The Greatest Endorsement of Israel’s Moral Character Comes from Hamas

He who saves one life saves the world entire.
The Talmud

While Yahya Sinwar—the mastermind behind the planning and executing of the October 7th terror attack in Southern Israel—sat in an Israeli prison for over two decades, he used his time to study Israeli society, learn Hebrew, and read Israeli newspapers. Sinwar was arrested in 1989 and sentenced to four consecutive life sentences for taking two Israeli soldiers hostage and murdering them, as well as murdering four Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.

Sinwar helped establish Al-Majd, Hamas’ internal security service, and earned the nickname “Butcher of Kahn Younis” for his role in dismembering Palestinians with machetes and razor blades who failed to comply with the strictly religious and social morals of Hamas.

In 2006, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas and spent the next five years as a hostage in Gaza. In prison, Sinwar worked on the prisoner exchange in which Shalit was eventually freed—even choosing which Palestinian high-profile terrorists would be traded for the lone Israeli soldier. In October 2011, 1,027 Palestinian prisoners—including Sinwar—were exchanged for Gilad Shalit. In the process, Sinwar learned a valuable truth about Jewish virtue from the Talmud: “He who saves one life saves the world entire.” This Jewish ethic is known as Pikuach Nephesh and comes from Jewish law (Halakha). The principle of Pikuach Nephesh is central to Judaism, supersedes most other Jewish laws, and is at the core of Jewish thought. In Hebrew, it means “preserving or saving life” and is the foundational ethic in Jewish understanding of the value of human life.

For Sinwar, the bestial butcher, this Jewish moral ethic of preserving life was and is viewed not as a strength but a weakness. Sinwar, a man—no, an animal—deprived of even the slightest human kindness, sees in this Jewish law to preserve and save lives the Achilles heel of Israel.

In a twisted way, Sinwar’s understanding of this Jewish moral ethic was the strategy behind the slaughtering of 1,200 Jewish innocents on October 7th while simultaneously taking over two hundred Jewish citizens captive. Sinwar was betting on two things. The first was the moral frailty of the Western world, and the second was the firm Jewish moral ethic of preserving the lives of the hostages. Sinwar calculated that world opinion would quickly turn against Israel should it retaliate—knowing that much of the world shares in his maniacal hatred of Zionism and that the Israelis would be so horrified by the massacre they would trade thousands of Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons as well as Israel’s future security for the safe return of the hostages.

Knowing the West’s decay and lack of courageous moral clarity, Sinwar’s first appraisal was a safe bet. A day after the October 7th massacre, we witnessed celebrations in Sydney, Australia, where large crowds at the Opera House chanted, “Gas the Jews!” Hamas atrocities were celebrated in Berlin, London, San Fransisco, Toronto, and Paris. The Black Lives Matter movement promoted a picture of a Para Glider as a symbol of freedom. After pictures of Jewish hostages were posted on walls and telephone polls, they were torn down by pathological and depraved Hamas sympathizers in every European and American capital. Some in the Western media called the Hamas butchers “Freedom Fighters,” and American college feminists celebrated the rape of Israeli women by chanting, “Rape is Resistance.” Students at George Washington University proclaimed, “Glory to our Hamas Martyrs!” A few days after the October 7th attack, 800 “Legal” Scholars from around the world signed a public statement accusing Israel of war crimes.

At Harvard University, a task force was created to provide a safe space for pro-Hamas students. When the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT sat before Congress, they could not say that calling for the genocide of Jews was hate speech—“It depends on the context,” they said. Not to be outdone, the ever “morally pure” BBC compared Jewish toddlers held in Hamas tunnels to teenage foot soldiers. After an anti-Israel protestor in Los Angeles beat an elderly Jewish man to death, NBC proclaimed, “Man dies after hitting head in a pro-Israel rally.” At Columbia University, Professor Joseph Masad proclaimed the murder of 1,200 Israelis was “Awesome.” At Cornell, Professor Russel Rickford announced that for him, the massacre of Jews was “energizing and exhilarating.” At Princeton, crowds of students shouted, “Globalize the intifada.” This Fall, on college campuses in the Western world, students are chanting, “We are Hamas,” Intifada Revolution,” and “Long live Hamas.” In the Christian world, Pastors have called for the boycott of Israel. Rev. Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Christmas Church in Bethlehem in the West Bank commended Hamas fighters in his October 8th sermon. He exclaimed that he was “amazed at the strength of the Palestinian man who defied his siege.” In all of this, Sinwar’s calculation proved correct—he understood the world in many quarters had been given over to his perverted barbarism and would gleefully celebrate the rape, murder, and kidnapping of innocent Israelis.

Sinwar’s second wager, however, proved flawed. The Jewish moral duty to preserve and save life has not led to the release of thousands of Palestinian terrorists as Sinwar hoped. So far, Israel has not followed the same pattern as in 2011, when a thousand terrorists were exchanged for one Israeli life. Israel fears that by giving into Sinwar’s demands, there will be more October 7th’s to come, and hundreds if not thousands of Jewish lives will be at risk. Not to mention the lives of Palestinian citizens used as human shields to fuel the flames of Sinwar’s religious zealotry. It is here that Sinwar made a grave error. He miscalculated the broader context of Pikuach Nephesh’s moral ethic, including preserving future life. So far, Israel believes the total and complete destruction of Sinwar’s Hamas is the best option to secure a lasting peace. War is an awful business, but as someone familiar with war’s foreboding darkness once said: “…once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war, there is no substitute for victory.” This ideal, though unpopular in a world unwilling to confront tyranny and bring the war against evil to its necessary conclusion, is held by Israel.

So, Hamas’ military strategy depended on the world’s moral depravity and Israel’s profound moral virtue—a morality that Sinwar sees as a weakness and holds no aspiration to attain. This being said, the most significant endorsement of Israel’s moral character comes from Hamas. It’s tragic the rest of the world, for the most part, doesn’t realize that Israel may be the last remaining morally courageous nation willing to stop the march of radical Islamism promulgated by Iran and her proxies. In defeating the culture of death valued by Sinwar, Israel will save many lives. The Talmudic saying from the wisdom of Jewish sages is deeply significant—“He who saves one life saves the world entire.” The butcher of Kahn Younis failed to see that by saving their country—the one—from the existential threat of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, Israel might, in turn, save the world entire. This is an ethically just decision a warped mind like Sinwar and the global audience that pays homage to his atrocities will never comprehend.