The evil in our world is not confined to the Middle East
Evil speeches and deeds in America and Europe join the fray
The column I wrote immediately following the October 7 barbaric Hamas attack on innocent Israelis and other nationalities made the point that evil speeches lead to evil deeds. I was referring to the huge crowds of pro-Hamas “demonstrators” in American and European cities and on university campuses gathered to express their hatred for Israel. At first, those participating denied that any atrocities had taken place, but in short order they put those acts on the same moral plane as Israel’s in retaliation, then claiming that Israel’s attacks on the armed fortress that is Gaza were worse. That confirmed my worst fears. They went on to terrorize Jewish students with no penalties in most cases.
But it is getting worse. For not only is Israel being maligned beyond all reason, but moral principles are being trashed as it begins to sink in that murder, torture, rape, burning and even forced abortion crosses the ancient line that divided good from evil. Ultimately. Israel’s supporters called public attention to Hamas’s horrendous abuse of women, appealing to the decades of support for women’s rights that should have shamed Hamas’s day of horror, but which drew stony silence from elites otherwise strongly focused on that issue.
Clearly, those who have professed concern for women went silent on October 7, indicating that, in their view, there are some atrocities which are more tolerable than others. That pro-Palestinian chant “From the river to the sea” takes precedence over violent crimes that would otherwise be condemned outright. So Palestinian men can rape Israeli women as necessary to push “colonizing” Israel from its land.
Bear in mind that the moral ban on rape still holds in the Western world, for that is a useful and effective way to check the misogyny which seems to some to be a more menacing threat to women in countries like ours where there is far less history of mass rape. So, it’s not the act of rape which is bad; it’s the cause in the name of which it is perpetrated. Raping for Palestine is good, for its “colonization” is worse than rape.
Similarly, the moral equivocation regarding the distinction between Hamas’s barbarism and Israel’s measured, civilized response shows the same tendency in our politics. Thus, we hear the repeated claim that Isael’s determination to destroy Hamas amounts to genocide, not only on Isarel’s part but America’s as well. President Biden lacks the character to call these things by their right and thus pressures Israel to agree to premature and counterproductive cease fires. He who cannot grasp the fundamentals of this war cannot understand the whole of it.
There are still more domestic aspects to this. Not only are there far too many Democrats now accusing the President of genocide in Gaza, but all of them endorse death 100 percent when it comes to their assault on women’s natural feelings by their crusade for abortion on demand. They describe this as “reproductive freedom,” a strange way of endorsing a poisonous and violent “procedure” aimed at the death of a child developing in a mother’s womb.
Evidently, Democrats are cheered that their support for violent abortion of babies enabled them to escape election defeats in 2022 and 2023, but that’s hardly something to be proud of. However, it dovetails ever so nicely with violence against women so long as it advances whatever political cause is in elitist favor, like raping them when attacking the Israeli “occupiers.”
Unfortunately, moral atrocities are as old as the human race, as ancient and modern empires perpetrated them. A combination of the spread of Biblical and philosophic teachings showed the way out of that evil path. But recent events show that those barbarities are just below the surface. That their presence in the lowliest of souls is surpassed by their presence in their alleged superiors tells us much about our modern scientific age, possessing so little wisdom to join with its stunning knowledge.