J. Pharoah Doss: Judgment defeats us?

Both Palestinian children in Gaza, as shown on left, and Israeli children, as seen on the right, have been hurt, killed and kidnapped in the Israel-Hamas war. Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images/Roy Rochlin/Getty Images In the 1979 Vietnam War movie “Apocalypse Now,” Colonel Kurtz went rogue and then used barbaric methods to defeat the enemy. The U.S. military turned a blind eye because Kurtz was successful. Then Kurtz leaked photographs of his atrocities to the international media. The “civilized world” couldn’t stomach what they saw and wanted Kurtz stopped.& The U.S. military declared Kurtz insane and dispatched an assassin to kill him. When Kurtz and the assassin were finally face-to-face, Kurtz told the assassin he had the right to kill him, but he had no right to judge him or call him a murderer. Then Kurtz delivered a monologue that many still find reprehensible. Kurtz said: “It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. I remember when I was in special forces and we went into a camp to inoculate the children for polio. Later, this old man came running after us, crying. We went back to the camp. The...