The period between 1993 and 2000? You mean when it was one of the core foreign policy issues in US politics!?

Well, yes. It was a core foreign policy issue in US politics, but not core enough to put someone with some geopolitical muscle to flex in charge of mediation instead of fucking Norway.

Palestinian activism was one of the issues of Western left-leaning parties outside the US in the 90s and 2000s, and of the left wing of the Dems in the US.

Then I'll concede that until I have information either way. Also, since I'm evidently running off incomplete information here do you know where I can learn more about this? I tried looking it up but no luck.

BDS is overwhelmingly the result of a change in tactics, notably pre-dating Hamas's ascendency,

Yes, but not by much. Most of the period where boycotting Israel was been a thing in the West was after Hamas took power in Gaza, and given that Hamas and similar organizations were the main actors in the Second Intifada, it can be argued that the change in tactics you're talking about came after the start of the modern period of organized Palestinian political violence (which is really what I'm arguing about here; I don't care that much about Hamas itself), but let's not get into that.

and popular support in the US for Palestine was largely static until Oct 7th.

Yeah... no. By 2021, Democrat and Democrat leaning Americans were sympathizing with Palestinians almost as much as Israelis, and in 2020 they sympathized with Palestinians more, and similarly Israel's advantage with younger generations had been falling off a cliff. These changes seem smaller in graphs that cover the whole population because they're in arithmetic means with some pretty irreverently Zionist groups, but a rapidly expanding core of anti-Zionism had been forming among key demographics as early as 2014, likely in response to the Gaza war/massacre of that year. This isn't much compared to the much more radical shifts we've seen since October 7th, but it's still very significant.

Oh, they're about to have the entire strip ethnically cleansed?

Yeah, which was a massive miscalculation by Hamas and, as far as we can tell at this point in time, very counterproductive. However, as I've said more than once, that's not the point. My argument is that Hamas activities have affected the Palestinian cause a lot more than by just "boosting the polling numbers of Bibi et all," in both positive and negative ways.

Not that I think Fatah's current route is productive, but yes, doing nothing is, by definition, better than doing something counterproductive. That's literally what counterproductive means.

I mean that's true, but taking the spot of Leader of the Resistance™ and then doing nothing is pretty counterproductive, because it prevents other people from doing more productive things with that title and authority. Their activities (or lack thereof) are counterproductive in the same way, say, the DNC's "activities" are counterproductive. I mean, I'd say that decorated resistance leaders like Chuck "play dead" Schumer are worse than a net zero for the causes they claim to support.

That leaves the comment it was originally responding to uncontested, though, as Fatah being 'deeply compromised' while Hamas is lionized is absurd considering Hamas has been explicitly supported by Israel as their ideal partner in Palestinian genocide.

What I was trying to say is: The Israeli right propping up Hamas was a short-sighted attempt to derail peace negotiations that only served to compromise Israel's chances of maintaining its apartheid regime. Netanyahu for example liked/likes Hamas not because they benefit Israel, but because they benefit him by giving him a boogieman to drop bombs on. "If we help the Islamists just a little more they'll finally give us convince the world Palestinians are terrible" has always been an Israeli rightwing cope with little basis in reality. I mean, why are you respecting the decision-making ability and judgement of people who thought supporting "apolitical Islamists" was a good idea to undermine Palestinian will to resist? There's a reason the sane part of the Israeli political establishment was spooked that much by the First Intifada, and it's not because mass Palestinian resistance would only mean better polling numbers. Meanwhile, Fatah literally does nothing except defend its own authority, suppress Palestinian dissent and subcontract for Israel, which is much worse than if they just did nothing. I'm not calling them compromised because I hate them (though I definitely do); I'm calling them compromised because they're compromised, as in they actively suppress Palestinian resistance and provide no alternative. What can Mahmoud "No, we do not support the boycott of Israel" be other than compromised?