On Sunday, the Detroit News published an article by Editorial Page Editor Nolan Finley titled, “Hamas, ISIS are of the same evil.”

Finley, whose hatred for Palestinians is no secret, hits a new low with this article. He bases his column on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech at the UN General Assembly. In his column, Finley not only shamelessly promotes the Israeli government’s propaganda, he also advocates killing civilians in the name of  the fight against terrorism.

Finley claims the United States urged Israel “to show restraint in the name of limiting civilian casualties and ultimately pressured it to pull back before its goals were met.”

The truth is that President Obama voiced unconditional support for Israel in the name of self-defense and Congress passed immediate additional military aid to Israel during the war. Only the resilience of the Palestinian people stopped the Israeli war machine.

But Finley does not stop at justifying the murder of Palestinian civilians, he demands that President Obama replicate Israel’s atrocities in Iraq and Syria. 

“Does Obama think the bombs he is pouring on ISIS won’t also kill innocent civilians? Will he hold himself to the same measure of restraint he demanded of Netanyahu when ISIS fighters embed themselves in the civilian population?” asks Finley. “Of course not. And if he does, he won’t win.”

This bomb-them-all-argument stems from Finley’s ignorance and bigotry. The only way to defeat ISIS is to safeguard the civilian population, not to give the terror group any legitimacy. 

Palestinian civilians murdered by Israel were not “collateral damage.” They were deliberate targets of Israeli terrorism, aimed to pressure the Palestinian resistance into submission. In July, Israel bombed clearly-marked United Nations schools that sheltered refugees in Gaza. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the shelling of the schools as a “moral outrage and a criminal act.”

Presenting Netanyahu’s words as if they were indisputable, Finley writes, “while the west prefers to view Hamas as narrowly focused on ejecting Israel from the Palestinian territories, in truth, Netanyahu says, it is by its charter a chapter of militant Islam, which, whether Sunni or Shi’a, ‘share the same fanatical creed.'”

He might as well claim that all Muslims and ISIS are of the same evil. 

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has said that his group’s problem is with the occupation, not the Jews. The movement has repeatedly offered a long-term truce if Israel eases the injustices it inflicts on Palestinians. 

ISIS is the most feared terrorist group in the world right now, so, understandably, Netanyahu, a master when it comes to flawed analogy, would compare it to his enemies. And the Israeli PM, whose hands are drenched with the blood of Palestinian children, counts on anti-Palestinian racists in the media to spread his message. Finley is a messenger of Israeli hatred. He and Netanyahu are of the same evil. 

Shame on the Detroit News for publishing this racist tract with reckless disregard for its long heritage of balanced journalism and its large base of Arab American readers.

Finley, who once shamelessly wrote that “Palestinians’ lust for Jewish blood is stronger than their desire for peace”, should be working in public relations for the Netanyahu administration, not at the Detroit News.