Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Does the Guardian need reminding that Hamas are the bad guys?

A masked Hamas supporter (Getty)

The Guardian has found a new minority it wants to shield from offence. A new oppressed group it might shed some virtuous tears over. A put-upon section of society that urgently requires the warm, loving hug of Guardianista pity. And you won’t believe who it is. It’s the mad militants who invaded Israel on 7 October last year.

I probably shouldn’t call Hamas gunmen ‘mad’ – the Guardian might accuse me of ‘demonising’ them. In possibly the most crackpot piece it has published this year – and that’s saying something – the Guardian has slammed a new documentary about the 7 October attacks for ‘demonis[ing] Gazans as either killers or looters’. That the Gazans who crossed into Israel were killers and looters is immaterial, apparently. 

It’s possibly the most crackpot piece the paper has published this year – and that’s saying something

It is written by Stuart Jeffries. It’s a review of One Day in October, a hard-hitting film in which survivors of Hamas’s rampage tell us what they saw.

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