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There are acts of war, there are war crimes, and there are acts of pure evil — beheading babies surely falls into that latter category.

Beheading babies isn’t something soldiers do. Nor do they burn babies alive.

It’s not something that even rogue soldiers — though they execute a prisoner, kill a civilian, or God forbid, rape a woman — might do.

The word barbaric is apt, but even that fails to convey the depth of darkness that was perpetrated against Israeli families attacked a fortnight ago.

Can we agree on the word demonic? The few sane people left in the world are starting to come around to that word.

Glib Greens

Meanwhile, 14,000km from Israel, a group of Australian politicians could not bring themselves to condemn what occurred in southern Israel without also condemning Israel.

‘Beheading babies is bad, but what about …’ is not the way a sentence should ever begin.

And yet that was exactly the message from the Australian Greens, who refused to support a motion condemning Hamas unless that motion also condemned Israel.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what occurred in Israel, and also about the crazy reaction to it around the world.

How do you understand men cutting heads off babies?

Can it even be understood?

And how do you understand the equivocation around it by people who ought to know better?

We’ve all heard the arguments…

Well, you know, the terrorists were angry at Israeli occupation.

They were upset about living under apartheid.

They were finally fed up with the Jewish colonisers.

What, so they beheaded babies?!?! In what universe does anyone accept such a proposition?

Moral and Spiritual Realities

Beheading babies cannot be explained rationally, because beheading babies is evil. And evil defies any logical explanation because it is demonic.

And bingo! The reason we don’t want to talk about “evil” is because then we have to have a conversation about spiritual realities. And honestly, we’d all just rather watch Netflix.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Scratching around for a justification for beheading babies, as if such a justification might exist, is also evil. And there’s a lot of evil parading around right now.

The Western response to Jewish babies having their heads cut off was telling.

First, people insisted that the story was a lie.

Then people protested there was no proof.

Later, people said babies weren’t beheaded, only burned alive. As if that’s a relief.

After, people conceded babies may have been beheaded, but it was less than 40.

Eventually, people said it was wrong but… you know, kind of understandable, considering this and that and yada yada blah blah.

Finally, we had an Imam in Sydney saying he was “elated”, and a university professor in the US describing the attack as “exhilarating”.

(As a side note, did you notice that Israeli children weren’t beheaded unless we saw confirmed photographs of severed baby heads, but the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was blown up by Israel, killing hundreds of innocents, because Hamas said so!)

In less than a fortnight, we went from ‘it didn’t happen’ to ‘it was exhilarating’. That’s what happens when you dance with the devil.

Now you understand why — two weeks after homes in the southern Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Aza were attacked — people are locking their doors in Sydney, and London, and New Jersey, and Belgium, and Paris and …

Evil is making a comeback — big time.

Equivocating

For a long time now, evil has cleverly hidden under a cloak of political correctness so as to garner sympathy and a kind of acceptability endowed by progressive elites.

Terrorists aren’t evil, they are “militants”.

Pedophiles aren’t evil, they are “minor-attracted persons” whose proclivities can be explained, kind of.

Sex change doctors aren’t “mutilating” young people’s bodies, which would most certainly be evil. No, no. They are “reassigning gender” and saving lives in the process.

Abortionists aren’t evil. They are “healthcare providers”.

And on it goes.

(I’ve probably upset some people with that abortion one, but killing a baby in utero is most certainly not health care. And if it’s not evil, why the need to obfuscate? But I digress)

We’ve become so desensitised to evil that we stopped believing in it. No matter how horrific an act, it could all be explained away so that our WeetBix were not disturbed.

Even ISIS was dismissed as “a bunch of crazies”.

Then, in a moment, Hamas happened.

Storming people’s homes in the early hours of the morning, they killed babies in their cots and cut off their heads. They slaughtered families while broadcasting their deaths on social media. Hamas made ISIS look rational, And just like that, evil was back.

The Nazis at least had a sliver of conscience that compelled them to try to hide their wickedness.

Hamas livestreamed it.

They were shameless.

And now progressive Lefties around the world chant “gas the Jews” and “f*k the Jews” and “from the river to the sea…” while police arrest people carrying Israeli flags “for their own safety” as politicians insist “Hamas are bad but…”

But what? But not that bad?

9000 people took to the streets of Sydney chanting for the side who killed babies. It was the terrorist equivalent of a Pride parade.

Spiritual Warfare

So the question remains, what are we to make of all of this?

By definition, evil has no natural explanation. So, can we try a spiritual one?

Imagine, for just a moment, that the God of the universe really did speak to a man named Abraham some 4000 years ago.

And imagine God really did choose Abraham and his family to be the theatre in which He would reveal Himself to mankind.

Would not that put a huge bullseye on Abraham’s descendents, from that moment until this?

And imagine God really did promise Abraham a LAND (Israel) in which that message would be played out; a LINEAGE (the Jews) in whom that message would be played out; and a LORD (Jesus) who would personify that message for the whole world.

Wouldn’t it make sense that every demon in hell would seek to conquer Israel, kill the Jews and present a saviour other than Jesus?

Muhammad, anyone?

Now I know you don’t believe in demons. But that was before men started lopping heads off babies. If you’re not reconsidering the ‘demons don’t exist thing’ yet, you’re not awake.

Explain to me the centrality of Jerusalem in world events for the past 4,000 years, apart from the the story of Abraham.

Explain to me the manic hatred of the Jews — through all times and in all cultures — apart from the fact that they are somehow a bridge between heaven and earth and so have become the conduit for war on earth, as it is in heaven.

Explain to me the evil done to the Jews in ancient times — by the Egyptians and the Babylonians and the Romans — and in more recent times by the Germans and now the Palestinians aided and abetted by the Iranians. Explain it apart from the fact that waves of evil are regularly unleashed against them that defy explanation except that they are from another realm.

Iran calls Israel a cancer that must be driven into the sea. They fund Israel’s neighbours to reign terror down upon it. And why? Iran has no dog in the fight. Explain the visceral hatred, apart from Abraham.

Tell me how it is that the entire world — from the United Nations to the bobby in London who ordered photos of Jewish hostages not to be displayed — treats Israel so differently.

If Israel is the theatre God chose in which to reveal Himself to a rebellious world, then the fight for the LAND and the hatred of the LINEAGE and the determination to eradicate the LORD suddenly and dramatically makes sense.

What we are seeing played out in the Middle East, and by extension in parliaments and in streets around the world, is quite literally an existential battle between good and evil, in real-time, right before our eyes.

We don’t want to hear that because we are then obligated to take a side — not so much between Israel and Palestine, but between good and evil, between God and godlessness in all its forms.

And to not take a side is always to take a side.

If I were not already curious about the Bible and the Christian faith, I would be as of a fortnight ago.

As uncomfortable and as disturbing as it may be, I can find no other explanation for today’s sudden explosion of evil that even remotely makes sense.

Evil is real. We have all seen it in the Middle East, and we have all heard its apologists in the West.

If evil is real, then good must also be real. If you talk about the Middle East without reference to spiritual issues, you’re only engaging in small talk.

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Originally published at The James Macpherson Report.

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Photo: Hadi Mohammad/Wikimedia Commons