By that logic, the following applies, too. > people forget (or likely don’t even know) that, when Israel was not yet in a position of asymmetric power and secu

By that logic, the following applies, too. > people forget (or likely don’t even know) that, when Israel was not yet in a position of asymmetric power and secure statehood, Israeli paramilitaries often committed terror attacks which are indistinguishable from what we have seen Hamas do in recent decades. Deir Yassin, the King David Hotel Bombing, al-Husayniyya Safad, and so on. Now they do not have the need for such acts, when high tech bombing and artillery barrages, international legal sanction, highly trained police, are available. Beheading children and setting off car bombs at shopping centers looks bad internationally, and there’s little reason for it when you are the one with a “legitimate” state. But Israel got to that position in part by using methods indistinguishable from Hamas. Granted, one will say— that wasn’t Israel, it was the Irgun, or the Palmach, or some particular militia: more extremist factions of the Zionist movement. But it’s the same for Palestine. What is the great difference between the Irgun and Hamas, except in terms of success? Israel still engages in extreme brutality, and have even abetted on the ground massacres since the 1970s, but usually in ways that extricate themselves from the same level of responsibility (whether by setting up Lebanese militias to do their dirty work, or by allowing massive Palestinian casualties to be categorized as collateral damage). I can recognize that civilians being killed by artillery in a war zone is categorically different than civilians being assaulted, tortured, raped and executed by ground forces. But the crazy thing that’s forgotten is that Israeli forces did use those same tactics, when it’s situation and power position was more desperate, and it’s reputation not yet based on maintaining the appearance of civility.