Ta-Nehisi Coates: Despite Attacks by Hamas on Israelis, the Apartheid Isn’t Justified

ZAKARIA; “And to those who say, look, what you describe on the ground may be the reality, but it’s complicated, the Palestinians haven’t been willing to take peace deals that have been offered to them, they have a terrorist group like Hamas that attacks innocent Israelis, what do you say to that?”
COATES: “Well, I don’t — I don’t deny any of that. But what I say to that is there are things in this world that we just take, you know, strong moral positions on. Certainly, the history of it is complicated. Certainly, the systems over there are complicated. But I don’t think the morality of it is. I’ve used this metaphor quite a bit, but I am somebody that is anti-death penalty. I am anti-death penalty for those that sell nickel bags of marijuana on a corner and for serial killers too. And so, like, the case against apartheid for me is not a case of Palestinian hyper-morality, or the idea that, you know, Hamas is so noble. There is nothing that I could have seen over there that would have led me to conclude, yes, apartheid is justified. There’s just nothing I could see that would, you know, make me feel like that was okay.”
ZAKARIA: “There’s a lot more in the book, but I just thought we’d do a deep dive on this one very important chapter.”