No Country For Old Men: No Compromise with Evil Like Hamas

The Moral Clarity⁢ of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

The moral valence of real-world situations is often complicated, with more gray than black and white.⁣ But‍ other times, the ⁤moral clarity of a conflict⁢ is evident. So it ‍is with the ongoing conflict‍ between Israel​ and Palestine after Hamas terrorists carried out their brutal assault on Israeli civilians just over three months ⁤ago.

I couldn’t help but think of this‌ war as I reread Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old ⁤Men with one of my classes. We‌ read the ⁢book for​ what it can tell us about cultural breakdown in the wake of the 1960s, rampant⁢ materialism and ⁤the loss ​of religion, and the furious‌ violence of which men are⁣ capable when they‌ are not properly culturally regulated.

This time through the book, however, I was called especially to the narrative it⁣ offers⁢ of how ⁣one must deal with unmitigated evil.

In the novel, Llewelyn Moss is being ⁣pursued ⁢by Anton Chigurh, the sinister and quasi-mythological archetype of criminal insanity⁤ who wants ​the money ‍Moss appropriated from the gory scene‌ of a ⁢shootout at a ⁤drug deal gone ​wrong. When Chigurh arrives at his hotel, kills ‌the clerk, and obtains the key to Moss’s room, he finds⁢ it seemingly deserted. But when he looks in the bathroom, Moss gets the⁤ drop on him.

“Don’t turn around,” he orders Chigurh. “You turn around and I’ll blow you to hell.”

After taking Chigurh’s gun and⁣ walking him down the hallway, however, Moss inexplicably flees without eliminating the threat — but he doesn’t get far. Eventually, he ‌is found by others pursuing ⁣the drug money and shot dead.

Chigurh, meanwhile, tracks down Moss’s young wife, Carla Jean, as ⁤her death is part of the dark ethic by which ​he operates. The scene in‍ which Chigurh murders Carla Jean is one of the most unbearable ‍in ⁤the book.‍ She is a good woman who has done ‍nothing except love and support the man to whom she is married. He clearly loved her just as​ fiercely but‍ let her down — in taking⁤ the money in the first place⁣ and setting the whole thing into action, and then⁢ in egotistically believing he‍ could win against overpowering malign⁢ forces. Most profoundly, he failed her in having refused⁢ the⁢ opportunity⁤ to eliminate ⁤a force of evil when he had it.

This⁢ same‌ theme — the protagonist⁢ who has⁣ the opportunity‌ to dispatch abject evil and does not do so, out of misplaced mercy, ‍and later pays the ultimate price for his mistake — can be found ⁢elsewhere in McCarthy’s novels. ⁤In Blood Meridian, the kid has several‍ chances to destroy the judge, the very incarnation of war and ⁣bloodlust, but does⁤ not‌ take ⁤them. By the‍ novel’s conclusion, he becomes ‌yet another of​ the⁣ judge’s victims.

What is it in evil ⁢that distinguishes ‍it ⁢from good? Chigurh tells​ Carla Jean, and ⁤us, just before he‍ coldly murders her. “You don’t have to… You ⁤don’t,” she pleads. ⁤She presents no immediate​ danger to him. But perhaps she could describe him ​to ‌the ⁢police and in this way ‌somehow aid in his eventual⁤ capture. “You’re asking that I make myself vulnerable and that I can never do,” he responds.

What is ⁣vulnerability? It ​is the‌ act of accepting one’s weakness and trusting the other, even though such trust is always ⁣an act of​ blind faith, impossible to ‍base ‌on ⁣anything other than love and ⁤acceptance. The⁣ other can ⁤always turn on you, ⁣betray⁣ you, ‍harm you. ‍To make ‍yourself vulnerable‍ before⁤ him is the⁤ most primordial act of humbling oneself.

Evil can never do this. Evil is⁣ that which is never vulnerable, which⁣ crushes ‍the‍ act ⁢of truth and faith by its inability ​to humble itself, and which pursues‌ only domination.

To fail to ​act appropriately toward evil ‌is to participate ⁢in its survival. Good, even in ⁤the quite‌ less than‍ pure⁤ form of Llewelyn Moss, is called to stand⁣ against‌ evil. This cannot mean sacrificing itself,‌ as this will entail, logically extended, the ⁢elimination of good and the proliferation of evil.

What then must the good do? It must destroy evil. ⁤Moss should have⁤ shot⁢ Chigurh before he turned around. By the logic of the​ novel, he ‍would‍ not therefore have saved ⁢his own life, since it was the Mexican drug cartel‍ members who eventually ‍caught up with him. But he would have ⁤saved the life of his loving and beloved wife. And he would⁣ have saved the untold number of victims that lay in the brutal and evil killer’s future.

The central figure in​ the ​novel, Sheriff Bell, speaks ‍emotionally ⁢of ‌the ⁤deep religious belief of his wife, his anchor in the world. In‌ her deep faith, she might well remind us that judgment is always ⁤and ⁣finally God’s. This much is true. Sometimes, though, God requires us to act to‌ show our⁤ own‍ commitment to the ⁤good,⁣ and precisely ⁢to hasten the moment at⁣ which​ His⁤ judgment of evil may ⁤take place.

This brings‍ me back to Israel and Hamas.​ As my‍ class was finishing the ⁤novel, I thought of ‍how so much ⁢of the Western⁤ media, political, and intellectual elite has been‍ saying the same monolithic thing about the defensive response of ​a ⁤people‍ simply trying to live amid surrounding enemies who every day tell the world⁢ of their desire⁣ to‍ exterminate the‍ Jews — every man, woman, and child. “There must be a ceasefire,” ‍ goes the mantra. “We must recognize moral​ ambiguity.”

Of course, war is almost⁣ always more complicated than a showdown between two men like Chigurh and Moss. No one celebrates the​ dying⁢ of Palestinian children‌ under Israeli bombs. But why‌ are those bombs⁤ falling?

Because the ​Palestinian people in Gaza selected as​ their leaders a terrorist gang ⁢that has been⁤ explicit​ about ⁤their evil ⁣designs for⁤ decades, ⁣a terrorist ‌gang ‌that a ⁤majority of Palestinians still support today. Because Hamas did ‌what evil entities can be counted on to do — that is, it deliberately ⁣and enthusiastically committed ‍atrocities. And because⁤ it promises more atrocities ‍if it is not stopped.

If ⁤Hamas genuinely⁢ wanted no Palestinian children to die in the war it began, it needed only to surrender and dissolve its organization. Even ⁣short of that, it could greatly reduce the amount⁢ of suffering to innocents in Gaza ‌by giving up the practice, vastly documented by many sources, of using its own citizenry as human shields against the attack that was called ⁣forth ⁣by its own savagery.​ But it does not‍ do these things,‌ and ‌we can safely ⁣predict it will not do them.

Why? Because‍ it is ⁤a force of evil.

The complexities​ here ​are ⁤obfuscations of a basic reality. The⁢ story of Israel ‌and Hamas ‌is the same as the one of Moss⁣ and Chigurh. ⁢Moss is incompletely and waveringly good,​ certainly, but at his ⁣core, he is ⁣on the ​right⁤ side of the moral binary. The same is true of Israel. Chigurh and Hamas, however, are not ​morally​ gray entities. They are evil through and through.

You ⁢cannot ⁤coexist with unconditional evil, and Hamas is just that. There ⁢are only two ways: You will destroy it, or it ‍will destroy you. Israel has chosen, and all those who⁤ properly understand the nature of the war of⁢ good and evil ⁢are compelled to⁢ recognize the correctness of its choice.