Running away from judgment in Israel

Today is the fourth day of the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, and already a new trend has arisen. People are rushing, not to judgment, but away from it. It’s as if they don’t want to admit that Muslims did wrong, or that Israel is in the right. Nearly everyone who has spoken in public to urge Israel to roll with this, has a hidden motive. Nor does it help matters to see reporters possibly staging events in order to enhance their own prestige.

Current state of the war

Any posture toward the people or government if Israel, requires judgment. The State of Israel has made a case. Five thousand rockets streamed out of launchers in Gaza and struck several targets in Israel. After that, several black-clad figures – not all of them wearing the characteristic green armbands of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Arabic Harakah al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah, abbreviated HAMAS) – perpetrated some atrocious acts. They then made a point of posting video of these acts, shouting “God is great!” in Arabic, and parading bodies in the streets.

In the hours immediately after the war began, HAMAS elements controlled Ashkelon and several small towns in the Negev. At the moment they control nothing beyond the Gasa Strip. The Israel Defense Forces have cut off electricity, food, fuel and water. Furthermore, the Israeli Air Force has launched bombing raids in Gaza City and other towns. The IDF promises a massive ground offensive, but at the time of this writing, that hasn’t happened.

Over 1000 Israelis – and fourteen Americans – have died so far, and another 2000 are in hospital. Twenty Americans and an indeterminate number of Israelis are now missing. Someone identifying himself as HAMAS has threatened executions of the hostages – on live broadcast – if any further air raids take place “without proper warning.”

The U.S. Navy has despatched the supercarrier USS Gerald R. Ford CVN-78, and a large battle group, to the Mediterranean. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (ER-doh-wan) of Turkey accuses the U.S. of planning “massacres in Gaza.”

A judgment to make

The overwhelming – but not unanimous – consensus is that HAMAS, as the “army” of Gaza, committed several atrocities and plans others. Here is where judgment comes in. No one can defend, or wants the world to think it’s defending, atrocity. Atrocity is gratuitous and extravagant violence, often involving painful execution or humiliation of a captive (living or dead), for spite. Any army that comes out of its territory and commits acts of that kind, deserves no quarter. Indeed it forfeits any consideration the people it guards might otherwise deserve.

This explains why the Islamic Republic of Iran now disclaims any active role in starting this war. But it does not explain why they congratulate HAMAS in the gains everyone thought they made.

An apparent failure of judgment has brought tremendous opprobrium on the present United States government. For example: on the day of the attack, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken properly observed that a country under attack has the right to defend itself.

But next day, he called for a cease-fire, in a post he subsequently deleted.

Now three groups of people have come forward, begging the rest of the world’s people not to judge HAMAS. Those three are:

• Their fellow Muslims,
• Persons on the left who have not sympathized with the State of Israel since shortly after its War for Independence, if ever, and
• Persons on the right who believe Israel is stealing the substance of Gentile taxpayers throughout the world.

Concerning hidden motives

Each of these three groups has a different motive. Islam, as CNAV noted yesterday, is a “revisionist religion.” Worse, the Fighting Words of the Koran speak openly of killing to advance the faith.

Fight and slay the infidels wheresoever ye find them! Seize them! Besiege them! Ambush them with every ambush! But if they repent, and follow Allah, and pay the poor-due, then let them go their way. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful! Surah 9:5

Ironically, the second country to recognize the State of Israel (after the U.S.A.) was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But after the State of Israel started moving away from the total socialism of the original Labor Party, the Soviets withdrew their support. They famously supplied planes and tanks and small arms to Jamal abd al-Nasr of Egypt. Who brokered an alliance to attack Israel in 1967, with disastrous results – for the Arabs. Who can forget the iconic photograph of an IDF soldier brandishing a captured Kalashnikov rifle, gracing the cover of Life? Ever since then, the political left has been anti-Israel. That some of the most prominent Democrats are Jews, doesn’t seem to matter. The Democrats have also taken in several Muslims, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who flies a Palestinian flag outside her office.

Sadly, a new anti-Semitism has crept into the councils of the political right. This began with Patrick J. Buchanan and former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Humble, Texas). (The latter, in 2009, accused Israel of creating HAMAS.)

Today it features personalities like Nicholas J. Fuentes and Keith Woods, an influencer from Ireland. They start with the observation that most Jews outside Israel are leftists – and then assume all of them are.

The imperative against judgment

None of these people, today, can defend the atrocious acts several X users have described. (And of which the apparent perpetrators have shared to the platform.) So they fall back on one of two alternative explanations:

• They never happened, or
• Israeli special forces did it to their own people.

For example, consider this description of the death of one Shani Louk, a German girl who attended a music festival.

Today The Daily Beast carried a report insisting that Shani Louk is alive. Allegedly she is in a Gaza hospital and in critical condition.

Immediately several users disputed the account of her being alive.

Now consider this report, about the recovery of forty infant corpses, some headless.

Apparently, the Turkish news agency Anadolu denies that report, saying the IDF “lacks confirmation.”

The Irish influencer Keith Woods insists that Israel is generating “atrocity propaganda,” and left this thread to explain the concept:

His obvious conclusion: don’t believe any account of atrocities by HAMAS elements. Of course, he forgets that the maxim about people lying about the atrocities of others, works both ways. Furthermore, his example of the Nayirah testimony concerning Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait is substantially different from the present case. Substantiation of atrocious acts comes from more than one witness.

Afraid to judge

Again, all this goes to show that many people are afraid of the world’s judgment of events in Israel. Whether from Muslim, leftist, or now some rightist sources, these people know they can’t defend the reported atrocious acts. No one would ever believe the victims deserved what they got. So they must deny either that they occurred or that HAMAS did it.

There are four ways I can defend murder. Number one, it wasn’t murder – suicide or accidental. Number two, you didn’t do it. Number three, you were legally justified, say in the protection of your home, or self-defense. Number four, the killing was excusable. Actor James Stewart, as Paul Biegler, Attorney at law, in Anatomy of a Murder (1959).

The problem for HAMAS is that they don’t fit into either of the latter two categories, and they know it. That also goes for their sympathizers – and those who feel that Israel is trying to trick them into war. So they’re trying to fit these acts into one of the first two categories. Or perhaps they’re trying for a Zeroth Category: it never happened.

Yet we have another problem. Consider this CNN segment featuring correspondent Clarissa Wood.

Today “Jeremy from The Quartering” critically analyzed that footage, and found it false. Notice that neither Miss Woods nor any member of her crew are wearing protective gear, not even helmets!

Conclusion: she staged the segment for her own personal benefit.

So yes, many people are afraid of the judgment, by the world, of the atrocious acts so many have reported. But at least one reporter flat-out lied. How many other reporters told similar lies? This complicates judgment for those who wish to apply it.