In the Genesis creation story, good and evil, and the difference between them, Adam and Eve are warned against eating from “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (2:16). But in the Garden of Eden, the plot moves quickly, when the snake, in the role of instigator, tells Eve that by eating the forbidden fruit, “your eyes will be opened” and, like God, you will be able to distinguish between good and evil (3:5). Such knowledge is the essence of human existence, and once they acquired it, Adam and Eve were expelled from the artificial paradise, and history, with all its moral complexities, began.
The biblical opening also equates good with the act of creation, and the different stages are summarized with the words “and God saw it was good.” Evil, as the opposite of good, is destruction – physical as well as interpersonal and societal.
Based on this foundation, the Torah presents the story of Cain’s murder of his brother Abel, highlighting the most irreversibly destructive and immoral of human actions. In the name of justice, Cain is punished for his evil actions, and must bear this painful punishment for the rest of his life (4:13).
In this universal framework for defining human behavior, the contrast between good and evil and between justice and injustice are fundamental, and these themes continue to be central throughout the Hebrew Bible and later, in Jewish texts and practice, as well in the wider Western canon.
However, in the liberal postmodern world of the 21st century, this fundamental moral framework has been abandoned and rejected, as reflected in the cliché “One man’s (or woman’s) terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.” Those who, in past centuries and millennia, would have been tried, jailed, and cast out of society as evildoers – such as murderers and rapists – are now relieved of responsibility for their actions and recast as victims of circumstances or society, and thus as not responsible for their deeds.
Reductionist liberal ideals
In the realms of war and peace, the liberal world has replaced the distinction between aggressors (bad) and defenders (good) with an ideological litmus test that instead divides the world between ostensible “colonizers” (bad) and victims of colonization, who are automatically good. Regardless of the massive destruction and atrocities that the so-called victims commit, such as murder, rape, and other forms of brutality, they are treated like children, and cannot be held morally accountable for their actions.
Not coincidentally, this framework only recognizes Western colonialists and their “Global South” or “people of color” victims. For example, Arab colonialism, which originated in Saudi Arabia and spread throughout the world under the flag of Islam, as well as its victims, are erased.
In this false morality and reversal of good and evil, the Jewish people and Israel are absurdly relegated to the category of Western colonizers, and Palestinian Arabs are the unquestioned victims who cannot be held accountable for their actions. Seventy-six years of war and terrorism, leading up to the atrocities of October 7, are relabeled as “resistance,” and whatever Israel does to defend its citizens against these horrors is immediately and mindlessly twisted into “war crimes,” “genocide,” and “apartheid.” Military strength used against the evils of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran is merely evidence of Israel’s “violations of international law.”
For these reasons, Western liberals are blind to evil that is amplified by officials who control the United Nations, the international pseudo-courts, and the powerful industry of nongovernmental organizations marching under the flag of human rights, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Among many, the illusion that these institutions remain the cornerstones of a “rules-based international order” continues to be unquestioned despite the blatant evidence that, for many years, they have been leading sources of hate propaganda and antisemitism.
When four presidents of prominent universities recently told a US congressional committee that categorizing the mob attacks and intimidation targeting Jews as acts of hatred and antisemitism “depended on the context,” they were not merely pretending to be naive innocents to avoid responsibility for their repugnant inaction. They were also repeating the postmodern blindness to the essential difference between good and evil and between justice and injustice.
These distinctions, unambiguously presented in the opening chapters of the Hebrew Bible and maintained until the advent of “enlightened liberalism,” are essential to a moral human society.
The writer is emeritus professor of politics at Bar-Ilan University, and president of NGO Monitor.