Defend Israel and Civilization or Keep the Faith—You Can’t Do Both
by Craig Biddle
The October 7 jihad against Israel woke the West from its evasive slumber.
Or did it?
On that day, Hamas (aka Islamic Resistance Movement) massacred more than twelve hundred Israelis—raping women and girls; burning babies, children, and families alive; beheading and mutilating people; taking more than two hundred hostages; and gleefully sharing videos of the atrocities on social media for the world to see.
The questions I want to address are: (1) Why did Hamas do this—what is its motive? (2) What, most fundamentally, underlies and gives rise to this motive? (3) Who is willing to fight Hamas and its supporters at the most fundamental level and who is not?
What Motivates Hamas to Wage Jihad against Israel?
The answer to this question is relatively straightforward, as Hamas explicitly and repeatedly has explained why it exists and wages jihad (holy war). Hamas’s founding covenant is as clear as day: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” Jihad is necessary because “peaceful solutions” to Israel’s existence “are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement”:
Hamas aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”1
Hamas’s goal and reason for being is to kill Jews and destroy Israel. As a cleric on Hamas TV in Gaza explains, “Our doctrine in fighting you Jews is that we will totally exterminate you. We will not leave a single one of you alive.”2
Importantly, however, the jihad is not only against Israel and Jews; it is against the non-Muslim world as such.
“We are not talking about liberating our land alone,” explains Hamas cofounder and senior official Mahmoud Al-Zahar. “The entire 510 million square kilometers of Planet Earth will come under [Islamic law].”3
The goal of universal submission to Allah comes directly from the Koran, which commands Muslims to engage in jihad, like it or not. “Jihad (holy fighting in Allah’s Cause) is ordained for you (Muslims) though you dislike it, and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and that you like a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know” (e.g., 2:216, 9:38). The Koran explicitly and repeatedly commands Muslims not only to kill Jews, but, more broadly, to “kill the unbelievers wherever you find them” (e.g., 2:191, 9:5), “strike off their heads” (e.g., 8:12, 47:4), make sex slaves of their wives and daughters (e.g., 4:24, 33:50)—and continue this jihad “until all opposition ends and all submit to ‘Allah’” (e.g., 8:39, 9:29).
As incentive for Muslims to wage this worldwide holy war for Allah, the Koran tells them that they will win regardless of whether they survive or die: “To him who fighteth in the cause of Allah—whether he is slain or gets victory—soon shall We give him a reward of great value” (4:74). This inducement is central to Hamas’s charter, which states, “The Slogan of the Islamic Resistance Movement” is “Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.” The promise of reward in an alleged afterlife is why not only Hamas jihadists but also many Palestinian civilians are eager to serve as human shields and die fighting for Allah. Hamas leader Fathi Hammad explains:
For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen [i.e., jihadists] and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen. . . . It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: “We desire death like you desire life.”4
Islam is a death cult.
Hamas jihadists, Palestinian Muslims—and all Muslims who truly embrace Islam and take its tenets seriously—seek to die while killing Jews and other non-Muslims in the fight for universal submission to Allah. If and when these death worshippers obliterate Israel and kill all the Jews, their next target will be you and me, our families and loved ones, and the entire civilized world. The Koran commands it. Muslims have told us they will do it. And they have demonstrated that they mean it.
The foregoing shows, in terms of Islamic content, why Muslims engage in jihad against Jews and other non-Muslims. But why do Muslims believe Allah exists in the first place? Why do they accept the content of the Koran as true? What is their method or means of believing such things?
The answer to this question will bring us to a deeper and vital understanding.
Why Do Muslims Believe in Allah and Accept the Koran as True?
Allah is alleged to be an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being—the creator of the universe, the source of all truth, and the maker of moral law. But this raises a pressing question: Is there evidence for such a being? There is not—which is why no one ever has presented such evidence. On what basis, then, do Muslims accept Allah’s existence? They accept it on faith—faith being acceptance of ideas without evidence. Likewise, the Koran is said to be the word and will of Allah, thus the moral law and the instruction manual for morally correct action. Is there evidence to support this claim? Again, no. Muslims accept it on faith.
When we accept an idea based on evidence, we accept it by means of reason, not faith. The reason we have and need the concept of “faith” is that some people sometimes accept ideas in the absence of or in defiance of evidence, and we need to differentiate such instances from those in which people accept ideas on the basis of evidence. This conceptual need is what gives rise to the concept of “faith.” If we didn’t need to make this distinction, we wouldn’t need the concept.5
Now observe that if faith is a means of knowledge—if people can know what is true by means of faith—then they can “know” literally anything to be true. A woman turned into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:26)—check. You should love your neighbors (Leviticus 19:18)—check. You should love your enemies (Matthew 5:44)—check. You should kill homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13)—check. Muslims must kill Jews and unbelievers (see above)—check.
Either faith is a means of knowledge or it is not. If it is a means of knowledge, then whatever anyone accepts by means of faith is by that fact knowledge—that is, true. If so, then the tenets of Islam—which Muslims accept by means of faith—are true.
Of course, faith is not a means of knowledge, and every thinking adult knows this. The problem is that many pretend not to know it. Many go along with the pretense that faith is a means of knowledge to get along with family and friends who pretend that it is a means of knowledge. This is cowardly and immoral in the extreme.
To pretend that faith is a means of knowledge is to support and encourage jihadists—and the Islamic regimes that sponsor them—at the most fundamental level: the epistemological level. It is to say to them, in effect, “Whatever our disagreements, your method of arriving at truth and knowledge is correct.” Well, if their “method” is correct, how can the content they “know” by means of it be incorrect? It can’t be.
This pretense must stop.
It is time for all civilized people to state clearly and openly that faith is not a means of knowledge, that reason is our only means of knowledge, and that all claims to the contrary are dishonest and nonsensical.
Of course, not everyone will do this. But we don’t need everyone to do it. If a courageous and vocal few take the lead, many others will follow, and the ranks of the rational will expand over time. The consequent barrage of truth bombs will strike relentlessly and increasingly at the very root of Islam (faith), undercutting the ersatz confidence that Muslims have in their savage, murderous creed—a parasitic confidence they have only because (a) many Westerners pretend with them that faith is a means of knowledge, and (b) almost no one calls the pretense what it is.
Be one of the vocal few who take the lead. Call faith what it is: a dishonest claim to a pretend means of knowledge.
Who Stands Fundamentally for Civilization and Who Does Not?
Everyone in the civilized world has a choice in this matter: Either acknowledge and give voice to the fact that reason is our only means of knowledge—a principle that, on some level, everyone knows to be true—or remain silent about the pretense that faith is a means of knowledge and thereby spiritually support the jihadists and Islamic regimes that are dedicated to killing Jews and other non-Muslims until everyone on the planet submits to Allah.
This is not a difficult choice. And those who pretend that it is difficult thereby confess to caring more about what irrational people think of them than they do about truth, honesty, and the requirements of human life on Earth.
Make your choice known. And encourage others to do so, too. This will unify people of reason, discredit the foundation of Islam, and make clear who stands fundamentally for civilization and who does not.
“The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement,” August 18, 1988, Article 8, Yale Law School, Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp.
“Hamas Sermon from the Gaza Strip: Our Doctrine Entails Exterminating the Jews,” Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), July 25, 2014, https://www.memri.org/tv/hamas-sermon-gaza-strip-our-doctrine-entails-exterminating-jews.
“Senior Hamas Official Mahmoud Al-Zahar: The ‘Army of Jerusalem’ Will Not Liberate Palestinian Land Only; The 512 Million Square Kilometers of Planet Earth Will Come under a System with No Zionism, No Treacherous Christianity,” MEMRI, December 12, 2022, https://www.memri.org/tv/senior-hamas-official-zahar-zionism-treacherous-christianity.
“Hamas MP Fathi Hammad: We Used Women and Children as Human Shields,” MEMRI, February 29, 2008, https://www.memri.org/tv/hamas-mp-fathi-hammad-we-used-women-and-children-human-shields.
“Belief” is acceptance of an idea as true, so claims to the effect that faith is about belief, not about truth (or knowledge), fall flat.
Craig Biddle, your persistent evasion of my critiques is not just an oversight—it is a voluntary surrender of your professed principles. I have dismantled your tribal definition of Objectivism, exposed the minarchist contradiction, revealed your false equivalence with Charlie Kirk, and demonstrated the collectivist core of your pro-Israel statism. Yet, you respond by republishing an old article attacking Islam, as if focusing on an external enemy could absolve you of internal inconsistency. This is not just evasion; it is a confession of philosophical bankruptcy.
You won't die from an emotional apocalypse by engaging with my arguments. Confronting truth does not destroy a rational mind; it fortifies it. But you might perish from your worship of suffering—the suffering of cognitive dissonance, the agony of unexamined contradictions, and the slow decay of integrity that comes from placing tribal loyalty above reason. You avoid what is unnecessary to avoid: the hard work of consistent thinking.
If you are truly on the side of rationality, then any outcome from this engagement will be to your advantage. If I am evil or wrong, you will emerge stronger by refuting me, sharpening your arguments, and reaffirming your principles. If I am right, you will have the chance to correct your errors and actually follow truth, not the falsehood of dogma. But by refusing to engage, you choose stagnation over growth, safety over truth, and the gray comfort of orthodoxy over the vibrant challenge of reason.
Your silence is a louder statement than any article you republish. It tells your audience that you cannot defend your positions against rigorous scrutiny. It reveals that your commitment to reason is conditional—applicable only to outsiders, not to your own movement. You have become a straw man for religious thinking, using the language of individualism to defend collectivism and the rhetoric of reason to practice faith.
Stop hiding. Address my challenges directly. Your philosophy demands it—not as a rhetorical flourish, but as a metaphysical obligation. It demands explaining actual reality in full scope and from its fundamentals. It demands you trace every root of every equation, or prove conclusively why no roots exist. It demands you meet every challenge that could alter your conclusions—not rationalize them away, not sidestep them, but engage them, test them, and let reality arbitrate.
I do not rush you. But you must begin, one step at a time. One argument, one contradiction, one moment of principled confrontation.
Or you are already lost. And the worst has already happened: you have chosen the comfort of silence over the sovereignty of reason.
The Catalog of Evasion: Craig Biddle's Unanswered Challenges
I have systematically dismantled your philosophical foundation across multiple fronts, and your response has been absolute silence. Your decision to republish "Defend Israel and Civilization or Keep the Faith—You Can't Do Both" represents not engagement but strategic retreat—the final confirmation that you cannot answer my critiques without collapsing your entire architectural framework.
Here are the crucial challenges you have evaded:
1. The Tribal Definition of Objectivism I demonstrated that your definition of Objectivism as "the philosophy of Ayn Rand" commits both stolen concept fallacy and package-deal fallacy. A philosophy's validity depends on correspondence to reality, not authorship. You have never explained how treating Rand as an authority figure squares with the primacy of existence. A valid definition is: Objectivism is a philosophy of the explicit, conscious, and consistent application of the primacy of existence and integration by epistemological razor. https://substack.com/profile/263954129-selfish-john/note/c-165166791?r=4d5gb5&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web (see also 3.)
2. The Minarchist Contradiction I proved that minarchism systematically violates the Non-Aggression Principle through taxation and territorial monopoly. The consistent application of Objectivist axioms leads to anarcho-capitalism, not your compromised statism. You have offered no defense against this logical deduction. https://selfishjohn.substack.com/p/the-epistemological-case-for-anarchism
3. The Charlie Kirk False Equivalence I exposed your equation of Kirk with historical martyrs of reason as epistemological fraud. Kirk advocated Christian theocracy and faith-based politics—the antithesis of reason. You have never explained how mourning an anti-reason advocate as a martyr for reason constitutes philosophical consistency. https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/p/two-principles-on-which-civilized/comment/163849950
4. The Pro-Israel Collectivism I demonstrated that your defense of Israeli statism commits the same collective categorization errors you condemn in anti-Semitism. You treat "Israelis" and "Palestinians" as moral categories while using individual rights language to defend collective aggression. This contradiction remains unaddressed. https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/p/the-two-state-delusion/comment/164917953
5. The Architectural Superiority of Integrative Egoism I presented a philosophically superior ethical system grounded in Identity as the standard, with morality as identity-consistent integration. Your failure to engage confirms that Rand's derivative "life as standard" framework cannot withstand scrutiny. Or that you don't have the epistemology to defend your own moral system. https://selfishjohn.substack.com/p/the-integrative-egoism?r=4d5gb5
6. The Religious Nature of Tribal Objectivism I proved that your movement practices the same faith-based epistemology it condemns in another religion—accepting Rand's conclusions without evidence, treating her as infallible, and demanding conformity to dogma. You have never explained how this differs from Islamic or Christian fundamentalism. https://substack.com/@selfishjohn/note/c-165180769?r=4d5gb5&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
Your republished article represents the final stage of intellectual decay. You have become gray—not in age, but in philosophical vitality. Nobody follows gray heroes because gray represents the absence of color, life, and principle. You now defend only against external threats while surrendering to internal corruption.
By focusing exclusively on Islam's epistemological failures, you create a strategic diversion from your own. This is the oldest trick in the religious playbook: identify an external evil to avoid confronting internal contradictions. You have become what you claim to fight—a practitioner of faith, just with different scriptures.
Your article about Islam inadvertently condemns you:
You attack faith while practicing faith in Rand's authority
You condemn determinism while treating Palestinians as "pre-programmed"
You critique collective thinking while defending Israeli collective rights
You demand evidence from Muslims while evading evidence against your own positions
You have become another straw man for religious victory. The pattern is unmistakable:
The Circular Reasoning: "Objectivism is true because Rand said it" mirrors "The Koran is true because Allah revealed it."
The Willful Blindness: Ignoring contradictions in minarchism mirrors ignoring contradictions in religious texts.
The Group Thinking: Tribal loyalty overriding philosophical consistency mirrors religious conformity overriding individual judgment.
The Sacrifice: Surrendering intellectual independence to movement orthodoxy mirrors religious self-abnegation.
I agree that Islam is evil, but any religion is evil—including your tribal Objectivism. Any form of denial of logic, evidence, and independence is fundamentally evil. Any form of passivity and conformity of one's will to others is metaphysical treason.
Your evasion stems from the same psychological corruption I identified: the calculation that maintaining tribal status is more valuable than philosophical consistency. You have chosen to be a respected heretic-hunter rather than a consistent advocate of reason.
But evil can only win when the hero wants to escape from it so badly that escape becomes his new dogma. You have made evasion your imperative, overriding any value, sense, or choice that actually exists in reality.
Your readers sense this graying. They feel the architectural instability. They see the selective application of principles. They recognize the pattern of attacking external enemies while ignoring internal decay. This is why your movement stagnates while independent thought advances.
You stand at a crossroads:
Continue as a gray defender of religious thinking in Objectivist clothing
Or embrace the consistent individualism that flows from your own professed axioms
Your republished article is a confession of philosophical bankruptcy. It demonstrates that you cannot defend your positions against rigorous scrutiny, so you retreat to safe territory where you can still pose as a defender of reason.
But the mask has slipped. You have become what you fought—another religious thinker using reason as a weapon against outsiders while practicing faith within your tribe. The tragedy is complete: in defending reason against Islam, you have betrayed reason to Objectivist orthodoxy.
The path to redemption remains open, but it requires the courage you have thus far lacked: to confront your evasions, acknowledge your architectural flaws, and embrace the consistent individualism that actually follows from Ayn Rand's axioms. Until then, you remain a gray hero in a dying movement, defending religion while claiming to champion reason.