Ann P. Levinis an author and legal educator. She lives in Karnei Shomron, Israel. Her book, Burning But Never Consumed, is available on Amazon.
On Shavuout, we celebrate the climax of the Exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Divine law to the Jewish People. Social order depends on the rule of law based on objective moral imperatives. If that disappears, or is perverted, civilization collapses. The Ten Commandments lists indispensable legal and ethical principles that sustain human society. Tanach repeatedly bemoans the results of abandoning this legal and moral order, as do many historical, political and social thinkers.
One leitmotif of William Golding’s modern classic, Lord of the Flies, is that the absence of ordered liberty based on the ethical rule of law erodes into factionalism, deranged mob rule and social collapse.
William Golding’s dystopian parable of 20th century society, Lord of the Flies observes human nature on the religious, political and psychological levels. Individual boys symbolize different social aspects.
Piggy represents scientific intellectualism. Simon represents spirituality as he confronts the “Lord of the Flies” (“Baalzebub” the Devil). Simon realizes that the Devil really lies within us, and we must overcome it. Ralph embodies representative government and legal order as he calls the boys to meetings with a conch shell, and anyone who holds the conch shell has permission to speak. Jack is the egotistical despot with psychopathic and sadistic tendencies and eventually coerces all the boys to his leadership of barbaric pagan rituals, violence, and murder. Roger is the evil despot’s henchman, eager to unleash savagery and cruelty against the weak at the first opportunity.
In the early chapters of the book, Jack’s bigger boys test how far they can intimidate the smaller boys, the “littluns”. At this point, the last vestiges of law and order are still intact:
“Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law.”
By the end of the story, all the legal and moral architecture protecting both the “littluns” and the bigger boys is gone.
Today, the Lord of the Flies is no allegory. Hamas has shown us in graphic detail the face of descent into savage chaos.
As bad as this is, the international community responded to this atrocity with something worse, for all the demons of Baalzebub are now aligned against the People of the Book.
Global institutions did not answer Hamas depravity with unequivocal and universal condemnation and punishment. There were no economic or political sanctions against the perpetrators. The United Nations and the International Criminal Court did not defend global civilization. Instead, they legitimized and rewarded the Hamas atrocities under the color of “international law” and “human rights”. They eagerly blamed Israel for non-existent attacks on hospitals and for exaggerated false death tolls caused by Hamas’ use of human shields.
Governments in the West rewarded Islamist butchery with formal recognition of a Palestinian state and agreed to execute the arrest warrant against Israel’s Prime Minister. They delivered huge aid packages of cash, food and medicine, ostensibly for “innocent civilians” but which were commandeered by Hamas terrorists for more mayhem and murder.
Biden administration officials withheld congressionally allocated arms to Israel while sanctioning Israeli citizens and publicly scolding Israel’s prime minister and the IDF. Antony Blinken’s State Department, along with many EU governments, and even NATO sent condolences on the death of the butcher of Tehran, Ebrahim Raisi. The U.N. flag flew at half mast for this mass murderer, but not for the victims of October 7.
For months, prestigious universities across the World teemed with gleeful vandals celebrating Hamas’ attack on civilization, ripping down posters of Israeli hostages, and blaming the victims.
The international elites are thus betraying humanity and the moral imperatives of civilization. Their reaction is worse than naked deranged violence because it bestows a legal and political imprimatur and an intellectual nod to crimes against humanity.
It would be like the judges at Nuremberg ruling that the Hitler was right in rescuing Germany from the sanctions of the Treaty of Versailles “by any means necessary”, and that Jews did indeed “stab Germany in the back” and so earned their own extermination.
Historically, every totalitarian regime requires an inversion of morality and truth. The target of this corrupted criminal system is often the nation who first brought the Ten Commandments to the world.
Pharaoh in Egypt took the universal human value of protecting babies and turned it on its head when he ordered Hebrew male infants to be drowned in the Nile. Haman and Ahashverosh inverted ethical standards with bloated drinking parties lasting for months and genocide for pay. Honoring contracts and business arrangements is a standard legal norm, but the Stalin and Maoist regimes legalized collective theft and the incarceration of its victims.
The current behavior of the international ruling class is another link in this odious chain of civic collapse, leading to despotism. We can no longer deny we are lurching towards global totalitarianism ushered in by the Neo Marxist/Islamist alliance. With Trump’s criminal conviction on dubious legal grounds, the United States has ruined a proud 248 year history of transferring political power through the rule of law and the ballot box. The World Economic Forum wants the world to run along principles of “capitalism with Chinese characteristics”. No one is asking We the People for permission.
We, in Israel, and loyal Diaspora Jewry, must unite behind our people, our land and the legal and ethical heritage in our blessed Torah, which we celebrate on Shavuout. That is our only chance to escape the malodorous tyrannical stew simmering against global civilization.
