The moral deficiency of the western world

Concentrating when images of horror and evil enter my mind is difficult. As much as I try to focus on my studies and my readings, fresh pain hits my gut like a fist. A year ago today, I was minding my own business, planning another trip to Israel, when the horror of unmitigated hate found its way on a tranquil weekend, changing my and millions of others’ perspectives of what evil looks like. All the paintings of Renaissance masters would never capture the face of evil as it gleefully rode through southern Israel, killing without remorse and discrimination.  The obscenity of it all was captured on film purposely taken by the murderers for posterity as they yelled the name of G-D triumphantly while gunning down civilians, families, and whatever stood in their way. If that was not enough to satisfy the beast in these monsters, they dragged people through the streets for captivity. Among the jubilation of evil were members of UNRWA, a UN group pretending to be the self-righteous salvation to Gazans. After the immediate cold shower of horror, the world stood still.

A year later, hostages are still missing, including children. But that does not seem to move even an iota of the antisemite and Israel-hating barometer.  Within days, the monsters became victims, and the likes of the UN and the EU vilified the real victims and Israel. A psychopathic reversal of a moral compass that would be put under the microscope of ethical study in years to come. But now, the narrative of antisemites has been cleverly disguised as activism to permit and propagate more antisemitism and more hatred toward Israel.

Today, we should be reminded of how the forces of evil managed to infiltrate mainstream media, governments, and activist groups and insidiously divert attention away from the massacres committed. An impotent world leadership in the US and Europe sits back, watching the rise of Jewish hatred and antisemitism in their countries, and blames Israel for defending itself against the forces of evil who would like nothing more than Israel’s annihilation.  This lack of a moral backbone is just as insidious and evil as the massacres because they silently condone and appease to fulfill an agenda of a more insidious narrative of peace.

As a non-Israeli with strong ties to Israel, I cannot contain the anger I feel against this example of Western obliviousness. This could be 1938 again when political weasels like Chamberlain and, to some extent, FDR ignored the growing signs of Jewish persecution in Europe and hid behind nationalist interests and fake aspirations of peace.  Even when images of roundups in predominantly Jewish areas found their way to Chamberlain’s desk and FDR’s Oval Office, they chose to ignore the signs and wait for “diplomacy,” which is another term for doing nothing. By the time both countries woke up, Hitler had taken most of Europe and deported millions of Jews—a stain on the political morality of that time, which allowed the Holocaust to happen. Besides killing six million Jews, the Nazis killed several million Romas, homosexuals, and handicapped people.  But the obscenity of a blind eye did not end there.

As images of atrocities in Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, and other camps emerged, the world stood still again. Silent again, pretending that it was surprised, astonished, disgusted, and perplexed on how it could have happened. But that did not last long either. As Jewish refugees, primarily orphaned children, traumatized, hungry, and afraid, were “liberated,” the world still did not want them.  Ships loaded with Jews were bounced back and forth from Germany to France and back again to Germany, roaming the Mediterranean trying to get to their ancestral home. The British attempted to stop ships docking in Haifa; they shot or rammed them in an attempt to appease the Arabs. Seems familiar?

One would think that “never again” meant that antisemitism would never resurface. It did, and on steroids, and with the blessing of the UN, whose security council is made up of criminal nations like China, Russia, Guyana, Sierre Leone, Mozambique, and Malta (this country had a journalist blown up in 2017 by individuals close to the sitting Prime Minister because she exposed them in the Panama Papers). Pretending to be morally upright, these nations ignore their garbage but hurl it readily at Israel. The US has done very little to curb antisemitism as it buries it under the convenient freedom of speech, and the EU, the epitome of cowardice and weakness, allowed the infiltration of millions of Middle Eastern refugees without vetting and are now in permanent terrorism flux without resolution. Whether humane or stupid, countries like Germany are now scrambling to deal with ISIS operatives attacking civilians in open markets. Germany is now deporting suspects, but it is ten years too late. The damage is done, and complacency mistakenly taken for tolerance has cost lives.  The last attack in Germany was at a Tolerance Fest!!! Go figure.

We have come a full circle of incompetence and pathetic leadership demanding a ceasefire from the country that has been under attack for weeks from all fronts and which was physically invaded a year ago to the detriment of 1200 murdered victims and 300 hostages.  One hundred-plus hostages remain in captivity, conditions unknown because the International Red Cross (IRC), another useless organization, has yet to demand a visit or visit them.  The IRC claims that they cannot visit hostages without permission. I guess the IRC needs permission from Hamas, the terrorists, to visit hostages taken against every international law on the books.  The same organization, in the same breath, appeals for access to Palestinian detainees in adherence to international law and the “baseline principle” of the protection of civilians.  The latter was not referring to Israelis but to Gazans. The IRC is concerned about Gazan civilian protection but did not hold the terrorists responsible for the “baseline principle” of civilian protection in Israel. The IRC, like the UN and other irrelevant organizations of their ilk, has yet to hold Hamas accountable for the misery in Gaza prior to or post-October 7^th. That would change the narrative against Israel.

October 7, 2023, changed the landscape of our lives as we woke up to a deceptive, hypocritical world urging tolerance but condoning violence. A world that has sunken into the depravity of moral incompetence and convenient political rhetoric that has permitted antisemitism and hatred under the pretense of peaceful solutions. Such a perversive narrative has relegated Israel to a terrorist state, and the terrorist states to victims.  A year later, instead of anger and condemnation for the massacres and attacks on Israel, appeasement without any foresight into the future of Israel or the region is the narrative. Israel must prevail, because the alternative is unimaginable.

International Committee of the Red Cross. October 6, 2024. Israel: A year of loss and pain | International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc.org)

International Committee of the Rd Cross. October 6, 2024. Gaza: A year of loss and pain | International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc.org)