Terrorism Is a Moral Choice, Not an Expression of “Spiritual Misery”

Reflecting on recent terrorist attacks around the world, Cynthia Ozick recalls hearing a prominent novelist a decade ago arguing the need to understand the “humanity” of terrorists. To Ozick, this sort of reasoning—perhaps particularly tempting for writers of fiction—leads only to moral muddle:

[N]otions of . . . impoverishment, grievance, impotence at the hands of powerful faraway forces, humiliation, spiritual misery (a fresh coinage particularly worthy of the novelist’s art) . . . have become unassailably commonplace to the point of vacuous triteness. And more: terror can now be counted among matters urgently spiritual.

What comes of these divinings is, finally, a confusion of categories. The Paris atrocities, the Jerusalem stabbings, the San Bernardino shootings are not chapters in a novel to be intensively parsed. A novel is a cultural artifact. A human mind, whatever culture it is born into, is privately, even instinctively, free to enact individual will. Everyone . . . can choose whether to murder or not to murder. . . .

At bottom, an open-hearted willingness to understand everyone is an appalling distraction from the intrinsic depravity of the act of premeditated murder. The evil deed speaks for itself; to search out the evildoer’s “backstory,” to look for some exculpating raison d’être, is no more useful or edifying or moral than an attraction to pornography.

Read more at Weekly Standard

More about: Cynthia Ozick, Literature, Morality, Politics & Current Affairs, Terrorism

For the Sake of Gaza, Defeat Hamas Soon

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, Joseph Biden