Moral Clarity: The Hostage Murders in Gaza

You know, sometimes life makes things complicated, harder than they need to be. But other times? Sometimes the world throws something at you so plain, so ugly, that you can’t even pretend it’s anything else. That’s how I felt when I heard about the six hostages murdered by Hamas in Gaza. You don’t need to think too hard on it. There’s no high ground to stand on defenseless people have been killed. That’s just the truth – clear as a cloudless sky. You’ve lost the right to call yourself the victim. 

I felt that drop in my gut when I heard the news a week ago. You know the one – the heavy, sinking feeling like someone yanked the floor from under you. I’ve felt it before, too many times if I’m being honest. It reminded me of something I read about years ago – the Katyn Massacre during World War II. The Soviets lined up over 22,000 Polish officers, held them hostage, then shot them dead. Claimed it was necessary, part of some grand strategy. But you know how history works – it’s a long game, and it doesn’t care about excuses. Winston Churchill put it best: “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” You can’t wash the blood off murder. It sticks, no matter how much you try to justify it.

And that’s the thing about hostages. They’ve been used as pawns in someone else’s twisted game for centuries, but this? This was something different. Hamas says they’re fighting for liberation, for freedom. But what kind of freedom comes from killing people who can’t even defend themselves? That’s not freedom; that’s fear in its rawest form. Like Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” And from where I’m standing, that world’s already looking pretty dark.

I remember as a kid first reading about Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the French Army officer accused of treason. They didn’t say it was because he was Jewish, of course not. They said it was national security, protecting France from “foreign influence.” But you and I know what that really was. Anti-Semitism dressed up in a uniform, with a shiny label slapped on it. Just like now, when anti-Semitism puts on a new face and calls itself anti-Zionism or anti-colonialism. Don’t get me wrong, you can criticize Israel’s policies – fair game. But when you start calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, when you start acting like every Jew is responsible for it all – well, you may as well just come clean and admit what you are doing. You’re not fooling anyone.

Thing is, the world’s changed since World War II. Back then, anti-Semitism came at you with swastikas and death camps. These days? It’s slicker, smoother. You won’t hear the word “Jew” as much. Instead, it comes wrapped up in BDS movements and protest signs, boycotts that target Jewish businesses, Jewish students, anyone with even a whisper of connection to Israel. I heard today that a company is considering closing its Israeli sales office because companies they are calling literally ask if they have an office in Israel. It’s straight on economic blackmail and they’ll tell you it’s political, that it’s about justice. But we’ve seen this act before. In Soviet Russia, they didn’t say they were coming for the Jews either. They called it “anti-Zionism,” too. But they were shutting down synagogues, schools, and stomping out the freedom to believe in anything except what the state told you.

And that’s the real danger. Because when people start tolerating anti-Semitism, even in its new disguise, it’s not just the Jews who suffer. Look at the Weimar Republic—anti-Semitic rhetoric helped fuel the rise of the Nazis. Once they were in power, it wasn’t just Jewish freedoms they took away. They gutted everyone’s rights. Free speech? Gone. Women’s rights? A thing of the past. It was all swallowed up by that same darkness.

I can see history repeating itself. And if we don’t pay attention, we’re all going to feel the sting. There’s this tired old metaphor about Jews being the canary in the coal mine. Overused, maybe, but there’s truth in it. We’ve been the early warning sign for centuries, showing the world where it’s heading when hate is allowed to grow unchecked. When you let anti-Semitism slide, it’s not long before the rest starts crumbling—reproductive rights, religious freedom, the right to speak your mind. It all starts to fall apart when hate is left to run wild.

We can’t ignore the reality in front of us. Protestors defending the murder of hostages? There’s no twisting that into something righteous. You can’t tie it up in a nice little bow and call it anything other than what it is – terror. Plain and simple. If you’re still trying to justify it, well, you’re just doing backflips to avoid the truth.

The murder of those six hostages? It wasn’t strategy. It wasn’t necessary. It was a media moment and a fundraising tactic. A deliberate choice to send a message written in blood. That’s Hamas for you – willing to sacrifice human lives for a headline. That’s not resistance. That’s terror, and it strips away any claim they ever had to moral high ground.

We should not overlook the civilian deaths, either. Tens of thousands, sources say, have died in Gaza. But look closer, and you’ll see where those numbers come from – the Hamas Health Ministry, the same folks who count natural deaths, illnesses, and accidents as war casualties. They inflate the toll because every dead body is a political weapon.

And here’s what Hamas wants you to ignore: Hamas uses civilians as human shields. They store weapons in schools, hide behind hospitals, and launch rockets from neighborhoods packed with families. They know what happens when Israel retaliates. But the more civilians caught in the crossfire, the better the headlines for them. All while they sit in their bunkers, far from the chaos they create.

This isn’t just a tactical failure. It’s a moral one. Endangering your own people to make a political point? That’s a line no cause can justify. The deaths of these civilians? Tragic, but let’s not kid ourselves about who’s putting them in harm’s way.

This isn’t just about one conflict, or one region. The principle is universal: the deliberate targeting AND killing of innocents can never be justified. Not here, not anywhere. When people start allowing themselves to be swayed by those who try to spin these murders, that is when the darkness grows a little stronger.

Now, I’m no sage. I don’t have all the answers. But I do know this: there are moments in life when you need to stop and say, “This is wrong.” And this? This is one of those moments. Killing defenseless people, using civilians as shields—that’s not liberation. That’s terror. And we need to ask ourselves how far we’re willing to let it go before we stand up.

Where do we go from here? That’s the hard part. But I’ll tell you this: if you care about justice, you need to take a long, hard look at what you’re standing behind. The Palestinian cause? Sure, there’s plenty to talk about. But when you stand with Hamas after what they’ve done, you’re standing against everything you claim to support. You can’t build justice on the backs of innocent lives.

Edmund Burke said it best – “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” So maybe we can’t afford to sit back and let the light dim while darkness grows.

Candles lit for the hostages that were murdered

The world needs more light right now. More truth, more people willing to say, “Enough is enough.”