You explicitly say what you claim it to be, i.e.,

But you do make some good points. Although I understand why you might have thought otherwise, I do think that Hamas needs to be portrayed fairly which indeed we haven’t done so far. Leaving it that way doesn’t do Palestinians, which overall greatly require our support and help, any good.

So for anyone else who would, per chance, stumble upon here, I’d like humbly submit my own personal presentation of Hamas, not-so-highly condensed for your own benefit:

You might have noticed that I don’t require nor did I ask for a meandering and confused history lesson. I am not bumbling around here like you are, throwing around settler language and dancing around questions and challenges. I have been quite direct and plain in what I am saying and you are avoiding it, which I suppose is an admission in its own way that you are not up to the task of honestly responding.

Because you have dumped a confused and meandering history lesson and then immediately ran away, there isn’t much reason to go through it point by point and it would take up way too much space. I will poke at a couple things stated just because I can, but if anyone is particularly enamored with any sections I would be happy to tear through them. Feel free to ask. I do want to again emphasize how strangely written this is, making allusions to people you could simply name and making seemingly disconnected points that jump around in time.

[…] in the nineties […] they started launching suicide bombings […]

I will note that you do not actually go over how this is terrorism, but leave it implied by the form of resistance, relying on the audience’s familiarity with islamophobic tropes. I invite you to list the bombings, their targets, and their locations. Re: location, here is a hint: they are nearly all in the West Bank, i.e. demarcated Palestinian territory. You may wish to ask yourself why, say, blowing up a military vehicle (like in Mehola Junction) is not a direct act of resistance against oppressing occupiers and not terrorism. You may wish to ask yourself how much you have internalized islamophobia by the form of weapon used. The occupiers use planes, missiles, and tanks, and kill in far greater volumes, and target civilians to a staggeringly greater degree. I challenge you to, again, go through your own references to “Israel” and ask whether you always call it, “the illegitimate terrorist so-called state of ‘Israel’”, as your knee-jerk response to Hamas is to go into such invective.

other legitimate or terror attacks where committed and directed by Hamas members

Such as? I’ve already asked you to back up your claim that they have committed, “so many” that it justifies saying Hamas, “have carried far too many terrorist attacks over a far too long period for us to have any doubts that they are indeed ‘terroristic’ as our friend put it”

Hamas being largely considered at this point by the Israelis as a mortal enemy of Israel and of the Jewish people

“Israelis” already considered all Palestinians to be such, particularly any that formed any kind of militant resistance to genocidal settler colonial occupation and oppression. They are extraordinarily racist, as in old-timey racist (because they are settlers), and they conflate Judaism with their own violent and horrific projects - itself one of the most antisemitic programs in existence. Your claim here was simply left to fester, unchallenged. Oh good, the “Israeli” settler point of view. Funny how others are not given the same weight.

Israel blockaded the Gaza strip in return

Is it in return? Or was it simply another excuse to escalate and oppress, same as the status quo for decades?

Anyways, I’m out of space.