I want it perfectly clear ...

 I've said this before, but I want it perfectly clear for anyone who has read all this verbiage I've set down over the last six months.

At no point was I anything more than ambivalent about Israel's actions in Gaza. All I've done is refuse to condemn it, which I refuse to do even now, especially now. People don't understand Hamas because their imagination fails to perceive how evil on that level can exist, but if it didn't, we'd have been spared Stalin, Mao, and yes, Hitler. However much so many people I know disagree, it's more obvious to me than ever that Hamas is at fault, that they are an organization of the deepest evil, longing to kill their own populace as a means of waging holy war, and that any populace whose plurality voted in Hamas is no less responsible for these results than any Israeli whose prosperity made them naive about the necessity of severe compromises to their territory. I don't know what else anyone could possibly do when faced with threats like Israel is faced with, but so long as Israel is controlled by Netanyahu or anyone like him, there is no end to this that does not result in an eventual apartheid of its Arab population, within the occupied territories and without, not now but in twenty years - maybe much less, and yes, as Israel's religious population grows to dwarf its secular population, an eventual genocide perpetrated by Israel around its territories and neighbors as an all too easy next step - not now, but in fifty years, which, in turn, would leave Jews open to a retributive genocide against them if their ability to defend themselves is ever taken away. Genocide is absolutely not what's happening in 2024, and even now, it has to be so much worse before it rises to that level. If today's Israel were intent on a genocide, we might worry that not a single Muslim would be left within a hundred miles of any Israeli border. But there's no doubt, this situation emboldens the most toxic elements of Israel, which in turn emboldens Hamas and all their allies, locking them into a holy war that can grow even so much worse than it is currently, until heads prevail that, exhausted by genocide - the real thing, grow so much cooler than today's ketzenkops are. The whole point of what Hamas did was to use their own people as grist for a mill, so they could hold the whole project of a Jewish state up to the world as the real grinder of death, not they, who would throw the whole region on a pyre if it meant thereafter that the Middle East would be free of Jews.

Well, they've succeeded in fooling the world and then some, but that does not mean Israel has no blame in this, and it does mean that, in some ways, Israel brought it on itself. As usual, there's so much more to say, but the more people say, the less anybody listens.All reactions: