Controversial Senate candidate from Maine, Graham Platner (D), repeatedly praised the tactics of Hamas terrorists shown in a graphic video killing at least five Israeli soldiers.

The video was taken during a Hamas raid on Israeli soldiers in 2014 and titled “Helmet Footage from Hamas cross-border raid.  It appeared along with comments in archived posts from Platner’s now-deleted Reddit profile.

“Looks like an all around well executed and successful small unit raid to me,” Platner wrote in the forum r/CombatFootage, that highlighted footage of armed conflicts.

Platner responded to a user who criticized what the “execution” of the Israeli soldiers.

“As for your aversion to ‘execution’, a small unit raid tends to be used to inflict casualties and take prisoners in a short period of time,” Platner wrote. “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’s candidacy first became a concern when he was widely condemned for having a tattoo of a Totenkopf, a symbol that was long used by the German military, including the Nazi SS.

Platner told NBC News that he expected backlash over his Reddit posts, but did not expect the tattoo to be a problem.

“The tattoo thing I’ve had for 20 years,” he said. “I’ve gone through multiple security clearances. I have been taking my shirt off in front of other people and taking photographs the entire time. That had never come up. That one very much caught me by surprise, especially considering that I spent my entire life essentially hating Nazis. So to have that accusation thrown my way was– that was not expected.”

Platner has since said he’s having the tattoo removed.

Other controversies swirling around Platner include deleting a tweet supporting Neo-Nazi Stew Peters, making past comments about rape victims taking “responsibility” for themselves, and defending a Marine who urinated on dead soldiers.

Platner’s campaign did not return a request for comment when approached by Jewish Insider.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!