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So stupid. So Native American terrorists should slaughter you and your family plus hundreds of your neighbors because you're settlers, they're displaced people, and whatever horror they perpetrate is therefore morally justified? What rot! Native Americans are not idiots. They know a useless political gesture when they see one. But Hamas doesn't, which is why it has just dealt the worst blow to the Palestinian movement in 75 years. I presume you've got a brain somewhere between your two ears. Use it.

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Daniel, I think you missed my point. I was arguing against the idea that, just because non-native people in this country are settlers, therefore we are legitimate targets for violence. As I wrote in the second paragraph, violence against civilians is always wrong.

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You were quite clear.

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Did you even read what he wrote?

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I apologize for my intemperate remarks. Clearly, Spector is trying to wrestle in an honest way with the many awful problems raised by this war. But I still think his analysis is muddy and confused. He quotes Zubayr Alikhan's atrocious remarks on Mondoweiss and then offers a mild refutation to the effect that, while all Israelis are settlers, that fact alone does not make all Israelis “the primary agents, actors, impellers of the colonization and genocide of Palestine.” He says that Americans are equally settlers on stolen land, but again specifies that this does not make them "not the primary agents of U.S. imperialism." But this is incorrect -- not only are they not primary agents of U.S. imperialism, they're not secondary or tertiary either." They're victims, rather, and any attempts to saddle them with the crimes of US imperialism is reactionary nonsense. His description of Hamas is way too bland. Hamas is not "a nationalist movement." Its own charter describes it as "a universal organization" whose goal is the establishment of international Islamic hegemony. While it's true that it never staged an attack outside historical Palestine, it's a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood that has engaged in sectarian terrorism in Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere. The Oct. 7 assault should be seen as an exercise in self-martyrdom that has set back the Palestinian cause by 75 years. It's a tragedy and an outrage. And, no, this is not an attempt to get the Zionists off the hook. They bear the lion's share of responsibility because they have the lion's share of power. But it takes two to tango.

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