Over the past 12 months, my faith in humanity has been tested.

And the stakes could not be higher.

An exhibition of the Israeli hostages abducted by Palestinian terrorists on October 7th, 2023, in New York’s Central Park (photo: Bring Them Home Now/Facebook)

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I want to preface this piece by saying that I am not sure I believe in God.

I am not religious, although I grew up attending Church with my mother and brother; however, too many inconsistencies bothered me. In my simplistic understanding, I couldn’t reconcile that good people are not accepted into heaven if they do not believe, and bad people can go to heaven as long as they believe and repent at the end.

Even as a young child, I concluded that I did not want to be in a place where good people were excluded. Maturity has given my a much more complex understanding around religion and faith and good and bad, but I am a realist, and nothing I have seen or read or experienced up to now has been able to change my mind. I believe that we are all capable of good and evil to degrees, and we all view life through the lens of our own experiences and trauma.

Over the past 12 months my faith in humanity has been tested. I have always believed that most people have good intentions, that most people understand the clear line between good and evil. That most people have the ability to sort through information and seek out the guiding principles of intention, cause and effect, integrity and honesty.

Yet what I have witnessed over the last year has shaken that belief. Which leaves me to conclude either one of two things: People are either morally confused, or they have bad intentions. I would like the believe it is the former.

Nothing seems to have divided world opinion more than the war between Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. On one side you have a democratic country with equal rights, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. And on the other you have designated terror groups that target civilians, use suicide bombers, hijack planes, abuse human rights, and openly call for the destruction of the Jews and of Western values.

You would be hard pressed to find a clearer example of a line between good and evil. Then why have so many people fallen victim to the insane narrative that terrorists are somehow freedom fighters? How have people so easily fallen prey to propaganda that can easily be dispelled with the most basic amount of research and common sense?

It would be easy to blame the marketing campaign — quite brilliantly executed I might add — that has effectively taken over social media with half-truths and misinformation. Or the heavily biased Al Jazeera news outlet, that is the media arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and funded by Qatari money. Or the billions of Qatari money that has been funnelled into Western colleges and universities through funding and donors.

But it does not take a genius to see through this type of manipulation. Surely a few TikTok videos and Instagram images are not enough to turn reasonable people into rape and baby abductor apologists.

The psychology of the mind is an interesting phenomenon. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a soviet dissident who spent eight years in the Gulag for “counterrevolutionary activity.” In his book “The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation,” Solzhenitsyn saw the fallacy of using good intentions as a guide to action, writing:

“In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments.”

We have heard these systematic arguments again and again:

• “Israel is a colonizer.”

• “Israel is an ethno-state.”

• “Israel is made up of genocidal baby killers.”

Never mind that none of these statements can be backed up with fact. Never mind that Israel’s Muslim-majority neighbors are about as clear examples of colonization or ethno-states that you can find. Never mind that they are mono-religious and that you can be killed for apostasy. Never mind that you can be born and raised in many Middle Eastern countries and never be eligible for citizenship or afforded equal rights. Never mind that Islamic doctrines clearly and openly call for a complete genocide of the Jews.

Why let a little things like the truth get in the way of revolution?

When unconstrained ideology triumphs over rights and morality, we quickly discover how fast evil triumphs over good.¹ And that is where I believe we are in 2024.

The self-righteous useful idiots wearing keffiyehs and drinking decaf soy lates while screaming “Globalize the Intifada!” have not the most basic knowledge of the death and destruction caused by the Intifadas. They chant “Free Palestine!” without any understanding of how that could practically work. The fact that their activism is harming the people they claim to be fighting for — by supporting their terrorist oppressors — is an irony not lost on many of us. In the words of St. Bernard of Clairvaux: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

And the stakes could not be higher. Regardless of good intentions and partly as a result of them, the Middle East is on a dangerous precipice. The worldwide pro-Gaza protests that have morphed into support for Hezbollah and the Houthis have no doubt emboldened the terrorists to continue their fight.

With a weak appeasement strategy from Left-wing governments in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, and Australia, the Islamic Republic of Iran has felt empowered to rain an unprecedented 181 ballistic missile attack on Israel, the West’s only democratic ally in the Middle East.

Ironically not one “Palestinian” has been set “free” despite the hundreds of protests over the past year; in fact, they have contributed to the dragging out and escalation of the conflict on multiple fronts.

This war is not just a war between Israel and her enemies. It is a war that world needs to put a significant dent in the growing Islamic caliphate that threatens equality and Western values of freedom and equality, and threatens to send us back hundreds of years to the dark ages. Thomas Sowell, in his book “A Conflict of Visions,” has an important warning:

“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilisation by little barbarians, who must be civilised before it is too late. Their prospects of growing up as decent, productive people depends on the whole elaborate set of largely unarticulated practices which engender moral values, self-discipline, and consideration for others.”

If we ignore this indoctrination, we will suffer for it.

We are at a critical crossroads. We can continue down the same path of de-escalation and appeasement, which have enabled the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis to control and subjugate the people of their regions through fear, violence, and indoctrination. Or we can take this opportunity to stand up for what is right and fight evil.

Emotive images of dead children and civilians, while shocking and tragic, are not reason enough to allow radical Islam and their oppressive regimes to wreak havoc without consequence. There is a clear moral difference between the cold-blooded slaughter of innocent people and accidental casualties of retaliation — no matter how heartbreaking the images.

We have an opportunity to send a message: that terrorism will not be tolerated. Civilized societies do not blow up buses, use suicide bombers, or stab innocent mothers with babies on the streets. They do not subjugate women and deny them basic human rights. And they do not rape, mutilate, and slaughter innocent civilians.

We need to strive for good — as imperfect as that endeavor may be. Good means a moving away from self-centeredness. It means the ability to empathize with other people and feel compassion. We ought to seek the truth and make sacrifices for the greater good. It means benevolence, altruism, and selflessness. It means holding on to our humanity, and to seek to see beyond the superficial difference of race, gender, and nationality.

Let’s fight for a world where everyone has the right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination.

Let’s fight for good.

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1. “Why Solzhenitsyn’s Line Between Good and Evil Matters.” American Institute for Economic Research.