The PA state security court had sentenced Ghanem, a father of two, after holding only two brief sessions. He was convicted of helping Israel kill four Fatah activists in Rafah.

Ghanem pleaded guilty to collaborating, but denied responsibility for the killings. He told the court that he did not know that Israel would use the information to kill the activists.

One never knows whether these executions are just for show, meant to frighten rather than instruct. But IF Ghanem really did give Israel information that was used to kill activists Fatah gunmen, then killing him would be part of war, and not exactly murder. In war, people who live amongst you but help your enemy go by the words spy and traitor. The spy and traitor from the point of view of one side may be a national hero from the point of view of the other side, of history, and of dispassionate truth [Nathan Hale, say], but that cuts no ice with the guys he’s working against.

There are so many impeccable grounds for criticizing Hamas. There is no moral difficulty, no need to parse the thing and think twice, when they set up mortars in schoolyards and fire away, or commandeer ambulances, or kill children just to set up TV shots where the deaths can be blamed on Israel.

Why stretch, and make the killing of somebody who’d been sentenced to death for treason by a court of sorts into Exhibit A in the wickedness of Hamas?