Introduction:

Many people have strong opinions on the current Israeli-Islamic Jihadist (I-IJ) conflict.  I am going to use Islamic Jihadist as synonymous with Hamas, since that is exactly what Hamas’ core ideology is build upon.  Just about everyone acknowledges the wrongness of the initial Oct. 7^th Hamas Islamic Jihadist (IJ) attack that murdered about 1,200 Israeli civilians including babies, children, women and peaceful concert goers.  Other people are rightly concerned about Palestinian civilian casualties caused by Israel’s army as it seeks to destroy Hamas.  Can moral clarity be gained on this conflict?  The answer is largely ‘yes’, or, at a minimum, major false views can and should be eliminated to arrive at a ‘best’ position.

In this article, I am going to state facts and truth…not ‘my truth’ or some other relativistic or subjective perspective.

Here are some important ethics concepts for your consideration – intrinsic value and extrinsic value.  Intrinsically valuable means valuable in itself, for its own sake, such as happiness or beauty.  Extrinsically valuable means valuable as a means to something else, such as the pen that can be used to write a letter.  I am going to apply these concepts to human beings.  So, for example, human beings are intrinsically valuable, meaning they have an essential value of both their existential being and potential.  All people have inherent, intrinsic value as human beings and all people have the potential to be valuable human being based on their behavior.  The more virtuous (or good) a person is, the more extrinsically valuable they are.  And inverse is true as well.  The more evil/bad a person is, the less extrinsically valuable they are.

All people should value intrinsic human life above all other things.  Just because from the ultimate objective intrinsic perspective all human life is equally valuable, does NOT mean that all human beings are equally extrinsically valuable since that value is based on why and how they live their lives.  All human life cannot rationally be viewed as equally extrinsically valuable.  To attempt to do so destroys any rational, coherent concept of ethics and morality.  For example, to say that the life of a man who seeks to help people is extrinsically equal to a man who actively harms people, is objectively wrong.

Unfortunately, current views of relativism call into question that simple, objective truth (Please see my articles on relativism – Desperately Needed Correction ).  We can all agree that the intrinsic potential of all human life is equal, but once an adult person starts exercising their will in life, they start to affect their extrinsic value – the chose their spot on the extrinsic value continuum, from destructive to extremely beneficial.  This truth has a direct bearing on the I-IJ conflict.

Another important concept that needs to be addressed is the fact that bigotry is wrong and should be universally condemned and those individuals who are infected with it ought to be strongly encouraged to renounce their bigotry.  Here is a sound, objective definition of bigotry – holding strong, emotionally charged, and negative beliefs about people based on non-moral characteristics such as ethnicity, nationality, country of birth, language or non-moral cultural or physical characteristics like clothing style or hair style.  Bigotry is a major problem in this world causing much conflict.  For clarification, racism is a form of bigotry based on people’s skin color.

Any groups that have formal statements or writings which state bigoted or worse violence-justifying beliefs, or whose leaders regularly make bigoted statements or call for force or violence against others, ought to be strongly renounced and condemned and every effort should be made by all people who are aware of the group to dissolve the group by any and all mean’s necessary, with using violence as an absolute last, self-defense option.

Main Body

In regard to the I-P conflict, many people start talking about the history of the region to justify one side or the other- essentially it is an argument about land – whose land is whose.  I urge the readers to research good, objective sources for the history on the region.  Please consider the following facts:

1. The Jew’s have a reasonable and valid historical basis to claim the very small piece of land they call Israel – equally valid compared to Arab-Muslim claims (AM). Even if you disagree with this point, surely you can agree that given the way Jews have been historically treated (e.g. WW2 Nazi persecution and killing about 6 million Jews), it would be reasonable that they have their own land and nation-state.  Furthermore, the land they received and called Israel is both relatively small and is not rich with natural resources like oil.
2. While not perfect, the Jewish state has consistently NOT been the initiating aggressor in conflicts about who owns/controls or has “rights to” various lands in the region. This point is validated by historical events:
   1. 1947 Israel accepts the U.N. partition plan of giving most of the disputed land to the Arabs. The day after that, the Arabs attack Israel and attempt to destroy all Jews in the land.
   2. In May 1967 and without real provocation, Egypt closes the Straights of Tiran to Israeli shipping, thereby cutting off an essential trade route for the nation of Israel. This was such a serious act of provocation that American President Dwight D. Eisenhower had promised the U.S. would consider that action as an “act of war”.  S. President Lyndon Johnson said of Egypt’s closure of the Straights of Tiran, “If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed.”   Israel reacted to the hostility and won the military conflict with the coalition of Arab nations by capturing the Golan Heights and the Siani Pennisula.
   3. In 1973, a coalition of Arab nations initiated an attack on Israel on the Jews holy day of Yom Kippur. Once again, Israel beat back and defeated the Arab armies.  Once again, Israel was in a position to destroy Arab nations and chose not to.  Israel subsequently gave ALL of the land captured in the 1967 war back to the Arab Muslim nations.
3. Arab-Muslim (A-M) states surrounding Israel have many hundreds of times more land than Israel has and some of those states have vast oil-wealth far exceeding the Jews in Israel, and yet all those A-M ‘brethren’ nations and people show little concern or interest in saving the Palestinians from what they call ‘oppression’ from the Jewish state by taking them into their countries.

Those who dispute those facts are ideologically driven – not fact driven – and cannot engage in a fact-based, coherent debate regarding the I-IJ issue.  Wanting something to be true does not make it true.  Contradicting facts or confusing facts does not make the facts go away.

THE Main Point

Here is THE most important factor that should guide any rational discussion about this issue or ANY issue involving the conflict of people, either individuals or collectively:

1. The motivation of WHY we do something is the most important factor. All rational judgments regarding right or wrong are based on motivation, and all rational justice systems are based on motivation.  The why motivation IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INNOCENCE/RIGHTNESS AND GUILT/WRONGNESS.
   1. For example, if I am innocent and I kill someone in self-defense – trying to prevent them from wrongfully killing me – that motivation is justifiable and almost universally considered morally right or not morally wrong. If, however, I kill someone because I hate them – especially for things about them that are not based on personal experience – that is almost universally condemned as morally wrong.

The world calls hatred based on non-personal experiences (or hatred based on a small number of instances of experience) “bigotry” and/or “racism” and universally pays lip service to condemning bigotry and racism.  Bigotry and racism are based on the logical fallacies of sweeping or hasty generalization.  Logical fallacies are false assertions, meaning they are wrong and don’t represent true practices or valid observations of reality.

Hamas is an Arab-Islamic Jihadist (A-IJ) organization.  Here is Wiki’s summary of their organization’s motivations, beliefs and goals:

“The original, 1988 version of the [Hamas] charter emphasize four main themes:

1. Destroying Israel and establishing an Islamic theocracy in Palestine is essential;
2. Unrestrained jihad (using whatever means necessary including force and violence to achieve its goals) is necessary to achieve this;
3. Negotiated resolutions of Jewish and Palestinian claims to the land are unacceptable;
4. Historical anti-semitic tropes that reinforce the goals.

The Covenant proclaims that Israel will exist until Islam obliterates it, and jihad against Jews is required until Judgement Day. Compromise over the land is forbidden. The documents promote holy war as divinely ordained, reject political solutions, and call for instilling these views in children.

The updated 2017 charter appeared to moderate Hamas’s position by stating that Hamas is anti-Zionist, but retains the goal of eliminating Israel. Its claim that it is no longer antisemitic has been refuted numerous times due to the actions of Hamas (primary of which was the Oct. 7^th, 2023 massacre of about 1,400 Jewish civilians in southern Israel) as well as the statements of its leadership including Fathi Hamad who has publicly called for the killing of Jews.” *^{1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter )}

The motivations of Hamas – and all Islamic Jihad groups – are clearly stated and should need no elaboration by those with working consciences.  The A-IJ in Gaza and the West Bank want to destroy the nation of Israel and by simple unavoidable deduction (or public statements by A-IJ leaders like Mr. Hamad), kill as many Jews as possible in the process.  Unfortunately, this GREAT FACT is almost universally ignored by everyone except some Jews.

The motivations of Hamas are objectively evil and one really has to wonder why they are not punished by the ‘global community’ and world powers like the U.N.  The only answer I can come up with that makes sense is this quote of Joshua of Nazareth:

“And this is the condemnation – that the world (the people of the earth) loves the darkness rather than the light because what they do is evil”.

To NOT confront/call out/seek to dismantle Hamas/IJ groups is a great example of loving the darkness.

Another term being thrown around regarding the I-IJ conflict is the term “genocide”.  Here is the dictionary definition of the term:

“the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group”

Clearly Hamas’ charter is genocidal towards Jews since it calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.  To call the statements or actions of the Jewish nation and its military, the IDF, “genocidal” is factually wrong.  Israeli leaders have never stated they want the destruction of any religious, national or ethnic groups.  What Israel is currently stating is they want to destroy the group called Hamas – a leadership group which slaughtered about 1,200 innocent Jewish civilians including children, woman and the elderly; and the group who publicly states they want to destroy Israel.  To call the IDF’s actions “genocidal” is patently false and ideologically driven.  For Israel to be genocidal in its statements or actions would mean something like, “we want to destroy all Arabs” or “we want to destroy all Muslims” or “we want to destroy all ‘Palestinians’”.  Israel has not called for those things nor acted in a way consistent with statements like that.

So, before a person starts making assertions about Israel’s REACTION to the Oct. 7^th massacre, one should first ask and answer the following questions:

1. Why don’t the organizations which represent ‘the world’ (the U.N., for example) work to eliminate the existence of bigoted, genocidal groups? In particular, why ‘the world’ did not do anything to punish Hamas since 2006 when they were voted by the people (the “Palestinians”) of Gaza to represent the people of Gaza?
2. Why don’t you, dear reader, spend your energy rightly condemning Hamas and other Islamic Jihadist groups, THE CAUSE of the conflict?
3. Who or what is the fundamental problem – those who hold genocidal ideology, or those who make mistakes in trying to defend themselves against genocidal murderers?

For is it not true that IF the world took action against a group of people (Hamas and those who support and agree with them) who openly state genocidal intentions towards another group of people (Jews in Israel), Oct. 7^th would likely NOT have happened?

If your emotions stay hostile towards Israel or Jews after answering these questions honestly, or if condemnation of Israel is primary and most of your energy is spend criticizing Israel – if all you can ‘see’ is ‘civilian Palestinian casualties’, then you are most likely antisemitic – that is, you have a deep dislike for, or animosity or hatred for the Jews.  And if this is the case, then reasoned morality regarding “casualties” will not matter to you, for reason and sound ethics are defeated by emotion, particularly the emotion of hatred.  In other words, you are lost in the moral darkness created by hatred and thus cannot make correct moral distinctions or judgments.

The IDF’s Actions in Gaza

After about four weeks of the conflict, the loudest public narrative / global media perspective is some form of this, “Israel is wrong and just as bad as Hamas for killing innocent civilians, including children, and thus a cease-fire needs to be immediately implemented”.

Is this assertion against Israel true?  Is it morally sound?  Let’s see.

Hamas Action:  The premeditated murder of as many Jews as possible – purposely targeting for murder civilians going about their normal day – women, children, babies, elderly, men – without any real wrong perpetrated by the Jews to motivate or justify such barbarity.

(Those caught in an ideological bubble will insist that the “horrible oppression of the Jews against the Palestinians was the cause”.  The facts say otherwise.

Fact:  Israel pulled all of its citizens out of Gaza in 2006.

Fact: Furthermore, Israel has been quite generous with its control of resources like water going into Gaza since 2006.  “Oppression” is almost entirely a delusional, ideologically driven view and is NOT reality.  On the contrary, Israel has not interfered with international efforts to materially enrich the citizens of Gaza by given them billions of dollars of aid since 2006.

Fact:  If you track how that international aid money was used by Hamas, you will find three leaders of Hamas sitting in Quatar with 11 billion dollars in their bank accounts, along with thousands of meters of tunnels whose purpose is to infiltrate Israel with Jihadists who can kill Israeli citizens.

Fact:  You will also see an economically depressed Gaza with little motivation from Gazan’s to create/build/beautify the land they have had complete control over since 2006.  The hatred of the Arab-Muslims towards Jews creates the “oppression” they cite.  Essentially, the existence of a successful Jewish state so offends the A-M self-pride that they cannot help but see the mere existence of Israel as “oppressive”.  Palestinians are perhaps the ultimate example of “we are the victims” mentality, taking virtually no responsibility for their failure with the opportunities handed to them.)

IDF Action:  Retaliating against the slaughter of about 1,200 of its civilians, trying hard to NOT cause civilian collateral casualties – NO intentional targeting of civilians.  The IDF is targeting Hamas and it’s operational and leadership infrastructure.

FACT:  The IDF’s practice when targeting multi-use facilities (like apartment buildings used by Hamas) is to warn those who occupy the building before destroying the structure, giving them time to evacuate the building.  This significantly reduces the effectiveness of the IDF’s campaign to destroy Hamas since the Hamas operatives will flee the building along with non-Hamas people. This author is unaware of any other nation which, in war, warns those who are hostile towards them and allows them to flee before launching an attack.

Fact: Hamas fires thousands of rockets into Israeli civilian areas without any concern for “military versus civilian”.  You don’t hear the world’s mass media voices decrying Hamas’ purposeful targeting and attacking of Jewish civilians – why?

Fact:  Hamas hides behind civilians after it attacks the Jewish state.  It is a well-documented practice of Hamas to use ‘human shields’ to attempt to protect themselves from retaliatory fire from Israel.  This means that they put people (sometimes children) behind their rocket-firing devices or other military hardware; they don’t let civilians evacuate a building after the IDF has warned they are about to target the building; they don’t let civilians evacuate to other parts of Gaza – safe zones that the IDF has designated would be free from their targeting.

Fact: Hamas normal practice is to build’s its operational and leadership infrastructure in Gaza next to and under hospitals, schools and other public use facilities.  This is another, more passive use of the ‘human shield’ strategy.

Given the facts, or said another way, if it is true that Hamas uses the human shield strategy; and the IDF warns people living in or using Hamas-used civilian type infrastructure before destroying those infrastructure buildings; and the IDF does NOT TARGET non-Hamas people and takes pains to not cause non-combatant casualties; then Israel is not morally culpable for killing civilians.  Said another way, there is NO moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel’s IDF.  Hamas is responsible for +95% of the death of themselves, those they use and hide behind (Palestinians), and all Jews both civilian and IDF personnel.

The Most Popular False Narrative

There is a popular false narrative associated with the I-IJ conflict, and it is this, ‘Oh, there are over two million innocent Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas, and it is they who are suffering at the hands of the IDF and its genocidal actions’.  This is a clever narrative, but facts will reveal its false nature.  We have already seen the claim of genocide is false.

Some will take a different angle on the same narrative and point out individuals or small groups of Jews who are making statements of hatred toward Arab-Muslims and expressing the desire to kill Palestinians.  Yes, these individuals and small groups do exist and yes, are bad.  However, they probably account for less than 3% of Israel’s population.  What percentage of other nation state’s people would be motivated by hatred for a group who slaughtered their innocent sons and daughters like Hamas did on Oct. 7^th, 2023?

In other words what would China do, for example, if Taiwanese militants came over to the mainland and slaughtered 1,200 Chinese civilians?  Or what would Russia do if a group of Finish militants infiltrated Saint Petersburg and slaughtered 1,200 Russian civilians?  I think everyone knows what they would do, so how can people countenance the hypocrisy of these nations who condemn Israel for its retaliatory actions.

So, what percentage of the citizens of Gaza agree with, or are sympathetic towards Hamas’ publicly stated goals and motivation – the destruction of Israel and its citizens?  This is the key question whose answer reveals the falsehood of the popular narrative.  In 2006 Gaza held elections, and here is a key piece of content from a CNN article regarding that election:

*“About 1,073,000 Palestinians voted, a turnout of 77 percent of registered voters, said Hana Naser of the Central Election Commission.”

* (https://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/01/26/palestinian.election.1604/index.html )

So, 77 percent of registered voters voted in the election and the majority selected Hamas.  Hamas’ ‘platform/charter’ was easily available and publicly stated for years prior to the election, so it is quite unreasonable to claim that the Palestinian people were ignorant of Hamas’ view towards Israel.  Therefore, the concept of “innocent Palestinians” when referring to adults is quite dubious.

We can all agree that young children are innocent, even one’s indoctrinated into hate by the adults raising them – a common practice of a large percentage of Arab Muslims in Gaza and the West Bank.  However, as the age of the individual Palestinian increases, the claims of innocence become more dubious.  And certainly, when they are old enough point a gun and shoot it at Jews yelling, “Allah Akbar”, their innocence should indeed be questioned.

Every effort should be made to not harm children, BUT those with the primary responsibility to do so ARE THE LEADERS OF THE GAZANS – HAMAS.  Yet, we see just the opposite.  Ironically, the IDF cares more – and does more – about not harming Palestinian civilian than Hamas.  Truly, Hamas fosters a culture of death.

I will close with this truth – one which reveals the nature of this conflict.

If Hamas laid down its weapons, Israel would immediately cease hostilities and – as history has proven over and over again – would be tripping over themselves (eager) to talk about peace with the Arab-Muslims.

If Israel laid down its weapons, Israel would be invaded just like on Oct. 7^th, and Hamas would slaughter the Jews in their attempt to destroy Israel from the river to the sea.

If you cannot see that truth, then you are morally blind, and all other truths, facts and sound arguments will not be able to get past your blindness.  If you are blind in this regard, you really need to seek out why.  See My Blindness to find the freedom from blindness you need.

I urge you to take the position of fact, rightness and truth, and to spread it, propagate it, and defend it, and in so doing, defend the extrinsically and morally superior people.

I also urge you to take the next step to the Higher Level and come, join the Peaceful Revolution, where violence is NEVER the solution.