"Hamas' cause is to kill all the Jews and eradicate Israel."

I don't place the significance on this preposterous claim that you do. It would be astonishing if they said anything less. As with Trump's claim of infanticide as abortion, it's intended to excite the listeners, but only a fool believes its true.

People who have buried their children, dead from IDS bullets, or crushed in the rubble of bombed buildings, aren't going to be satisfied hearing anything less.

Sure, the rhetoric gives an easy out to those who see validation in mouthing that "right to exist" garbage, but Hamas isn't going to get any support from them anyway. Their audiences want to hear maximally exteme stuff.

They're not going to destroy Israel, even without the USA bending to every Israeli breeze.

The alternative to attacking Israel is to be overrun and exterminated. And Israel's "mad dog" response to the butchery of 1200 or so has exposed Israel to the world, you won't see much #IStandWithIsrael on social media anymore.

But the savagery of Hamas' attack strengthened the "right to exist" mob (sorry, that absurd phrase annoys the hell out of me).

If Hamas had leveled a few of the settlements then the reaction would have been quite different. For one, the theft of their land is a legitimate Palestinian grievance that not enough people know about. Second, the settlers are repellent and vile people and getting them on camera would do Israel absolutely zero good. Third, the ensuing news-noise would have been about settlements and cruelty, not about raped and tortured women.

It was dumb to attack Israel instead of the settlers.