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It Depends on Who You Ask
By J. Jeff Toler for Shenandoah Christian Alliance j.toler@sca4christ.org
- When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. —Deuteronomy 7:1-2
Hamas and other terrorist organizations continue to add to what Winston Churchill once called the “dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.”
The October 7 attack on the Nova music festival grounds in southern Israel left a horrific scene—like something from hell. Bodies were strewn everywhere, leaving blood-spattered walls and cribs, and charred human remains.
Among these disturbing images, one particularly haunting photograph showed Shiri Bibas desperately holding her two young sons. She was abducted by the Palestinian Mujahideen Brigades along with her children: nine-month-old Kfir and four-year-old Ariel. Her husband Yarden was taken hostage separately by Hamas, and that same day, murdered her parents on the spot.
Yarden was freed during the recent cease-fire agreement. While many feared the worst for Shiri and the children, the reality proved even more horrific than anticipated. Hamas displayed the Bibas family coffins to cheering crowds in Gaza. Though Hamas had claimed they died in an Israeli airstrike, Israeli forensic analysis revealed the children were killed by their captors’ bare hands and then mutilated in a sickening attempt to blame Israel for their deaths.
It is simply unimaginable for most decent human beings to even describe such humans as these without comparing them to monsters. Their animus is borne from the darkest domain of hell.
The deliberate murder of an infant represents a level of cruelty that defies comprehension
Yet Hamas, even now, remains a legitimate political force in the world. Odd, considering they have been designated a terrorist group since October 8, 1997. Palestinians have dehumanized themselves through Hamas.
Who is Hamas, and where did they come from?
Hamas, an acronym for “Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya,” which translates as Islamic Resistance Movement. It is a Palestinian Islamist organization founded in 1987 during the First Intifada.
In its early years, Hamas gained support through social welfare programs, including schools, clinics, and charitable organizations. Concurrently, it developed a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, responsible for armed resistance against Israel. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Hamas conducted suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians and military personnel.
Hamas’s control of Gaza led to multiple orchestrated conflicts with Israel, including rocket attacks and tunnel operations. Such provocations have been met with appropriate Israeli military responses.
In The West, a confederation of university students, left-wing Democrats, and of course, the corporate news media, continue to portray Hamas, and the Palestinian people who chose them to lead them, as “victims” of Zionist hegemony.
Rep. Ilhan Omar
As recently as January 22, 2025, Rep. Ilhan Omar, (D MN) alongside Senator Mazie Hirono, (D HI) reintroduced the Neighbors Not Enemies Act. This legislation seeks to repeal the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a statute from the Alien and Sedition Acts that has historically targeted immigrants under the guise of national security. Terrorists can never be our neighbors.
- “It is unlawful for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide “material support or resources” to a designated FTO. (The term “material support or resources” is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(1) as ” any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who maybe or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials.” 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(2) provides that for these purposes “the term ‘training’ means instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill, as opposed to general knowledge.” 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(3) further provides that for these purposes the term ‘expert advice or assistance’ means advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge.’’ [https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/]
For decades western leaders have tried to create a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. It’s never worked because it never can—as long as monsters are invited to negotiate. For the first time in decades, it’s now possible we have leadership willing and able to address the near intractable Gaza situation with a very different approach.
The response to Hamas, along with all their kin and kith in the Middle East, will necessitate a dramatic solution: resettlement of the Palestinians in another part of the region. But will it work? For now, we can only wait and see what emerges from President Trump’s concept. If we are honest, we must think about it—at the very least—as humane.
For those who have not surrendered to depravity and blood-lust, how would we give such people who have, any measure of legitimacy at all? And, if such a people ascribe no worth to the Jews, what is their worth to anyone else? The question then becomes, “Isn’t all human life valuable?”
From an ethical and philosophical standpoint, tradition holds that human life has inherent, immeasurable value – not because of what humans do or produce, but simply because they exist.
From the Jewish and Christian tradition, human life is viewed as sacred because humans are created in the divine image of God. They have souls. This perspective inevitably assigns infinite value to each person. What is the price of that? More than humans can ever pay on their own.
The facts are unescapable: of the 76 Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, before February 20 of 2025—when eight Mexican and South American gangs were added—only five of the remaining 64 are not Islamist or Islamic groups.
Of all of the issues facing this administration, from a biblical worldview, the Gaza Strip may well be the most pressing—if not urgent. This tiny strip of land is home to a people who have declared human life has no value—including, arguably, their own. For them, life is no more than a mindless, soulless existence—animated by a hatred that is fully focused on annihilating the Jews.
They are born, live, propagate, and instill in their offspring the perpetuation of this hatred. I am struggling to think it will simply dissipate by a change in location. But I can still pray that it might. This is not a regional conflict since we can say that the entire world is, and will be affected. Often as not they are enabling the Palestinians by repeating the same empty nostrums and rhetoric without end.
But my bigger concern is how this blazing hatred, like an epidemic, is spreading to The West to our own people—our own children—by attaching itself to the body politic under the rubric of wokism, leftism, or what-ever-you-want-to-call-it ism.
This inexplicable alliance can only be explained from the perspective of one commonality: the hatred of God.
Photo by Meg Boulden on Unsplash
