ANKARA, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, in his strongest comments yet on the Gaza conflict, said on Wednesday the Palestinian militant group Hamas was not a terrorist organisation but a liberation group fighting to protect Palestinian lands and people.
I mean, even if for the sake of argument that is their purpose (admittedly, I don’t know enough about Hamas to know if freeing Palestinians is actually their goal or if they’re just using Palestinian anger to get recruits for some other goal), freedom fighters and terrorists are not mutually exclusive. Using the tactic of intentionally causing terror, especially among civilians, to try to force one’s political objectives is terrorism and makes the user a terrorist, regardless of what they might be fighting for.