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| Purchase by Micah D. Halpern. |
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By Micah D. Halpern
August 27, 2004
What sense do we make of terrorists who sometimes and with deliberate intent, do the right thing? Because a person also engages in morally correct and appropriate acts, do we lend them slack for other deliberately performed horrific acts - like the mass murder of innocents? Does one behavior modify, excuse, even modulate and validate, the other? It's certainly a dilemma, one that we need to confront and to reconcile.
Three Hamas leaders have recently been indicted in the United States. Their crime is raising monies. Two of them were apprehended in the States, a third is at large in Damascus, Syria. The United States believes that they are using the money they have solicited and collected to help fund their murderous activities. Hamas argues otherwise.
In the never-to-be-underestimated court of public opinion, as well as in U.S. Federal Court where they face charges, the claim will be heard that the money raised in the United States by Hamas followers is used for humanitarian purposes. They will argue that the funds go to the many programs they run for the deprived Palestinians of Gaza. And the unfortunate truth is, that in addition to murder and terror, Hamas does run soup kitchens and nursery programs and medical clinics and day care centers.
A citizen of the United States, the photo journalist Micah Garen, owes his freedom, his life, to a Shiite cleric. Muktada al Sadr, the sheik who heads the Mahdi army, the Iraqi militia locked in an urban guerilla war with the U.S. and other coalition forces, saved this one man. Al Sadr regularly sends his forces to terrorize the streets of his homeland, Iraq, and to kill the invading, intruding forces, there to save his homeland, to introduce law and order, to bring peace. And at the same time, he intervenes on behalf of one American captured by Muslims who threaten to cut his head off and offer it up for display on Arab TV. And because one group of terrorists respect the power of another, the captive is set free. Two very different acts perpetrated by the same man, simultaneously.
Are these people good or are they evil?
The answer to this question is essential to our understanding of the battle the West is now waging with terrorist organizations of the Arab world.
There is no doubt that it would be much easier if we felt that there was absolutely no common ground between us and them. It would be easier to judge terrorists if they never shared any moral acts of kindness or decency. But that isn't the case. And the dichotomy of the roles played by terrorists challenges not only Western belief in the correctness of what we are doing, but it also, even more strongly, challenges the beliefs and behaviors of locals, those people native to Iraq and other Arab countries on whom we depend for assistance in our war on their behalf and ours. It challenges their determination and conviction.
The fact, however, is this: They are TERRORISTS. They ARE terrorists. THEY are terrorists. No matter what else they do or are, THEY ARE TERRORISTS. Never forget that.
That is how we must make sense of it all.
This is not a case of moral relativism. Neither is it a case of one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Not at all. The good actions a person performs do not erase the bad deeds that they perpetrate - especially when they continue to perform those deeds. That is the case across the board, theologically and religiously, in Christianity, in Judaism and even in Islam.
Hamas and al Sadr are bad. They lead duplicitous lives. They may think that one act justifies the other - or they may not care. We don't know, and frankly, I don't think it matters. They are evil and they intentionally perpetrate evil deeds.
Undeniably, Hamas, al Sadr and many other terrorist groups assist their local communities. They have a code, even a moral code that is baffling to us. Kidnapping is shunned but mass murder is celebrated. They do not see the murder of innocent Israelis or Americans as a violation of their code. But it is.
Something is wrong! They are wrong.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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