Some business executives want to start a blacklist of all the students in Harvard student groups that signed their name to a letter that supported HAMAS.

This would be adding evil to evil. The last thing we need in the US is another massive blacklist campaign against freedom of speech.

The letter took an extreme position which entirely exculpated HAMAS for massacres and kidnapping of hundreds of civilians. As you can see in my recent political notes, I reject that view.

It is true that Israel confines millions of Palestinians to what can be called open-air prisons, but that doesn't excuse HAMAS's response.

In a situation with wrong on all sides, we need to be able to see the various wrongs of various sides, and also to weigh them against each other. Two great wrongs are not necessarily equivalent. Whether one wrong overrides or justifies another is a subtle question and it depends on details.

For instance, a crime such as Putin's invasion of Ukraine justifies the violence of fighting back with war, which Ukraine is doing, but it would not justify terrorism as a response. (Ukraine is not doing that.)