How Do You Negotiate—With Evil?

I vividly remember thinking to myself, “It’s getting close to bedtime” on the evening of October 7, 2023. But then my wife called and said, “Turn on the TV—NOW.”

I watched as Fox News reporter Trey Yingst described an unfolding attack against Israel, apparently by the terrorist group Hamas. I (incredulously) reported on it that night, and myriad times in the months following, and even though I was appalled by the slaughter, I was not prepared for the true evil that it turned out unfolded on that day.

Babies killed. Women raped. Innocents assassinated in cold blood. Hundreds of young people enjoying their lives brutally massacred at a music festival. It could have been my kids. It could have been yours.

The images haunt me to this day. As more and more information was revealed showing the true depravity of the Hamas assailants, it became clear to me that there was only one word for what we witnessed: evil.

Actually, make it three words: pure, unadulterated evil.

In the following days, Israel did what it had to do if it didn’t want to see repeats of this almost inhuman perversion—it went on the offensive, declared war, and took on the dark forces of Hamas. Civilians have died in the process, and that’s a sad reality of most warfare, but remember that none of them would have died had Hamas not savagely murdered over 1,200 Israelis. Remember also that many of the civilian casualties in Gaza—notoriously overstated by the utterly mendacious Gaza Health Ministry—would be alive today if the terrorist group didn’t use them as human shields and hide their military operations in hospitals and schools.

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