The New York Times usually refers to Hamas as an “Islamic militant group” that Israel “regards as a terrorist organisation.”

It has rarely referred to Hamas as a terrorist organization without caveats, as far as I can tell. But that changed on Friday:

The Justice Department on Friday charged two American citizens with ties to a far-right extremist group with trying to support the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas — a case that shows that extremists have sought to turn protests against racism into opportunities to commit violence, but that also runs counter to President Trump’s assertions that those extremists are predominantly on the far left.

Michael R. Solomon, 30, and Benjamin R. Teeter, 22, who were taken into custody on Thursday evening in Minneapolis, say they are members of a group called the Boogaloo Bois and of a subgroup called the Boojahideen. The groups are part of a loosely connected movement that seeks to bring about a second civil war to overthrow the United States government.

John C. Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in a statement that Mr. Solomon and Mr. Teeter met with people they believed to be members of Hamas in order to “join forces and provide support, including in the form of weapons accessories,” to the terrorist organization.

When the Times wants to associate Hamas with a right-wing American group, Hamas magically transforms into a terrorist organization. This is a remarkable example of media bias. Many media outlets go through lots of apologetics when writing about Hamas or Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah, careful not to describe those groups as terror organizations. ISIS is described as terrorist on multiple occasions in the NYT, but not groups that only target Israeli civilians.

The real story, ignored by the NYT, is that antisemitism is the glue that holds extremist groups together, whether Right, Left, Black, Arab, or otherwise. White supremacist groups will happily quote left-wing anti-Zionists. In this case, the right-wing suspects were attracted to Hamas’ antisemitism in wanting to partner with them. According to the ADL, groups associated with the Boogaloo name are anti-government and even anti-police, just like some radical leftist groups. Hate does not fit in neatly into Right/Left categories, and journalists who insist on categorizing them that way are doing a disservice to their readers.

Elder of Ziyon has been blogging about Israel and the Arab world for a really long time now. He also controls the world, but deep down, you already knew that.

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