Make no mistake, I denounce their violence and targeting of civilians without a second thought. The same criteria I apply to anyone. But to portray only them as "terrorists" - while Israel enjoys designations like "democracy" - is not based in reality. Israel has taken more lives by an order of magnitude, aired equally horrific genocidal rhetoric on public TV in the last month alone, and stolen the land of the Palestinian people in what I can only describe as a psychotically self-centered and racist act of ethnic cleansing. One rooted in deep trauma, but nonetheless. And not in some trivial way, but literally to bring the modern state of Israel into existence.

To use a term like that, given the history of Palestinians being dispossessed of their land, shoved into ghettos and starved of all resources, for the "crimes" of existing and of self-defense, or because finally a tiny contingent of them use the very same rhetoric of genocide as the nation extinguishing their civilization, and applied the same indiscriminate targeting of civilians that they had experienced done to them their entire lives - I can only call that racism. You apply the term "terrorist" to the historical victims, but not to the victimizers.

For the record, here's the actual list of designators of Hamas as a "terrorist" group:

Hamas European Union,[109][150] Australia,[151] Canada,[7] Israel,[152] Japan,[51][17] Paraguay,[54] United Kingdom,[153] United States,[15] Organization of American States[154]

Hamas – Al-Qassam Brigades[L] European Union,[109] Australia,[16] Canada,[7] Israel,[155] Japan,[17] New Zealand,[113] United Kingdom,[14] United States[15]Organization of American States[154]

Notice the entire world outside of the sphere of Western states doesn't even participate in this. This is a political term, a stereotype that's used against Muslims, it's never accurately applied objectively in terms of what organizations cause destruction and death for political aims.

To tack on to all of that - the word has pejoratively being used in the last month to describe the entire population of the Gaza Strip. In the same way we stopped using the various "n" words because people had been beaten to death or hung behind them, we should not be using terminology that's actively being weaponized in service of genocide. It's an extremely dangerous thing to participate in.