I know you don't want to hear this, but the position that you "love the Palestinian people but hate Hamas" is actually helping Israel kill the Palestinian people.
The propaganda line that "we love the people but hate whoever happens to be leading them" is the standard Israeli position (ie., Israel had the same position on the PLO back in the day, etc.).
The propaganda line "we love the people but hate their leader" is also the standard regime change position. It goes along with regime change campaigns - the US/Canada/etc. just didn't recognize the Syria election, they didn't recognize the Venezuela elections, etc.
"But these leaders are awful!" you might reply. "The elections were shams!" you might say. I haven't studied Syria's elections closely (or Iran's, etc.) but Venezuela's were not a sham. Nor was the election that Hamas won.
Now there should have been elections since the one that Hamas won so maybe you would argue they don't have legitimacy. But new Palestinian elections have been blocked by the US/Israel, not Hamas. Rejecting the winners while preventing elections - also standard US regime change.
"But Hamas uses violence," you will reply. But the US recognizes plenty of parties that use violence. "Hamas has a hateful charter", you'll say - but Hamas removed the hateful elements of the charter without any change in the non-recognition.
Maybe you're particularly well versed in the lore and say "Hamas is illiberal and doesn't separate religion and state" - but then you'll trip over the fact that neither does Likud, much less Saudi Arabia.
An Israeli writer Uri Avnery used to say that it's only with enemies that one can make peace, not with friends.
When the US delegitimizes a people's leadership, democratic or not, prepares the way for violence against those people.
When the US delegitimizes a people's leadership, democratic or not, prepares the way for violence against those people.
Israel's siege of Gaza has kept its children on the edge of starvation. Their growth is stunted from malnutrition. Their water is undrinkable. Their agricultural fields have been bombed. Israel never says "we're doing this to kill Palestinian people". They say "Because Hamas."
None of the premises for excluding Hamas hold up. The delegitimation of Hamas is simply a pretext for continuing the siege, which is itself a crime against humanity.
If you are against the siege, you have to be against the exclusion of Hamas.
If you are against the siege, you have to be against the exclusion of Hamas.
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