Kerby Anderson
 
For some time, political commentators have lamented the end of “Pax Americana.” Noah Rothman believes that the Hamas attack on Israel reflects dangerous changes in the international world. In case you are wondering, Pax Americana has been a term used to describe the influence of the US and its military after World War II.
“More than 1,500 Hamas terrorists participated in this savage attack, the scale of which demonstrates the level of planning involved.” The Wall Street Journal, for example, revealed that “officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard” had been working with Hamas for months.
We also know that Iran provides hundreds of millions of dollars to Muslim groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Noah Rothman reminds us, “When Hamas terrorists, Hezbollah mercenaries, and Iranian theocrats chant “Death to America” after murdering Israelis, they’re not confused.”
But the global conflict involves other countries. “Moscow has received hundreds of attack drones from Iran over the course of the war.” It appears to have received ballistic missiles, helicopters, and radar systems from Iran. He adds that “China is Iran’s largest trading partner and the source of nearly a quarter of its weapons imports. Beijing and Tehran have reportedly agreed to conduct joint military exercises and training, just as China and Russia have increased their joint military activity.”
The Hamas attack on Israel shows that this post-American world will become even more dangerous. Our enemies are joining forces. We need to pray for our leaders and find more astute ones soon.

Kerby Anderson
Columnist Charles Cooke is blunt in his assessment: “Hamas Apologists Are Freaks.” I might not have used that description, but his assessment is correct. Well-adjusted people do not look at the bloodshed by Hamas terrorists and use woke, intersectional words to justify this evil act.
Some of the people who have tried to justify the Hamas butchery are backing away from those statements. They argue they never made those statements, or else they were misinterpreted. Before these apologists are successful in rewriting history, it’s worth thinking about the mind games you must use to justify such horrific acts.
“It is simply not within the normal bounds of human behavior to look at what has happened in Israel and to filter one’s instinctive moral reaction through whatever goofy, specious, ugly ideology one might have picked up in an overpriced seminar hall.” Yes, words like “colonialism” and “imperialism” have a place in some discussions when properly defined. But well-adjusted people don’t read about machine-gunning concertgoers and beheading babies and use woke language to justify something that would repulse any normal person.
“Well-adjusted people do not learn of the largest single instance of antisemitic butchery since the Holocaust and muse about how intersectional the dead might have been.” And they don’t write open letters holding the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all the violence used against it.
But we cannot just shake our heads at such comments. Unfortunately, we learn from history that the first step in the road to barbarism is any attempt to dehumanize other human beings and justify their elimination with adjectives and phrases meant to lessen their value. We should never justify evil.