The separation that is sometimes made between Hamas and the Arab population in Israel is twice misleading – from the point of view of simple truth and from the point of view of morality.
Hamas and its Islamic ideas about "doomsday," centered on the aspiration for a war crime of destroying the Jewish people, is a product that emerged from the proximity of Arab society between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
This violent vision is one of the main political, religious, and cultural currents in this society. It is woven into her identity and stands out in her upbringing and spiritual life.
Hamas is only one product of a society that worships death and glorifies murder. The theologians of this denomination cultivate death desires in the service of Islam, and this violent worldview has not only just been revealed to us.
Between what happened on 7 October and the pogrom in Hebron and Motza in 1929, there is only a quantitative and organizational difference.
We have witnessed similar displays of barbarism in the actions of Fatah and terrorist organizations from the Palestinian "left," as well as in the actions of the "gangs" of the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, an admirer of Adolf Hitler and founder of the Palestinian national movement. This "national" movement was characterized from its inception by destructive violence and an inability to channel social power into nation-building.
These tendencies are evident not only in the political arena. Extreme violence, which amounts to murder, is not uncommon in family ties in a society that commands fathers and sons to kill spouses, daughters and sisters who violate the "honor" of the family. It is prominent in clan disputes when Arab tribalism lacks the fear of royalty. Such phenomena are repeated in Arab-Muslim societies. Political violence is rife near the surface, even in peacetime.
A culture that was once glorious has sunk into delusions of violent "redemption," plunging society into oblivion and failure.
The "hopes" of genocide that characterize radical Islam, and the death desires that have now burst into our consciousness in the attack on the northwestern Negev, are thus at the heart of the identity of the society we call "Palestinian." Separating a violent and murderous regime from the society that fostered this violence in education, theology and spiritual life is tantamount to separating Nazism from German society of the first half of the 20th century. Factually it is a false separation, or the fruit of self-deception, and morally it is a baseless separation.
Historical collectives such as Arab society in Israel bear responsibility for their actions and the phenomena they cultivate. We must not absolve them, and with them their people, of moral responsibility. It is true that individual human beings bear moral responsibility. But it is inevitable that individuals will suffer, if they are destined to be members of an evil-fostering society like the German society of the last century, then their suffering will be the result of justice. This is what happened to the Germans then, and this is what happened to the Arabs in 1948.
The "hopes" for genocide that characterize radical Islam, and the death desires that have now burst into our consciousness in the attack on the northwestern Negev, are thus at the heart of the identity of the society we call "Palestinian."
Morally, it is inconceivable that IDF soldiers will be harmed so as not to harm "non-combatants" behind whom the spiritual descendants of the Nazis of our time are hiding. We must try not to harm uninvolved civilians only to the extent that it does not endanger IDF soldiers. We must call on people to flee. Corridors must be opened for them to escape. But if the murderers who emerged from among them prevent them from escaping, the responsibility for their death or suffering lies not with us. It falls on Hamas and its partners and on the members of the society that raised them.
For many years, perhaps since 1967, our relative power has made such a discussion almost theoretical. We did not actually need such distinctions, but the intensification of Hamas evil has reached such a point that eradicating it will entail serious damage to the society that created it.
Its eradication is essential not only for security reasons, but by virtue of a moral imperative – in order to protect itself and to deter future riots. We do not harm Gazans in order to punish them, but because an intolerable evil emanates from their midst. And at every end of the war, it is our duty to create a situation that will deny them any possibility of returning to evil.
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