Maine Dem Platner Faces Scrutiny Over Hamas Comments, Tattoo

Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner in Maine is facing renewed scrutiny over past online comments praising the tactics of a 2014 Hamas raid on Israeli soldiers, as well as a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, which he recently attributed to influences from his military service.

The comments, made on Reddit under the username PHustle on the r/CombatFootage forum, surfaced this week through archived posts. In response to a video of the raid near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where Hamas militants killed at least five Israeli soldiers and captured others, Platner wrote, "Looks like an all around well executed and successful small unit raid to me." Addressing criticism of the militants' execution of captured soldiers, he added, "Pragmatically I have little problem with killing an enemy combatant who you attempt to capture but for whatever reason cannot. From a strictly professional standpoint, this was a damn fine looking and successful raid against a superior opponent, I dig it."

Platner, 41, a U.S. Marine and Army veteran with four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is an oyster farmer running as a progressive outsider in Maine's June 9 Democratic primary. He leads in polls and...