One of the things I find interesting about this is that it’s rational; to a certain extent, even biblical. As Christians, or at least, the ruins of a Christian civilization, we have an immediate instinct against this rhetoric.
As Chesterton points out somewhere, the dangers of heresy are not the degradations of the vices, but the wildness of the virtues. How could we be shocked by this language without an assumed Christendom, a universal Church? Yet, I doubt the writer believes in Christian ethics any more than the West does; it’s just that he doesn’t assume them. The West has forgotten its own assumptions. We, assuming great irrational leaps of faith that have been common to our culture, condemn him by a standard that we can no longer recognize, because to recognize it would be to repent of our own apostasy, nor justify, for our hands are too bloody, our ears stopped, our eyes shut tight to our own sins, which this man never claimed to recognize nor justify.
So, we bungle forward, condemning this Jew for the sins we still recognize (because we are rich and no longer live next to murderous savages like the Jews still live next to) without once realizing that we are no longer standing on the grounds we could once have criticized him from, and if we did still stand there, could we even condemn him? Alongside the great mercy that Christ preached for our enemies was still the horrible claim of a universal and despotic empire that might treat the Lebanese with far less leniency than the state of Israel is forced to.
Can we judge this Jew? It is somewhat easy for us, who are not surrounded by third world savages who have sworn to wipe us out, to remind him that all men are our brothers. Is there a solution that does not involve either Lebanon or Israel being wiped off the map? It does not appear so. Can you judge Israel for saying it would prefer to survive?
Obviously, it would be best for these nations to make peace, but outside God’s intervention, that’s not going to happen. The next best thing would be for one to win and one to lose, which will be a mass slaughter. How can I judge this man for saying he’d prefer if it were the other guy?
May Christ, the true judge, come. We may be scandalized by His mercy or His wrath, but until then, let us try to take the plank out of our own eye. Are we so sure that our rhetoric would be any different in this man’s place?
Can we urge a nation to a holy martyrdom for something they never believed in and for something we, collectively, no longer believe in? And have we not, in cupidity born in apostasy, forgotten the actual reasons we would give up our lives to our enemies, and in what circumstances one should and shouldn’t do so?
I have respect both for the Christian that will die as Christ died and for the Jew who will fight as the Maccabees fought, but I have nothing save contempt for this bloody people who have hidden their crimes behind euphemisms and a sterilized industry—like the woman who wipes her mouth and says she has done nothing.
This Jew, facing one genocide or another, would choose the death of his enemies. This is rational, this is tragic, this is Hell on earth, but this is the state of man. We, wanting a bit more money, pour out oceans of blood, of innocent blood, our own innocents. Our crimes are more numerous and far less justifiable. Our crimes are unnatural. We have made a Hell of paradise. If it weren’t so awful, it would be a farce. We have no reason for what we do.
Come, Lord Jesus Christ. Judge the nations. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Deliver us from evil.
