Evil Masquerading as Compassion

The Fellowship  |  August 17, 2018

Think virulent anti-Israel, anti-Semitic rhetoric is confined to Arab media in the Middle East? Think again:

We see pictures of relatives of the martyrs in Palestine almost every day. Yet phenomena such as mothers of martyrs in large numbers are amazing human phenomena that our minds cannot grasp. What is the nature of this group? Where did they receive such faith along with the ability, strong as steel, to sacrifice and to bear and endure the pain and the separation, and to ask Allah for more?

These are phenomenal women that we must not allow to go unnoticed. Instead, we must make them sacred symbols of our concerns, of our struggle, and of our suffering in the eyes of all the world.

That’s from an article by Muhammad Sayf al-Dawla, published last week in a Toronto-based Arabic-language newspaper, Akhbar al-Arab. The article extols the virtues of mothers whose children have become “martyrs” by losing their lives in attacks against Israelis.

Having sympathy for a parent who has lost a son or daughter is ordinary human compassion. But glorifying those who have lost their lives murdering or attempting to murder innocent Israelis is simply evil. As long as this hateful way of thinking exists and is propagated, true peace between Israel and her neighbors will remain a distant dream.