"In 1922, The New York Times published its first article about Adolf Hitler. The reporter, Cyril Brown, was aware of his subject’s anti-Jewish animus..."

"... but he wasn’t buying it. 'Several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler's anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded,' Brown wrote, 'and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers.' Two years later, the Times published another news item on the future architect of the Holocaust: 'Hitler Tamed by Prison.' The Austrian activist, the piece said, 'looked a much sadder and wiser man,' and 'his behavior during his imprisonment convinced the authorities that [he] was no longer to be feared.' Many got Hamas wrong. But they shouldn’t have. Again and again, people say they intend to murder Jews. And yet, century after century, the world produces new, tortuous justifications for why anti-Jewish bigots don’t really mean what they say—even though they do."

Writes Yair Rosenberg, in "What Hamas Wants/The straightforward explanation that the experts missed" (The Atlantic).