Steve, I don't disagree with this piece exactly -- certainly I agree that Hamas is the enemy of the Palestinian people.
Still I think you story whitewashes an uncomfortable reality. The members of Hamas... the actual humans that comprise the organization are made up of fathers and sons of ordinary Palestinians. The would be unusual human beings if they did not care for their family and extended family and their people. I am sure they do.
They are misguided in how they hope to achieve their ends, but I think it is wrong to imagine they don't care about their kids and grand parents.
So what is happening here? Well humans generally react to great injustice with violence. Not because it is logical, but because, well it is great injustice and that is what humans do.
It takes an amazing human (think Gandhi) to react in any other way. And knowing that your children will likely die in the same open air prison they were born in, is an injustice that I cannot really wrap my head around.
Now mind you, I agree that Hamas must go. While I understand the impulse that creates Hamas, I also understand how Israeli's will react to its actions, so it is a terminal path that leads to many dead Palestinians. So I agree with your conclusion, but I don't agree with your characterization of the mindset of the average Hamas member. They are at wits end and have rationalized a path to an outcome they want, even though we all see their actions will take them away from that outcome.
By the way, here is political approach to solving the Palestinian issues that I think works with rather than against expected human motivations and actions. Curious what you think:
