Why are people in the US pro-Hamas when Hamas is a terrorist organization?

This is a very large question, and since you admit that it’s coming from a place of ignorance, I’ll assume it’s sincere.

It’s tough to even know where to start, and it would be nearly impossible to summarize a sufficient answer here. But let me try this:

Israel is a settler colonial project that involved mass expulsion of people from their land (ethnic cleansing). Everything surrounding the project has been textbook examples of inhumanity, and there is a reason why Israel is the poster child when discussing a terrorist state. If “terrorism” means anything, it can be best demonstrated in the crimes against humanity that Israel has committed against the Palestinians.

Whatever you want to say about Hamas, it is the result of a occupation by a terrorist apartheid state. It’s a resistance movement, and technically has more of a legal right to use any means to fight off their occupiers.

The question you’re framing here is a result of lots of propaganda designed to switch it up and make the oppressors the victims. It’s an attempt to weaponize LGBTQ+ rights to support genocide. It’s used so often to justify crimes against humanity – as well as crimes against the LGBTQ+ community as well.

The “college students” you refer to are disproportionately Jewish and LGBTQ+ who are simply demanding that their college tuition stop going to funding the literal murder of a captive population, half of whom are children.

So, it’s incorrect to call them “pro-Hamas”. But it’s also immoral and explicitly evil to demand people condemn the actions of the predictable results of a resistance movement.

It’s important to remember that anyone who supports Israel (and the US’ support of Israel) objectively supports terrorism, child murder, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, starvation, torture, and genocide.

This is important to note when considering whether to use the term “terrorism”.

That’s a start, I suppose. But probably not sufficient to answer your question.

Why are people pro-Trump?

Neither of these make any sense to most people.

I believe you are conflating pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas. They are not the same. People can be pro-Palestinian and still be anti-hamas.

I believe @hat is correct. Obviously the US government and the Christian Right support Israel for various reasons, but historically Israel is not innocent.
Some would argue Jewish persecution/genocide and excuse their political/military actions.
As early as 605 BC Jews have been targeted. Hamas started around 1987.
So its a bit complicated.

@Lightlyseared I know I had seen pro-Hamas support and I just did a quick search, and found this Wikipedia page. I see on it, in the section about CUAD, they talk about pro-Hamas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Columbia_University_pro-Palestinian_campus_occupations

“CUAD demanded that Columbia stop investing its $14.8 billion endowment in companies supporting Israel’s government,[71] dismantle a university outpost in Tel Aviv, and end collaboration with Israeli universities.[72] Journalists reported that CUAD became more “hard-line in its rhetoric” over time,[73] praising Hamas and Hezbollah leadership in its email newsletter[67] and saying on October 8, 2024, that it supported “liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance” and would no longer “pander to liberal media to make the movement for liberation palatable”.[73] It also withdrew an apology it had made for a member who said “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”[73][67]”

I appreciate all of the answers so far.