When political narratives are void of a moral context, and when arguments are made in support or against a person or an individual based not on logic but on race, ethnicity or religious affiliation, the diagnosis and the therapeutic antidote are oftentimes lost in the process. Ambiguity and moral equivalency are the mother’s milk of politicians and media “experts” who care more about creating a fiction to support a political position than they do about defining with precision the cause and effect of a policy, political engagement, or a military action based on evil motives. Evil motives always yield evil outcomes.
Moral ambiguity and logical imprecision are the tools of the devil. Can we not agree in our country that the Hamas actions on October 7th were evil and barbarous and should be condemned by all peoples in all countries. There is no excuse for defenseless women and children being tortured, butchered, raped, murdered, and then paraded through streets. Civilized people and nations understand this, and the rules of war, Geneva Convention and UN Charter condemn this. Hamas is not a nation or signatory to any of these documents, though an argument could be made that when they took over the administrative functions within the GAZA from the PLO they are functioning as a government.
Over the past 100 years, it was almost a rule of thumb that civilized people, when presented the facts about such atrocities, failed to acknowledge them. Idaho Senator Borah, Charles Lindbergh, Joseph Kennedy, and Neville Chamberlain denied the Holocaust and evidence of the final solution until the rest of the world saw what was happening. High people in high places failing to call out and confront evil always had disastrous consequences. Deniers of the famines in Russia after WW1 and II—80 million people, 8million starved or exterminated by Pol Pott in Cambodia. Mao’s Great Leap Forward from 1958-62 that resulted in the deaths of 50million people went almost unnoticed by the American and Western Press and media.
Joseph Stalin’s famous statement that “one death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic” may speak to the fact that because of cell phones and sophisticated equipment on the ground, maybe we are all becoming numb to violence.
I once had a young 16-year-old patient who shot himself in the groin severing his femoral artery. We were able to stop the bleeding in the emergency room, but prior to taking him to surgery he looked up to me and said, “this hurts”, like he was surprised. Afterwards he related to his psychiatrist that he watched violent video games 6-8 hours a day and it had never occurred to him that the acts of violence that were portrayed on his computer caused any pain. But the real pain is the pain that families and loved ones feel when they lose a brother, daughter, son, father, or mother. Many people it seems live in a psychological fugue state where we have a collective amnesia for the physical and emotional pains of violence. Most of the time these acts are proceeded by acts of anger and hate—not acts of love. Hate is the tool of the devil. Hate needs to be confronted and always called out for what it is.
Yesterday the United Nations had before the General Assembly a Resolution calling out Hamas for their barbarous and hateful killing. THE RESOLUTION FAILED! We have heard from “the squad” hateful words of support for Hamas. We are watching demonstrations in college campuses and in our cities supporting Hamas and their murderous acts of hate. 50 Columbia University Professors signed a document supporting Hamas. Why our government supports any institution or person who fails to call out hate is beyond me. Wouldn’t it be nice if our President and even our Governor called out the hateful acts of HAMAS for what they are—and what about calling out the people who support such hate.
Almost 3% of our population is Jewish. 1% are Muslims and about 70% identify as Christian. WE have 38 Representatives and Senators who identify as being Jewish in our Congress or about 7%. I would like to point out that we have more Muslim woman serving in our Congress than the Muslim woman who serve in all the legislative bodies in the Arab world. According to a January 10th Pew Research article all ethnic groups in the 118th Congress are represented at the same level or greater than they exist in the regular population. Hispanics are above 17% and Blacks right at 13%. Inclusiveness and accepting of others that look different than us or who practice a different religion is tolerated better in our country than any other country in the world. That’s a fact Jack.
We create victims in our culture. Victim hood has become a badge of honor and a credential for all kinds of unacceptable behavior. Claiming victim hood—whether the claim is real or not doesn’t matter, creates a situation where one is no longer responsible for their own actions. By accepting responsibility for who you are and how and why you act you create a path toward upward mobility and self-respect. To remain a victim only allows you to become dependent. All over the world we have created states of “victimhood”. Generations of people living in states of dependency on governments or agents of warring factions have never been given the opportunity to work for themselves, their families and to have a “sniff” of liberty in their lives. The people at the top of the food chain—government commissars, oligarchs, war lords, and politicians who require a state of dependency of those they rule over in order to maintain their own power and position, will forever continue to act in their own selfish interest. “If slavery isn’t wrong, then nothing else is.” — Abraham Lincoln.
Indentured servitude is wrong. Political imprisonment is wrong. Generational government dependency is wrong, and those people who suffer under the Yoke of Fascist, Communist Totalitarian Serfdom need to be liberated, not further subjugated. The people of Palestine need to be liberated and Hamas destroyed. In 1947 when the modern State of Israel came into being it was a third world country. Today it has a per capita standard of living equal to that of the USA. Almost 20% of people living in Israel claim some form of Palestinian ancestry. Of that group those that are citizens of Israel are living at the same level as their fellow citizens. Those Palestinians who have remained in Gaza are living in the same squalor as their grandparents lived under in 1947.
If one is stifled by a subsistence living in South Chicago, or The GAZA or Korea, the desire to be liberated should be focused on those who would liberate you, and on defeating the people who are comfortable with ruling over you. I say all this because the argument over the past few days has been that there should be a cease-fire in GAZA because the Palestinians living there are not Hamas. Hamas is our enemy because it is evil. Hamas must be eliminated because the people of Israel and the world needs to be protected from evil. The people of Gaza will never be able to “sniff liberty” until there is no more Hamas.
I call on all people in our country to reject evil. Reject Hamas. Reject anyone who doesn’t reject Hamas and evil. If not, we are playing into the hand of the devil.
