Evil: Where Do You Find It?

From Robert Fisk's diary (Independent, Aug. 20, 2006):

"An Israeli calls me from Los Angeles. She thinks she has discovered a reason why the Lebanese Red Cross may have been targeted by the Israeli air force. "I will send you a fax proving that they are helping the Hizbollah," she says.

I await the fax, which turns out to be a New York Times report from southern Lebanon, recording how the Red Cross gave medical assistance to wounded members of the Hizbollah. I call Rachel back. The Lebanese Red Cross helped wounded American marines after they were suicide-bombed in Beirut in 1983, I tell her, and they gave help - and were criticised for it by their Lebanese neighbours - to wounded Israelis after a suicide bombing in Tyre the following year. Isn't it the duty of all Red Cross teams to help all those who are suffering? "Perhaps, but they should have detained the Hizbollah," comes the voice from Los Angeles. What? The Red Cross is now supposed to imprison Israel's enemies?

I receive another fax from Rachel. "I am for dialog (sic) but not with the Devil, Nazis et al," she says. "Reality and justice are derived from the ability to discern between good and evil, between truth and lies, and between the fireman and the arsonist. Keep safe."

What is evil incarnate? How is evil manifested? What made Hitler evil, for example? Or, to be more practical about it, what made Hitler capable of such evil?

It was his utter conviction in the sheer evil of his "enemies". He could murder millions of Jews because they were "evil"- not human, but pernicious vermin in human form. In his mind, the ability to discern between good evil, between truth and lies, and between the fireman and the arsonist, was very sharp indeed. And it enabled him to be evil.

Of course, his "discernment" was in fact wrong. He saw evil where there was no evil, and failed to see good where there was good. He saw everything through the lens of his hateful ideology. Whereas, one could argue, one would be right to classify Hezbollah as "evil".

But Hitler is merely an extreme example of the tendency to see those who are "in your way" as pure evil, and therefore fit only for destruction. There are many sides to Hezbollah- it also provides social services to the population. Is that evil? And what of its suppoerters? Are they all evil?

If it is evil for Hezbollah to take Israeli soldiers as prisoners, then what are we to make of Israel still holding thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners, without charge, after many years? Are all those prisoners too evil to be freed? The stated aim of Hezbollah in taking those Israeli soldiers prisoner was to secure the release of some of these prisoners. Was that an act of pure evil, then?

There are reasons to believe that the immediate prisoner issue was less important than the fact that both Israel and Hezbollah were quietly preparing for a showdown. But even then, the prisoner issue is important. Israel withdrew unilaterally from southern Lebanon in 2000, but did not even attempt to settle outstanding issues such as prisoners, because, of course, virtuous Israel can never descend to the level of talking with evil Hezbollah.

For those who think of Hezbollah as nothing more than an evil organization, consider this question: Do you say that its actions are evil because it is evil, or do you say that it's evil because its actions are? Because if it's the latter, then those who would fight evil need to look at their own actions, lest they wind up fighting evil with evil.

This concern apparently isn't shared by those who seem to confuse defending the interests of a foreign country with defending the interests of the Jewish community. (Look, I understand that Israel has an importance to the Jewish community for nationalistic reasons, but surely Israel has a diplomatic corps in Canada to state its case) Frank Dimant, vice-president of B'nai Brith Canada, said he finds it "outrageous" that Canadian MPs want to speak with a known terrorist organization when Canadian troops are dying at the hands of another in Afghanistan.

"(Wrzesnewskyj) (one of the MP's who suggested that maybe it's silly not to talk to Hezbollah- ed.) doesn't seem to understand that we're at war with terrorists, and that includes Hezbollah," he said. "It is not Canada's job to be a peacemaker here, but to stand with a sister democracy."

You see? There is a war between good and evil. The boundery between good and evil is plain to see. It is the boundery between the terrorists, who are all the same, and all in cahoots- and the democracies, who are all the same and whose interests are the same.

Mind you, anyone familar with the circumstances under which modern Israel came into being might recall that the main Zionist political groupings in British occupied Palestine had armed wings that committed acts of terrorism. Had the British stuck to the principle that "we will never talk to terrorists", there would be no Israel today. And, sticking to early Israeli history for a moment, wasn't using massacres to terrorise Palestinians into fleeing their lands en masse so that another people could take that land for themselves terrorism? If it wasn't, then what is?

Unless we accept that Hezbollah leaders, members and supporters are just plain evil, and that's all there is to it, then the question becomes- why do they do bad things and support bad things? When they do, it is because they themselves work from a stark distinction between good and evil- children of the light on one side, creatures of the darkness on the other. Of course we must destroy the creatures of the darkness. Don't you see? They are trying to snuff out our light- the light of God, of truth, of reason, of...whatever it is. And when they're not actively trying to snuff out our light, they're plotting to snuff out our light, or they're training their young to snuff out our light, or they're the young being trained to snuff out our light.

But seriously, yes, we must discern between good and evil and between truth and lies- but we need to discern them most of all in our own words and actions. Are we reducing other people to nothing? Are we demonizing them so we can blame them for all the evils that beset us and destroy them for the sake of our own security?

Thus when MPs go to Lebanon and report the devestation wrought by Israel's attacks, Diamont responds that the world should not forget the rockets that were aimed at civilian targets in Israel. No doubt, but he surely would like the world to forget the bombs and rockets that were aimed at civilian- yes, undeniably civilian- targets in Lebanon. And unlike Hezbollah rockets, Israeli bombs usually managed to destroy things- and, often enough, people too. People who were worth nothing to those who ordered the bombings. To me, that's evil.