One is brought to silence by evil afoot in the Middle East. Stories, photographs, and heavy hearts, many grieving so much they may never heal, cause the heart to ache. What can we do? Oppose evil, comfort the grieving, protect the innocent, and be wary of hate.
What did Hamas terrorists, financed by Iran and coordinating with Hezbollah, mean to achieve? They meant to terrorize, inflict fear, sow hate, and commence war. They did.
What is the right response, tactically and later? If the four objectives above are right, then Israel must oppose evil by aggressively rooting out Hamas’ terror cells.
Tracing this war back to Iran and Hezbollah, who clearly financed, trained, and coordinated this assault, those two also must pay. Iran’s terror cannot stand.
How does a civilized world confront such evil? As with all terror, if deterrence fails, isolation, containment, and force are needed to cage the belligerent.
Those responses come with risks and costs. Going in, Americans need to prepare for less global stability. We should expect more incitement and possible terror ahead.
Drop-down: Anyone who cares about the Middle East, for that matter, global stability, should exercise greater vigilance, preparedness, and empathy and watch for rising hate.
Let me unpack that last sentence. Vigilance and preparedness are rational responses to an elevated risk of terror worldwide; we are not immune, even here, as we know.
Empathy is comforting those who grieve, praying for them, and understanding their pain. The number of people who grieve is high and will grow and may become incalculable as this war expands.
Sadly, Geneva Convention notwithstanding, wars pay little mind to the innocent; this one is no exception. Just as Israeli and American families mourn the loss of innocent children and families, innocent Palestinian families will do the same.
A heartfelt, faith-based understanding that wars are tragic and that more tragedy lies ahead should give good people pause, a reason to offer empathy and pray for peace.
Now, I come to the last, that bit about being wary of hate, those who espouse it against the Jewish or Palestinian people, Israelis or Arabs, those who harbor it, feed it, tolerate it in their hearts. Hate can be fatal, an obsession, a poison.
Hate comes to no good, even if that proportionate response to evil – “eye for an eye” – is necessary and shows up in both Jewish and Arab traditions and texts.
Christ’s message, forgive rather than retaliate, is nearly impossible in some human conditions and requires superhuman faith beyond most of us. In human terms, it does not deter terror. Yet indulging hate is dangerous and often consumes the hater.
So, where does that leave us? We must think hard about how and why hate grows, how excesses feed excesses, and where open-ended, unfenced hatred of a group leads.
The answer is: It leads nowhere good. Place yourself behind the “veil of ignorance,” imagine you are a thoughtful, peace-loving Jewish or Palestinian soul, perhaps Christian, maybe Muslim, or any of several subdivisions of those faiths. Imagine you just want to raise your family and live in peace, no war.
The problem is that no one hears you or sees you in the fog of war. Wars are perpetrated against nations, not the few who harbor hate, start them, prefer killing.
The concern at this moment, caution to be wary of hate, is about history. We humans easily find in war hating evil becomes hating a people. We indulge our worst, not best instincts, lose perspective, and, once lost, find it hard to retrieve.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
