يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ لَا تَتَّخِذُوٓا۟ ءَابَآءَكُمْ وَإِخْوَٰنَكُمْ أَوْلِيَآءَ إِنِ ٱسْتَحَبُّوا۟ ٱلْكُفْرَ عَلَى ٱلْإِيمَٰنِ
Yā ayyuha'lladhīna āmanū lā tattakhidhū ābāʾakum wa ikhwānakum awliyāʾa ini'staḥabbu'l-kufra ʿala'l-īmān; wa man yatawallahum minkum fa-ulāʾika humu'l-ẓālimūn
"O you who believe! Do not take your fathers and your brothers as protectors if they have preferred unbelief to faith. Whoever among you takes them as protectors — it is they who do wrong."
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the conditional clause: the prohibition is tied not to kinship but to the kinsman's choice. And the word walī states not a closeness but an allegiance — the bond of walāya was treated in al-Anfāl at 8/72-75, and it was recorded there: a treaty bond can take precedence over a call to solidarity. I rely on that treatment.
Form X: istiḥbāb — to prefer one thing to another, to find it more lovable. The root was treated in al-Ḥujurāt and Ibrāhīm.
And the choice of form must be recorded: the verb means not "they loved" but "they preferred" — Form X states a wanting/choosing. The same root will recur in the next verse as aḥabb (more beloved).