For 2,000 years, Jews dreamed about having their own State where they could fulfill their destiny and be a light unto the nations. The Jewish people have a long tradition of ethical monotheism. Stretching back to their forefather Avraham, the Jewish people maintained that there is a God, and knowledge of God requires people to live an ethical lifestyle modeled on the human perception of how God relates to the world. Seeing God’s Divine kindness to the world, Avraham taught his own children and followers to be kind, generous, and merciful people.
Zionism was a movement that aimed to give Jews self-determination in their historic homeland. With their own State, Jews could model their traditions for the world, not just as individuals but as a nation. They would show the world that nations could be built on kindness, generosity, and mercy. Almost from its inception, the State of Israel began giving aid to less fortunate countries in Africa, and led by its values, Israel has continued that tradition for 75 years. Israel has become the antithesis of those nations which practice evil.
Philosophers have debated the existence of evil for centuries – if not longer. Evil is a characterization; it isn’t a physical force that scientists can measure, like gravity. Humans tend to characterize events and actions they dislike as evil. The most common applications of evil are toward people who cause harm to other people. Events and actions that a person suffers at the hands of others are often characterized as evil.
On a metaphysical level, philosophers have long claimed that evil is a spiritual force placed in this world by God, just as God placed physical forces in the world. Evil in the world exists and affects people whether they like it or not. Evil is the source of all bad that occurs in the world and humans must expend great energy in eradicating evil from the world. Along with philosophers who discussed evil as a force, theologians also often teach that evil is a force placed by God in the world.
Many struggle with the concept of evil in the world. It is hard for them to believe that there can be both evil and a God that is good in the world. The well-known German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche maintained that evil was a poor excuse for a way to demonize one’s enemies as opposed to describing an actual moral reality. Nietzsche argued that utilizing evil is unhealthy and dangerous because it discourages dealing with the challenges in life and allows people to simply describe their problems as evil.
WHETHER YOU believe in evil or not, people have a choice on how to act in this world. There are many different factors that influence a person’s behavior. Along with the debate over the existence of evil, is the debate of nature vs nurture in trying to understand what causes people to act the way they do. Ultimately, no matter a person’s nature or how they were raised, how they behave is their choice and their responsibility. A person is held accountable for their actions, and the excuse of being forced to act in a certain manner isn’t a claim the world accepts.
Good people naturally want to believe that everyone around them is good as well. They can deny that there are people, especially large groups of people, that choose to be evil. Instead, many good people tend to chalk up heinous behavior to a person’s upbringing or the lack of opportunities presented to them in their childhood. When it comes to a group of people who act in a wicked manner, many good people will tend to excuse their behavior by claiming that another group oppressed them and caused them to be evil. Excusing despicable behavior is unjustifiable and simply encourages more bad behavior because there are no repercussions for their destructive actions.
The existence of evil and Hamas's murderous attack on Israel
Professor A. Poor Rvanand of The University of Delhi recently wrote an op-ed in The Wire titled, “Without Israel’s Oppression of Palestinians, Hamas Terrorism Would Have Never Existed.” He claims, “Decades of the total siege and daily humiliation of nearly two million people have led to a violent eruption of this kind. They said that the hubris of the Israeli establishment was responsible for the death and destruction that Hamas had caused.”
Professor Rvanand’s opinion that Palestinian terrorists are not responsible for their actions, and only attacked Israel violently because of how Israel treated Palestinians is not a lone opinion. There is a loud chorus of voices claiming the very same excuse and justification for Palestinian terrorism.
Palestinian terrorism against Jews in Israel started before there was an Israel. In British Mandate Palestine, decades before the founding of Israel, Arabs attacked Jews, killing 1000s over the years. The claim that Jews and Arabs got along well for hundreds of years until the rise of Zionism and its policies is historically inaccurate. The excuse that Israeli policies are so harsh that Palestinians have been left with no choice but to practice violence against Israel is false.
Palestinians, and before they called themselves Palestinians, Arabs, have violently attacked Jews for centuries. The choice to attack Jews and their state is unjustifiable and an act of evil. There is no other way to characterize it. The Jewish people have opened their arms to live peacefully with all people. Anyone wishing to attack and kill Jews is not doing so because they are threatened. There is a viable option to live alongside the Jews.
Israel and the Jewish people have been unjustifiably attacked. The Jewish State did nothing to bring this attack on itself, nor did it want a war with its enemies. The very attack itself was evil. The Palestinian terrorists who attacked the Jewish people of southern Israel chose evil and are therefore characterized as evil.
Irrespective of our preference to want a world without evil in it, the Jewish people must recognize it is facing an evil foe. It is the Jewish State’s responsibility to rid the world of this evil, not just for its own sake, but to follow the Jewish people’s traditions of being a light unto the nations and a model of how nations should protect themselves.
The writer, a rabbi, is CEO of Israel Educational Supply.