Why are Hamas leaders charged by the USA over the October 7 attacks on Israel?

Of course Biden isn’t impartial. He hasn’t said he’s impartial, and has in fact said that he’s not impartial. Everyone knows this, including the leaders of Hamas. This isn’t some legal proceeding where the mediator is expected to be a neutral party. This is international relations. Everyone involved has a stake in the outcome.

The quick answer is that Hamas murdered American citizens. Somewhere in the 1970s or 1980s us law was changed so that anyone that murdered Americans in a terrorist act came under us law even if it happened in a different country.

The second point is that no other country appears to be strong enough to try. Try and do something punitive to Hamas. At least the United States using its legal system is trying to bring some sort of Justice. It may not work, but it’s better than all of the other countries in the world.

As for your comment that Biden is not impartial. Of course not. Being a president is about making decisions everyday, and one of the decisions that Biden has made is that terrorists are not people to be rewarded.

What Hamas did was outright illegal by any current definition of rebellion or war. Why not charge them?

What was Hamas’ goal? Let’s see, did Hamas think a horrific massacre of innocent people in their homes would cause Jewish Israelis to leave the lands? Cause Israelis to open the borders?

People call Hamas terrorists, but be clear, Hamas is the government of Gaza. Imagine our military planning a military action to rape women after beating them bloody or knifing them, set babies on fire in front of their parents, knife or shoot children, kidnap people. I’m not talking about a stray soldier who is a violent lunatic sociopath who should be put in the stockade, this was a planned and trained for action.

Hamas never talks about peace and security, they talk about eliminating Israel. Israel talks about peace and security. It’s very different. I’m sure many Palestinians want peace and freedom of movement. The only way to achieve it is to stop being violent, is to want peace for everyone.

Here’s an article that explains some of the rationale behind this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wj285xyp8o

It is a symbolic measure intended to send a message, and seems to have been prompted largely by the recent killings of several hostages, including American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

As if we somehow needed more condemnation of Hamas. I think the U.S.‘s position on Hamas has been established loud and clear. Our position on unconditional support for the Israeli massacre of Palestinians, well, that sounds a little less noble when stated so explicitly.

Charging the leaders of Hamas is a hypocritical farce. Why charge someone if you intend to murder them on sight? How can you pretend to be a source of justice if you are obviously biased? Why not charge Netanyahu, he is guilty of crimes on an even greater scale than Hamas, or has the term “war crimes” lost its meaning.

^GA.

@flutherother Proportionality will be evaluated regarding Netanyahu. Believe me, I think he has gone too far, but I’m not so sure he will be found guilty of war crimes. That is an evaluation of if a mission has acceptable collateral damage.

What was the Hamas mission? The target was literally civilians including children. Netanyahu’s argument will be he never targeted civilians.

Even if Netanyahu is guilty of war crimes, it doesn’t change that Hamas. Biden has spoken out about Israel going too far.

@flutherother makes an assumption that everyone carries a gun and would shoot SInwar on sight. I don’t think that’s true. @flutherother might thank that to support a propaganda thesis, but I don’t believe it’s true.

Putting someone under indictments starts the process of putting the name out to Interpol, where the combined police forces of cooperating countries would be looking for the criminal with an eye towards arresting him. It actually is part of an international manhunt.