INTO THE FRAY: Inverted morality-The eclipse of good by evil

By MARTIN SHERMAN

Today’s grotesque endeavors to justify Hamas’s bestial barbarism should be repudiated and ridiculed.

 “We will tear down the border and we will tear out their hearts from their bodies [and]…eat the livers”  Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar April 6, 2018. 

It would be so nice if something made sense for a change – ? Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

Ever since the appalling atrocities perpetrated last October by the Islamo-fascist terror organization, Hamas, it seems that all criteria of decency, and rationality along with accepted standards of good and evil, have been turned on their head. Political activism, generally geared toward promoting gender equality and socio-cultural tolerance, has been thrown jarringly into reverse gear.

Inconceivable

Given the barbaric acts of brutality committed by Hamas—to the undisguised glee, and often enthusiastic complicity of the general population of the Strip—it is inconceivable that any person, professing to subscribe to even a semblance of a humanitarian credo would consider paying any heed to the claims of the villainous savages, who violated even the most fundamental norms of civilized behavior.

Accordingly, no weight ought to be accorded the demands of Hamas. Indeed, it is unthinkable that the organization or its adherents should be afforded even an iota of consideration.

Hamas has raped and ravaged; murdered and mutilated, tortured and tormented infants and invalids, toddlers and teens with a ferocity and malevolence unfathomable to civilized minds. Accordingly, why would Hamas’s demands be accorded any weight in securing the release of the Israeli hostages? After all, the entire existence of Hamas is nothing but a litany of gruesome war crimes. Indeed. every projectile fired indiscriminately at Israeli targets, purposely aimed at killing Israeli civilians, both before and after October 7^th, every Israeli civilian forcibly abducted from their homes and incarcerated for months in Gaza, every Israeli tortured and executed in captivity in Gaza since October the 7th, all these comprise a cruel cavalcade of Hamas’s incontestable war crimes.

Perverse & perverted

Accordingly, it would be reasonable to assume that Hamas’s position on how Israel should respond to the pernicious procession of war crimes perpetrated against it—and how to redress them—would be totally irrelevant, especially for those who profess to subscribe to a credo of sanctifying “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”

Yet, astonishingly, what we are seeing is just the reverse: A perverse concern for Hamas’s demands—and the welfare of their malign adherents—is now not only dominating the debate on the fighting in Gaza, but also largely determining attitudes toward the negotiations on the release of the abductees held in captivity by the Islamist thugs,

The treatment of the illegally kidnapped Israelis has been bestial and the conditions they are being held in, below sub-human. They are denied even the most minimal levels of sanitation nutrition, and medical treatment, any access to, or care by, international humanitarian organizations such as the (hopelessly biased and inept) Red Cross. They are being incarcerated incommunicado deep in dank, damp dungeons cut off from all and any contact with the outside world, certainly from family and friends.

Given the heinous nature of Hamas, its utter disregard, not only for international law, and for elementary norms of human decency but any semblance of accepted behavior in civilized circles, no merit can, or should be, be ascribed to their demands.

Grotesque endeavors

The organization and its aberrant adherents must be hounded mercilessly; hellfire and brimstone relentlessly rained down on them. The grotesque endeavors to justify its barbarism should be repudiated and ridiculed.

Any sign that its inhumanity could be accorded any gains will only induce further inhumanity.

That is an outcome that cannot be countenanced.

 Martin Sherman spent seven years in operational capacities in the Israeli defense establishment. He is the founder of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a member of the Habithonistim-Israel Defense & Security Forum (IDSF) research team, and a participant in the Israel Victory Project.