Unfortunately, history is replete with instances where human beings and human waste become nearly indistinguishable. The Gazan killers who perpetrated the October 7th all-out assault on decency certainly fit that category, and just as certainly felt the same way about their helpless victims.

Now, persons who aspire to operate within the constraints of some moral or religious code are faced with the daunting dilemma of how best to eliminate this sickening blight called Hamas, without copying their sins. This evil creed and the worldwide enablers who dissemble on their behalf have made it plain that there can be no living with them; and sadly, there’s no way to rid the world of this plague that doesn’t involve a good deal of death and destruction. But every life lost in this struggle and every building toppled is credited to the “Palestinian” side of the ledger.

The Gazans have once again chosen the path of oblivion—and let’s be accurate by calling a spade a spade, because this is the group of “civilian” men who elected Hamas to govern, these are the women who waved their brothers and husbands good-bye on October 7th praying for a “successful” jihad, and these are the children who talk of killing Jews. Having eschewed the opportunity to turn their advantageous strip of Mediterranean coastline into the showplace of prosperity, independence, and comfortable living it might easily have been, they instead committed tremendous sums of seemingly endless aid money and other needed construction resources into creating an extensive sewer system that under normal circumstances might have been the envy of any teeming metropolis.

The human waste of this incredible subterranean network yields rifles, grenades, and other deadly implements of warfare, and now it has swallowed innocent hostages within its threatening vastness, under the most hideous of conditions. It’s an artery for the spread of implacable hatred, murder, and corruption of the human spirit. It offers nothing but the promise of death.

It’s been well over two months since the terrible events of October 7th, and we’re still waiting for a leading Muslim religious figure, or major political leader of a Muslim majority nation to unequivocally condemn this breathtakingly cruel event. The same could be said of the despicable Secretary General of the United Nations, and the leaders of other associated organizations. The International Red Cross has shown itself utterly indifferent to torture and humiliation when it comes to the sufferings of Jews.  Demonstrators in the West—to a great extent hired rabble-rousers calling for an immediate cease-fire—act as if the atrocities that provoked the Israeli response never occurred; that Israel’s leaders woke up one fine October morning and decided it would be a good idea to invade Gaza.

Even the Pope, well-meaning though he may be, doesn’t seem to recognize the threat to human existence this atrocity represents.

After watching the disgraceful reaction of so many to this incredible outrage, one can’t help thinking that maybe the climate change kooks we conservatives ridicule with almost gleeful contempt nevertheless have hit upon a valid point: The human race, despite our pretensions, conceits, and vainglorious trumpeting of “progress,” is indeed poisoning the planet.

Not however with the greenhouse gas emissions we’re incessantly hounded about, or the loudly-shouted damaging effects of fracking for oil and other drilling practices our petroleum- dependent society employs. Not even the growing deluge of human-created, non-degradable refuse is the real culprit.

No, the events emanating from that man-made sewer of existence called Gaza suggest the depressing possibility that human character—or the lack of development thereof—is the toxin that dooms us all if we allow this behavior to stand unopposed and unaddressed. Perhaps it’s not killing the earth per se, but still assaulting it, insulting it, and afflicting it with a growing tumor of savagery. If this cancer of cruelty goes untreated, un-excised, it will prove the human race to be nothing more than an intolerable malignancy of which G-d or nature will inevitably rid itself. Such callous savagery, like cancer, cannot be allowed to spread without killing everything around it.

Alas, we’ve progressed very little from the days of our cave-dwelling ancestors—the “lower species” we presume to term other living things sharing this planet could not be capable of the calculated, filmed-for-instant-circulation cruelty we witnessed on October 7th.

On that terrible morning, Hamas’s murderous intent mixed with an unhealthy dose of Israeli complacency and self-congratulation amidst the heady atmosphere accompanying the long-anticipated (but not as yet realized) peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, brought about a breathtakingly brutal effusion of blood and violation. Innocent Jews—all too often history’s usual suspects—were once more “chosen” to suffer the barbarism of which humans are still capable, despite our pretensions to civilization.

The ongoing development of all sorts of new-fangled gadgets and appliances designed to make human interactions easier, more global in nature—ostensibly creating greater understanding amongst peoples of the world—have only succeeded in creating more efficient means of amplifying and distributing acts of murder and cruelty; making bestial behavior an electronic game, available to an ever growing audience of like-minded savages, digitally anesthetized to brutality.

The actions of these nihilists force the sad realization that there are large swaths of humankind that will not live in even a cold peace with those with whom they disagree. They cannot be persuaded; they are not subject to reason, or compromise, or even patent self-interest. Their fuel, what energizes and sustains them, in fact validates their very existence, is hate and hate alone.

If we accept the fatuous rationalizations of a shockingly strident group of people the world over, insisting that this barbaric assault on everything we cherish as “human” is nothing more than an expression of political resistance, a natural and expected reaction to prolonged “occupation,” could there be any further hope for the future of the human race? Will we not thoroughly deserve the extinction that will ultimately be our reward—most likely at our own hands—if we bow to this abasement of values, calculated to shock us into silence and submission?

That’s the real risk: abiding Hamas’s terms, accepting their actions as norms, shrinking from declaring their unquenchable hatreds as pathological; in effect, pulling the rest of humanity towards them.

Therefore, the powerful Israeli incursion into Gaza intended to destroy Hamas must continue, despite the much fretted possibility of it expanding into a “regional conflict,” or even the opening phase of World War III. The need reaches beyond the exigencies of warfare between peoples or the interests of nations. It must be carried through to its stated end; the evil that’s been wrought must be eradicated. It will not be a pretty process, but neither was blasting Nazism out of Germany. But it’s every bit as necessary for the salvation of the human race.

So let it come to pass that when Operation Swords of Iron is finally concluded, the name Hamas will be spoken favorably only in hell. Perhaps then we can keep the rest of humanity out of sewers of our own making.

Image generated by AI.