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A terrorist group that I approve of [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-10-11  

No, I’m actually not being snarky here. I mean exactly what the title says. There once existed a terrorist group that I not only approve of, but actually admire.

So what terrorist group could that possibly be?

The Free French in World War 2.

They were, by any reasonable definition of the word, a genuine terrorist organization. Their goal was to use fear as a weapon against their Nazi oppressors, and against any French citizen who dared to cooperate with the Nazis. They wanted their French compatriots to be literally afraid to do anything to help the Nazis. That is the whole point of terrorism: to make people afraid to do something. And, in hindsight, I approve of the Free French. Their goal—to get the Nazis out of France—was proper, and their means were (for the most part, probably) proportionate to the achievement of that goal.

But there are two key differences between the Free French and organizations like Hamas. (Three, if you count the righteousness of the cause they were fighting for, but let’s leave that out of the equation for now, and talk only about tactics.)

The first and most important difference between the Free French and Hamas is that the Free French did not target innocent people, either intentionally or indiscriminately. Their intent was to target the occupying Nazis and those French civilians whom they believed to be collaborating with the Nazis. Did they sometimes target somebody who was not in fact a collaborator? Very possibly. War is messy. But they never, to my knowledge, knowingly targeted groups of people who had themselves done nothing to help the Nazis. Hamas, on the other hand, routinely targets innocent civilians, and kills them not only with bombs and bullets, but with other means that can only be described as barbaric. This alone makes it problematic (to say the least!) for anybody in America to offer any kind of sympathy for the Hamas attack, regardless of how they might feel about the prior actions of Israel. Regardless of any evil which Israel has committed against the Palestinians, the barbaric nature of this Hamas attack cannot be justified by any civilized standard.

The second difference is that the Free French, after the war ended, established a government that was democratic, based on the will of the people. This form of government survives in France today, and is widely respected as a reasonably good government. But what kind of government could we expect if Hamas managed to gain full control of Palestine, free of outside interference? Would a Hamas government recognize basic human rights? Would it oversee a state that protected religious freedom and the full equality of all citizens? I think not. And therefore, based on these two critical characteristics of Hamas, I do not see any way to sympathize with anybody, whether conservative or liberal, who offers any defense at all for the Hamas attack. Butchery is never justified, under any circumstances whatsoever. Neither is any hypothetical “humane, non-barbaric” killing of innocent people who had nothing to do with whatever the Israeli government might have done wrong. Nobody should be so focused on their personal disagreement with Israeli policy that they believe a “fair and balanced” reaction to current events is to say that Israel and Hamas share the blame. There is no “both sides” to this attack.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/11/2198740/-A-terrorist-group-that-I-approve-of?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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