In the World — When Both Sides Aren’t Equal

Sometimes I wonder if we have become so obsessed with “seeing things from the other perspective” that we have forgotten how to recognize evil.

There is always another side. There is always more nuance. There is always some additional context that supposedly makes the situation more complicated than it first appeared.

And sometimes that is helpful.

Paul Harvey entertained and informed us by telling “the rest of the story.” I loved listening to Paul Harvey. Sometimes the rest of the story really does matter. But sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes the story doesn’t need much more nuance. Sometimes the other perspective doesn’t change the moral reality of what happened.

That thought came to mind this past week when I read about what happened aboard Flydubai Flight 1073, traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv.

According to reports, one of the pilots, an Omani national, attacked the other pilot in the cockpit. The plane suddenly plunged more than 16,000 feet. The injured captain was miraculously able to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to rush into the cockpit and subdue the attacker. Two off-duty pilots who were aboard the flight ultimately helped regain control of the aircraft, and the plane landed safely in Saudi Arabia. All aboard survived. Praise God!

The motive remains under investigation, so I don’t want to claim more than we know. Israeli officials have suggested that Islamist radicalization may have played a role, but as I write this, that motivation has not been officially established. The investigation continues.

But I’ll be honest: this sure seems like an Islamist terrorist attack to me.

Even if that ultimately proves not to be the motive, however, the central issue doesn’t change. Someone apparently attacked the pilot, attempted to take control of the aircraft, and sent a passenger plane full of innocent people into a dramatic dive.

And here’s the question I can’t get out of my head:

How much “other perspective” do we really need?

Imagine if, after such an incident, our first response was to explain the attacker’s perspective.

Maybe he had grievances.

Maybe he had been treated unfairly.

Maybe there were complicated circumstances in his life.

Maybe we should try to understand why he did what he did.

Perhaps.

But if he intentionally tried to kill nearly 180 innocent people, understanding his motives would not make the attempted murder morally ambiguous.

Sometimes evil is simply evil.

Think about Cain and Abel.

Do we really need to spend our time looking at the story from Cain’s perspective?

Maybe Cain was hurting. Maybe he felt rejected. Maybe there were circumstances that contributed to his anger.

But Scripture tells us exactly what he did.

He killed his brother.

Understanding Cain might help us understand the story in some ways, but it doesn’t make Cain’s actions less evil.

Or consider Joseph.

I’ve heard people criticize Joseph for telling his father and brothers about his dreams. Perhaps he could have exercised more wisdom. Perhaps he could have anticipated how his brothers would respond.

But is that what Scripture emphasizes? No. Not at all.

Genesis 37 tells us that Joseph’s brothers threw him into a pit, considered killing him, and eventually settled on selling him into slavery.

Whatever we might say about Joseph’s wisdom, none of it changes the moral reality of what his brothers did.

Sometimes evil is simply evil.

And then there is the crucifixion of Jesus.

Do we really need to spend our time trying to see the crucifixion primarily from the perspective of the religious leaders who condemned Him? Should we focus on the fact that Jesus threatened their position and challenged their way of life?

No.

Jesus was innocent. Perfect. Sinless.

The religious leaders falsely accused Him, mocked Him, beat Him, had Him flogged, and ultimately had His innocent, bloodied body hung on a criminal’s cross.

The Bible gives us plenty of information about the motives and actions of those involved. But understanding someone’s motives does not require us to excuse their actions.

Sometimes the “both sides” approach doesn’t make us compassionate. Sometimes the “both sides” approach just makes us foolish.

In my travels, speaking with students all across the United States, I once spent time talking with a student who had become so committed to seeing every situation from every perspective that she told me she actually felt sorry for Satan.

She felt sorry for Satan.

She reasoned that it wasn’t fair that Satan had been cast out of heaven. She suggested that perhaps God should have shown him more compassion, and that it was hard for her to trust a God who wouldn’t give Satan a second, third, or even fourth chance.

That conversation has stayed with me because it exposed the potential danger of this “both sides” mentality.

If our commitment to finding another perspective eventually prevents us from recognizing full-on rebellion against God for what it is, then clearly we have lost something incredibly important.

I believe that a similar problem has recently surfaced in the way I am hearing people talk about antisemitism and the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Let’s be clear about what happened on October 7.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups deliberately attacked civilian Israeli communities, killing well over 1,000 people—the majority of them civilians—and taking more than 200 people hostage. Human Rights Watch concluded that the deliberate killing of civilians and hostage-taking were crimes against humanity.

It is precisely at this point that some would object with a hearty, “Yeah, but…”

Surely we do not need to invent moral equivalence to acknowledge that Palestinian civilians have suffered terribly, as well. We can care about the plight of the Palestinian people without pretending that the terrorists who deliberately murdered and kidnapped innocent Israelis were simply participants in a complicated disagreement.

I have had complicated disagreements with people in my past. I have been severely wronged by people at different points in my life. I have never considered brutally murdering the people who have wronged me and disagreed with me as a proper, justifiable response.

That response would be evil.

But the violent hatred that was shown on October 7 is not merely something that appears during moments of war.

Concerns about antisemitism, incitement, glorification of terrorism, and violent struggle have been documented in Palestinian educational materials. A 2026 U.S. Government Accountability Office report noted that UNRWA’s review of Palestinian Authority textbooks used in its schools identified issues on 507 of 13,149 pages reviewed during the 2024–25 academic year.

There are also well-documented examples from October 7 that are difficult to explain away as merely political grievance.

In one recording released after the attacks, a Hamas terrorist called his parents and excitedly told them that he had killed Jews. His parents responded with praise.

What are we supposed to do with that?

We can try to explain it.

We can study the nuance of history behind it.

We can try to understand how someone becomes capable of such hatred.

But we should never confuse understanding with moral equivalence.

Murdering innocent people is evil.

Taking innocent people hostage is evil.

Teaching children to hate and kill another people is evil.

And using civilian infrastructure for military purposes is evil.

There is substantial documentation of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups operating in or near civilian infrastructure, including educational facilities. The UN Commission of Inquiry has verified instances of Hamas using educational facilities for military purposes.

The humanitarian situation makes this even more complicated—but not necessarily more morally ambiguous.

Israeli government data has reported that more than 300,000 tons of food had been provided through the World Food Programme on more than 13,000 trucks.

Three hundred thousand tons.

That number is almost impossible for most of us to comprehend.

So put it another way: according to the World Food Programme’s estimates at one point, approximately 140,000 metric tons of food was enough to feed Gaza’s roughly 2.2 million people for about two months. At that rate, 300,000 tons would represent roughly four months’ worth of basic food needs for Gaza’s entire population.

That’s an enormous amount of food.

And that is nowhere near the full amount of humanitarian aid being shipped in!

So what is happening to all of that aid?

There is documented evidence of aid being intercepted or diverted inside Gaza. WFP has reported that armed gangs have looted aid trucks, while other reports have documented food being intercepted before it reached intended distribution points.

At the same time, we should acknowledge that not every problem with food reaching civilians can be attributed to Hamas. WFP has also documented access restrictions, dangerous routes, delays, and desperate civilians taking food directly from trucks because they were hungry.

But again, the larger point remains.

We don’t have to choose between compassion and moral clarity.

We can mourn Palestinian suffering without excusing Hamas.

We can condemn antisemitism without endorsing everything the Israeli government does.

We can love Palestinians without hating Jews.

We can love Jews without hating Palestinians.

And we can recognize evil without pretending that every conflict has two morally equivalent sides.

Which brings me back to the cross.

The answer to this problem isn’t to stop caring about the people on the “other side.”

Quite the opposite.

Jesus calls us to love our enemies.

To pray for those who persecute us.

To do good to those who hate us.

Following Jesus means that we should pray for Israelis and Palestinians. We should look for practical ways to care for people—regardless of which “side” they are on. We should grieve when civilians suffer, regardless of their nationality. And we should look for opportunities to share the Gospel with every person on every side.

But loving people does not require us to call evil good.

Jesus didn’t.

We shouldn’t either.

There is a time for nuance.

There is a time to listen carefully to another perspective.

There is a time to talk about, as Paul Harvey did, “…the rest of the story.”

But there is also a time to say, simply and without qualification:

This is evil.

And sometimes, saying that isn’t a failure of compassion.

Sometimes, it is a much-needed expression of truth.