That’s crazytalk. It sounds like something Pam Bondi would say but the other way around. If you celebrate a clear terrorist attack on civilians, you don’t have to be saying the name Voldemort (Hamas) out loud for everyone to see who you are.

How do we define a terrorist attack? Do we defer to the ICC, the ICJ, the US, the Knesset or the PLO?

Because if we apply that logic across the board, then the United States and Israel are both objectively complicit in internationally illegal war crimes. Any citizens that promote their legitimacy is trying to undermine global order, obstruct legitimate democracy and prevent criminal justice for organized terrorism.

Both sides have their faults, but I'm not willing to indict Hamdi for the same reason I don't accuse US citizens of being responsible for Abu Ghraib. It's not justice, just pugilism.

I agree with you on this 100%. Israel and the US are complicit in war crimes, especially of late. But I won’t believe for a second he wasn’t celebrating Hamas. I don’t want to associate with him in any way except defending his right to free speech.

> But I won’t believe for a second he wasn’t celebrating Hamas.

That's fine. But we can both agree that bigotry is not evidence of a crime. If we expanded this "I won't believe for a second" logic further, any number of Americans could be arrested for any reason. It's a slippery slope that you are making more slippery by making immaterial correlations. What you assume is not the same as actual rhetoric.

Sorry, maybe you misunderstand me. I don't see any evidence of a crime. I don't think he commited one. I am committed to Free Speech.

>How do we define a terrorist attack?

Violence for political aims.

So yes, that necessarily includes when some alphabet soup agency makes a big show of having some mid-tier guy's door kicked in at 6am by a bunch of fed-cops for violating some law that HN loves.

It's glorifying the Hamas-led attack; it seems accurate to call that pro-Hamas (as well as anti-Israel) rhetoric.

Once again, it cannot be "pro-Hamas" if he doesn't even acknowledge they exist. His comments are wholly non-rhetorical: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rhetoric

You cannot quote a single part of the article you listed where he argues in-favor of Hamas, because he does not mention them at all. You are casting aspersions that do not exist, much in the way the White House has to resort to defaming former presidents instead of setting a morally-consistent example.

Expressing an opinion about the Hamas-led attack means expressing an opinion about Hamas, whether or not the speaker uses the word "Hamas".

That's as ridiculous as claiming that any opinion about Baruch Goldstein is an opinion about Israel by-extension, whether or not his nationality is mentioned.

You're making a bad-faith extrapolation that most people know is desperate. If it was applied universally, you'd be crying foul too.

Baruch Goldstein was not the leader of Israel. The attack Hamdi praised was planned by the leadership of Hamas.

We can set aside the Hamas connection if you like, but in any case he was glorifying an attack that included deliberate massacres of civilians.