Palestinians should never forgive Hamas for the calamity unfolding in Gaza. Palestinian and international anger about the appalling suffering being visited upon the innocent 2.1 million residents of Gaza is understandably focused on Israel. Israel is indeed responsible for its own misconduct, such as cutting off all necessities of life for everyone in Gaza and disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks that have killed thousands of Palestinians in just a few weeks, most of them civilians. Yet it is essential to register the depth of Hamas’s guilt, because they intentionally provoked this disaster to benefit their own political fortunes, not the Palestinian national movement, let alone the well-being of the Palestinian people.

[DS–Well, duh. But they will never learn, I fear. The dream of Palestine is built on hate.]