Babies, Moral Equivalence and the Cycle of Violence.

By Patrick Hall

Many are youthful idiots. That is to turn the familiar phrase (Useful idiots) attributed to Lenin and Stalin, who viewed the classes of individuals who impetuously supported the glorious revolution, that brought about the murderous nightmare of the USSR, Communist China, and other collectivist political philosophies. The Useful Idiot nomenclature pre-dated Marx, Lenin, or even Leon Trotsky. It was a staple of the political cannon dispensed during the Reign of Terror under Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution.

There were over 1400 Israeli civilians murdered by Hamas, which included babies and the elderly.  This would be equivalent to the killing of 40 thousand American civilians if this madness (which is sanctioned by the way in Hamas’ 1988 Charter), had occurred on American soil.  The not-so-surprising support of these Religious nut-jobs by many in the West, including college students, and their professors, as well as a sizable number of the Progressive polity, screams a systemic moral confusion. Their acquiescence often masked a mentored, if not carefully groomed, hatred of Israel and the United States. TikTok, the CCP-operated social media platform, has been extremely successful at influencing the so-called “thinking” of many young people here in the United States and abroad. Many of them without hesitancy support the gruesome butchery of Jewish citizens on Oct 7th.  They see Hamas as freedom fighters challenging the oppressive, occupational apartheid State of Israel. To say that these supporters of Hamas are dangerously naïve and delusional would be an understatement. It is almost as inane when you hear supporters of Hamas caution Israel to exhibit a “proportional response” to the butchery of its citizens. Question? What is proportionate when someone is trying to kill you and destroy your Nation?

It is moral confusion touted under the auspices of moral equivalence. There is no moral equivalence between Israel's decades-long fight for its survival and the blatant, murder of civilians which is a trademark of Radical Islamic Terrorist. It echoes the nonsense many of us heard from the political left after the 9/11 attacks. Although most mainstream media outlets tried to hide the videos of cheering Moslem crowds in New York City and elsewhere after the Twin Towers fell; the socio-cultural anomie, the moral equivalence idiocy was on full display.
Let me be even more specific. Moral equivalence in the minds of those in the Western political class, who still support and exhibit an almost subhuman encouragement for these Islamic killers, means either a terminal case of moral confusion or more likely a hate for Israel, and a “taught” animosity or malignance against Western culture. Once again, they are useful idiots on steroids.

As one Middle Eastern Political Psychologist pointed out, moral equivalence has two purposes.  The first is to enable the morally and socio-politically confused to hide their confusion. Secondly, this is more likely in the case of some Democrats like Rashida Tlaib(D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and even Barrack Obama; it allows them to cloak or mask their immorality and outright hatred for Israel and the United States. It is satanic equivocation at its finest, on par with the devil’s apprentice in C.S. Lewis’ book, The Screwtape Letters. But it is not fictional.  It is a secular dogma, a pseudo-science in the talking points of the cultural left, or those who wish to “fundamentally transform America and Western societies.”  The hermeneutics or principles governing their anamorphic thinking are largely godless.

Two examples or assertions will suffice in the ongoing Israeli-Islamic clash of civilizations.
Palestinian babies are as precious as Israeli babies! In the latest Israeli-Hamas war Muslim supporters of the Palestinians, the Western Left, and “brilliant individuals at our Universities,” often parrot this quasi-if not spurious cultural-ethic observation.  Vice-President Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) along with Professor Cornel West, a lifelong Liberal Progressive running for the Presidency have consistently employed the precious children argument, along with the cycle of violence myth in their interpretation of the tragedy taking place in the Holy Land. That the lives of Palestinian children are as precious as those of Israeli children is a given. But it is hollow, if not feckless given that virtually no Israeli or Israeli supporter has ever claimed otherwise. At times, it is even worse than hollow.  It is a nice-sounding or sugar-coated way to attack Israel and its supporters.

One has to think would those who make the “all babies are precious” assertion have made it during World War II? After all, it was certainly a given that Japanese and German children were as precious as American children. However, what purpose or goal would such thinking or mindset have served at the time? Would it have meant that Americans or the British shouldn’t have dropped any bombs on Japan or Germany? I don’t think so! The statement of children or babies being more precious would have been nothing more than pro-German or pro-Japanese sentiment. Here it is important to cite the autobiography of President Eisenhower, who was the Commander of Allied Forces during World War II.  He opined that the killing of Japanese and German civilians in places like Hiroshima and Dresden was unavoidable, if not inevitable. However, it aided in ending the horrific event called World War II.  (To interject, it is also estimated that hundreds of British, American, and other Allied Prisoners of War, were also killed during the strikes on Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.)

This calculated violence on the part of Allied forces helped save an exponentially greater number of Japanese, German, British, and American lives.

In regards to the “cycle of violence,” it is hard to imagine a more anodyne description of the Israel-Hamas war. Did anyone ever use this as a description of World War II? Why not? There certainly was a cycle of violence. But no one ever used the term, because it would have been an immoral description of what was happening. A cycle of violence was not the problem! Japanese and German violence was the problem.

Turning to the ongoing Israeli-Hamas conflict, the problem is not a cycle of violence.  It is Palestinian or Hamas violence. Without the stated elimination or extinction of Israel, which is a prevailing polemic within Hamas’ 1988 Charter, there would be no cycle of violence.