Unfailing test of evil

Few absolutes survive in our relativist world. Evil especially has become a suspect term hardly ever used – unless a conversation between two academics veers towards Margaret Thatcher.

Yet evil does exist, even if it’s not always easy to discern. Without spelunking into the depths of philosophy and theology to explore the essence of evil, I suggest we simply learn how to identify it.

Many visible dichotomies of good and evil exist in the world, but two strike me as the most salient at present.

Using today’s world as the testing ground, one can draw two demarcation lines (which at base are actually one and the same) beyond which evil lies. So let’s keep it simple: Anyone who takes HAMAS’s side against Israel or Russia’s against the Ukraine is evil.

The second group has often invaded this space, for obvious reasons. For equally obvious reasons, it’s the first one that’s hogging the news at the moment.

The on-going massacre of Israeli civilians by HAMAS murderers vindicates the international classification of that group as terrorist. Indeed, it’s a misnomer to describe this event as a war. Slaughtering civilians isn’t warfare. It’s terrorism.

The coldblooded actuarial term ‘collateral damage’ doesn’t apply here – as it doesn’t apply to Russia’s actions in the Ukraine. When civilians are the intended target for slaughter, the damage isn’t collateral but deliberate. It’s not a by-product but the product. Such is the nature of terrorism, as accurately pinpointed by that great expert, Lenin: “The purpose of terrorism is to terrorise.”

Those who enthusiastically support such monstrosities are the monsters’ accomplices, morally if not legally. Yet evil isn’t a legal category but a moral one, and it easily accommodates such creatures.

Our perfectly integrated, impeccably multicultural Muslim community has come out in huge numbers to dance triumphantly in the streets. That reminds me of the late Lord Tebbit who proposed the ‘cricket test’ of loyalty to Britain, based on which team multi-culti people cheer when England plays Pakistan or India.

I’d suggest that the massacre test could examine an even broader loyalty to our whole civilisation. And the evil morons driving along Edgware Road with horns blaring fail that test with flying colours, those of the Palestinian flags flapping out of their car windows.

Those barbarians celebrated the brutal murder of (so far) 700 civilised people, of whom only 44 were soldiers. The rest were regular persons walking the streets or holding outdoor parties. Women. Children. Men old and young.

I don’t know whether HAMAS deliberately planned the atrocity to coincide with the opening of the Labour conference, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. Evildoers know where to find kindred spirits.

Yesterday Jeremy Corbyn, who tried, not wholly in vain, to recreate the Labour Party in his own virulently anti-Semitic image, pointedly refused to blame the ‘Palestinians’ for the atrocity. That’s hardly surprising since he has always described Muslim terrorists as his friends, as indeed they are.

When Corbyn was Labour leader, the party conferences were equally adorned with red and Palestinian flags. This time around the Palestinian flags are fewer, but they are still there. Global solidarity of evil needs constant confirmation.

On the other side of the Atlantic, 31 Harvard-related organisations have blamed the massacre on the Israeli occupation of ‘Palestine’ – just as Putin’s shills blame the Ukraine for the mass murder, torture, looting, kidnapping and raping of her civilians perpetrated by the Russian terrorist state.

Putin’s people may not be dancing in the streets today, but they are hearing triumphant music in what passes for their souls. They welcome anything that diverts the world’s attention from their own terrorism, especially since the Ukraine may now find herself competing with Israel for Western aid.

It’s that solidarity of evil creatures again: their name is legion, not ‘right’, ‘left’, ‘red’, ‘green’ or any other political nomenclature. If any physical links between them need some detective work to establish, the metaphysical links are there for all to see.

The Russian trace in the attack is unmistakable. The immediate inspiration for the HAMAS action came from Iran, Russia’s ally and, in this case, proxy. But it’s worth remembering that the previous, first generation of HAMAS chieftains were trained at Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba University.

That was the world’s only institution of higher learning that educated its alumni in terrorism to PhD standards. As befits educated people, the first generation have relayed that invaluable learning to their sons and nephews, who have now put it to good use.

Meanwhile, yesterday a girl who took flowers to Israel’s embassy in Moscow was arrested. The charge? “Besmirching Russia’s armed forces”. The logic may escape you, unless you keep the solidarity of evil in mind.

In parallel, Russian hackers under the FSB aegis have launched an attack on Israel’s government sites. Another such group, called Killnet, explained that it’s Israel’s government that’s to blame for the conflict – and not only because of its occupation of ‘Palestine’ but also because it had betrayed Russia by supporting the Ukraine.

The UN Security Council has failed to pass a resolution condemning HAMAS. I’ll give you three guesses as to which permanent member blocked it, but I doubt you need that many.

As to the Western supporters of either manifestation of evil, it matters not a jot that some of them self-identify as ‘right-wing’ or, God forbid, conservatives, while others are the rankest of lefties. Thus Putin admirers are mostly found in the former group and those who cheer HAMAS in the latter, although there exists a large overlap.

All evil has the same origin, even if it may then flow into different conduits. This understanding could simplify the analysis of each particular strain, but it shouldn’t supplant it.

Rooting for Muslim terrorism, for example, is the destination on many roads radiating from evil. One of them is common-or-garden anti-Semitism masquerading as criticism of Israel’s policies.

Likewise, admirers of Putin camouflage their visceral craving for a muscular state mouthing quasi-conservative slogans as criticism of the Ukrainian government. They aren’t deterred by the implicit imbecilic logic: because the Ukraine is imperfect, Putin’s bandit raid is justified.

That the Ukraine is imperfect is true – in this world we aren’t blessed with perfection. Yet she isn’t evil, and Putin’s Russia is.

In the same vein, people with intellectual pretensions happily decorticate the Israeli government, pointing out its failings. They then lash out at those who they claim equate anti-Israeli with anti-Semitic sentiments.

On the face of it they are right: a critic of Israel doesn’t have to hate Jews any more than a critic of HMG has to hate Britain. On the other hand, one has to ask why they are so persistent, borderline obsessive, in identifying Israeli imperfections. Why such intense scrutiny of the only civilised country in the region? Could it by any chance be their urgent need to find something wrong with the Jews?

Meanwhile police forces all over Britain are putting more men on the streets in Jewish neighbourhoods, anticipating violent attacks. Yet British Jews aren’t Israelis. They may sympathise with Israel, as do all decent Westerners, but they are in no way responsible for its policies. Why are they then being targeted?

In parallel, traditional Russian anti-Semitism, kept under wraps for a couple of decades, is now claiming broadcast time and newspaper space. One has to wonder if Putin authorised that volte-face in the runup to the HAMAS action.

When the Poles rose against Russian rule in the 1830s, their slogan – also aimed at the Russians themselves – was “For our freedom and yours” (Za naszą i waszą wolność). Both Israelis and Ukrainians, dying as they fight evil, could say the same thing. For they aren’t just fighting for their own survival. They are also fighting for ours.