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We Must See Through the Disguise of Evil
Anti-Israel demonstrators release smoke in the colors of the Palestinian flag as they protest to condemn the Israeli forces’ interception of some of the vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla aiming to reach Gaza and break Israel’s naval blockade, in Barcelona, Spain, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce
Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the most respected theologians of the 20th century, often warned that moral certainty can be as dangerous as moral blindness.
Niebuhr understood that evil rarely shows up wearing horns and carrying a pitchfork. Instead, it dresses itself in virtue, marches under banners of justice, and speaks in the name of compassion. As Niebuhr put it: “Evil loves to disguise itself as good.”
This past week, Greta Thunberg — who first emerged as a precocious teenage climate activist, but has since become one of the most recognizable faces of the “Free Palestine” movement — proved Niebuhr’s point in vivid color.
In a grotesque distortion of reality, Thunberg gave an interview claiming she was “beaten, kicked, and threatened with gassing” by Israelis during her brief time in Israel after being removed from the flotilla.
Her tale of “drones dropping gas bombs” on the flotilla, of being dragged to the ground by armed men on arrival in Israel, and then being locked in a cage while taunted and kicked, reads like a fever dream — the kind of deranged fantasy that would embarrass a third-rate propagandist.
Yet in today’s moral circus, absurdity is no barrier to belief when the villain is Israel and the storyteller is a sainted activist.
Here was a young woman, once seen as the face of idealism, invoking the imagery of Holocaust atrocities and scenes of grotesque torture to demonize Jews, descendants of those who endured those horrors.
Her interview is a concoction of lurid, self-serving fantasy — the innocent, virtuous fighter for goodness cast as a victim of unspeakable cruelty — a pantomime of righteousness that is, in truth, nothing more than repugnant evil. Not only because it is false, but because she cloaked her invented suffering in the language of moral purity.
And she is hardly alone. The same moral theater has been performed by the legions of “Free Palestine” advocates who filled streets and campuses for two years demanding a ceasefire — only to fall utterly silent once that ceasefire arrived and Jewish hostages were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners at the staggering ratio of one hundred to one.
For all their talk of peace and humanity, these activists’ compassion evaporated the moment the fighting paused. Because their outrage was never about saving lives – it was about condemning Israel. That is why it is evil. These self-styled champions of justice were never rooting for peace — they were rooting for Israel’s destruction: the elimination of the Jewish State and, if history is any guide, the elimination of Jews.
But none of this is new. From the dawn of creation, evil has triumphed not by being ugly, but by masquerading as beauty. Its most dangerous form is not open malice, but moral disguise.
The very first story in the Book of Books — the Torah — exposes this truth from the outset, warning us that what appears good is often the worst evil imaginable. Shortly after the creation of Adam and Eve, humanity’s prototype couple, they encounter the serpent — the world’s first embodiment of evil.
But the serpent doesn’t hiss threats or declare itself God’s enemy. On the contrary, it speaks the language of progress, self-empowerment, and enlightenment (Gen. 3:5): “For God knows that when you eat of [the Tree of Knowledge], your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.“
Who wouldn’t want to be like God, the ultimate good? In that moment, sin wasn’t presented as rebellion — it was presented as moral advancement. The serpent doesn’t promise wickedness; it promises virtue.
The Midrash Tanchuma captures this deception perfectly: “The serpent approached her with words of friendship.” It spoke softly. It offered companionship. It offered her a path to becoming a better version of herself.
The Midrash’s phrase “words of friendship” is brilliant. Because evil’s first disguise is not as an enemy, but as a friend. How perfectly that describes so many moral crusaders of our own time. They come bearing empathy, waving the flag of justice, speaking of freedom and compassion — but beneath that promise of goodness lies malice and deceit.
The Ramban adds another dimension. He notes that the serpent’s words were not entirely false. In fact, the deception lay in their half-truth. Eating from the tree would open the human mind to greater awareness.
As Ramban explains, evil never triumphs by denying goodness outright. It triumphs by redefining it. That is why he calls the Biblical serpent “the most cunning of creatures.” By cunning, he does not mean intelligent – he means manipulative. Evil never approaches us as evil. It comes dressed as the finest form of good. And that is what makes it so dangerous.
The Meshech Chochma takes this one step further. He observes that Eve’s reasoning was layered with justification: “The woman saw that the tree was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.” Each motive sounds noble.
Eve wasn’t chasing pleasure or greed — she needed food, she appreciated beauty, and she was yearning for wisdom. But that is precisely what made it all so dangerous. The evil was rationalized in the language of good.
And every moral failure in human history has followed the same pattern. People do not commit evil while calling it evil – they convince themselves they are doing good. Every ideological movement that has unleashed destruction on the world has begun with the same refrain: “We are fighting for justice.”
And so it is today. The woke left has perfected the art of moral inversion — the cloaking of malice in virtue. They proclaim themselves champions of the oppressed, but their selective compassion exposes their true motives. They weep for aggressors and scorn their victims. They champion “human rights,” but only when those who are suffering aren’t Jews. They tell themselves — and the world — that they are building a better society.
In truth, they are constructing a world where facts are negotiable, morality is political, and good people are the ones you decide are good. In that world, lying is not a sin – it’s a strategy. These do-gooders are the spiritual heirs of the Biblical serpent — fluent in the language of compassion, but devoted to the cause of destruction.
And that, in a sense, is what the Torah story foresaw. Evil does not announce, “I will destroy the world.” It declares, “I will perfect it.” It does not preach hatred — it preaches justice. But in the end, it is evil, pure and simple.
The Greta Thunberg story is absurd, but it is also deeply symbolic. She represents countless others like her who have mistaken emotion for ethics and outrage for morality. Like Eve gazing at the fruit, they see what is “good for food” and “delightful to the eyes,” but never stop to ask whether it is right.
Niebuhr was correct: evil loves to disguise itself as good. It does so because it knows that goodness is our deepest desire — and therefore our easiest weakness. Like the serpent in Eden, every false prophet of virtue since has used the same tactic.
Darkness is easy to recognize, but evil is not. Darkness is the absence of light. Evil bends the light, until lies look like truth and hatred feels like compassion. And when that happens, our only defense is the one the Torah prescribes — clarity, humility, and the courage to see through the disguise.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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‘Marty Supreme’ and everything else Jewish at this year’s Academy Awards
At last year’s Academy Awards, Anora — a frenetic, somewhat ambiguously Jewish look at a Jewish enclave of New York, took home best picture, original screenplay, director and actress for its Jewish lead Mikey Madison. This year, we have a film that feels, in some ways, quite parallel, while cranking the Yiddishkeit to 11: Josh Safdie’s breathless picaresque Marty Supreme, set on the Lower East Side, is up for best picture and its star, Timothée Chalamet is a favorite for best actor.
There’s also Blue Moon, Richard Linklater’s portrait of Jewish lyricist Lorenz Hart’s breakup with composer Richard Rodgers (Ethan Hawke is up for best actor). And One Battle After Another, a campy and absurdist satire about the infiltration of white supremacists in the U.S. government, is poised to have a massive night, with the blockbuster Sinners serving as its main competition.
That all goes to say that it’s another great year for Jewish stories at the Oscars, with some really compelling fodder for discussion about the place that Jews occupy today in arts and media. What stories are we telling and how are they received?
Here, as ever, the Forward culture team is here to break it all down for you, live as it unfolds. Of course, we cover Jewish movies all year. But at the Academy Awards, we get to see how the rest of the world feels about these movies. We will be updating this story with our thoughts throughout the ceremony.
Traditionally, as we begin these Oscars roundtables, we discuss what we’re all wearing and eating. What’ve we got?
Olivia: brown sweater and jeans; no food but aggressively chewing mint gum. I will later be drinking some of the seltzer I got from Brooklyn’s Seltzer Fest today.
Mira: I did a bunch of cooking for the week so I have vegetarian avgolemono soup and Alison Roman’s fennel salad. (I’m obsessed with this salad.) I am proudly wearing hard pants.
PJ: I am reheating some chicken from last night. Wearing a blue sweater with a little toggle and jeans. How many of Stellan Skarsgård’s large adult sons are here? In other l’dor v’dor news, Bill Pullman just mentioned how they filmed the Spaceballs sequel with his son Lewis.
Talya: I believe I’m wearing the exact same sweater I donned for this event last year — where’s my award for consistency? And, as always, sweatpants; I cannot comprehend suffering through this event in jeans.
Discussion of Israeli-Palestinian protests on the red carpet
Mira: Love a toggle. Speaking of outfits, anyone have thoughts on Odessa A’zion’s spangled red carpet set? She is one of the only people who styles herself on the red carpet, which I do respect.
Olivia: A’Zion’s outfit kind of looks like she forgot to tie whatever was supposed to be holding it up. I don’t think it looks bad, just like it’s falling down.
PJ: It wouldn’t look out of place hanging from the window of a VW van with shag carpet and some Tibetan prayer flags.
Mira: Of note, the past several years have seen protesters approaching people on their way into the ceremony, and a lot of pins on the red carpet taking a stance on the Israel-Hamas war, largely pro-Palestinian ones. We’re seeing less of that this year — though not none. Javier Bardem posted a photo of him wearing a pin reading “no to the war” in Spanish, along with another pin featuring Handala, a cartoon boy considered a symbol of Palestinians. The team of The Voice of Hind Rajab, nominated for best foreign film, are also wearing red pins with a white dove.
PJ: Those have replaced the red hand ArtistsforCeasefire pins, which some said recalled the bloody palms of Palestinians who killed IDF soldiers in 2000.
Olivia: A reporter for ABC in a pre-recorded segment asked executive producers and showrunners for the ceremony Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan if anything would get bleeped, such as mentions of Trump, Israel and Palestine. Recently, the BBC removed director Akinola Davies Jr’s call for a “Free Palestine” from their BAFTA stream. Kapoor asserted that the night’s production team supports free speech, but we’ll see what transpires over the course of the night.
The post ‘Marty Supreme’ and everything else Jewish at this year’s Academy Awards appeared first on The Forward.
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US Sends Additional Arms to Israel to Sustain Iran Operations
The first of two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors is launched during a successful intercept test. Photo: US Army.
i24 News – The United States has recently increased shipments of munitions to Israel to support ongoing Israeli air operations against Iran.
According to reports broadcast by the public radio network Kan Reshet Bet, several weapons deliveries have arrived in Israel in recent days as part of what officials describe as an ongoing airlift aimed at sustaining the pace of military strikes.
Since the start of the campaign, Israeli forces are believed to have dropped more than 11,000 bombs on targets across Iran.
The shipments come as reports emerge about a potential shortage of ballistic missile interceptors in Israel. US officials told the news outlet Semafor that Israel’s interceptor stockpiles have been heavily used during the conflict.
According to those sources, Washington had already been aware for months that supplies could become strained, though it remains unclear whether the United States would be willing to share its own interceptor reserves. Israeli officials have since rejected claims that such a shortage exists.
Unlike the Iron Dome, which is designed to intercept short-range rockets and projectiles, ballistic missile interceptors serve as Israel’s primary defense against long-range missile threats. Fighter jets can also be used to attempt interceptions, though this method is considered a supplementary measure to missile defense systems.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has taken additional budgetary steps to support the war effort. During an overnight vote between Saturday and Sunday, ministers approved a roughly 1 billion shekel reduction across various ministry budgets to help finance classified military purchases linked to Operation “Roar of the Lion.”
The government had already approved a 3 percent cut in ministry budgets, a move expected to increase the defense budget by approximately 30 billion shekels as the conflict continues.
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Pope Leo Decries ‘Atrocious Violence’ in Iran War, Urges Ceasefire
Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer from a window of the Apostolic Palace, at the Vatican, March 15, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Matteo Minnella
Pope Leo made an impassioned plea on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire in the expanding Iran war, lamenting “atrocious violence” that he said had killed thousands of non-combatants and caused suffering across the region.
As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its third week, the first US pope warned that violence would not bring the justice, stability and peace that the peoples of the region long for.
“For two weeks, the peoples of the Middle East have been suffering the atrocious violence of war,” the pope said at his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
“In the name of Christians in the Middle East and of all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict: Cease fire!” Pope Leo said.
IDEA THAT WAR SOLVES PROBLEMS IS ‘ABSURD’
Leo added that the situation in Lebanon – ravaged by a war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah – was also a cause of “great concern.”
“I hope for paths of dialogue that can support the country’s authorities in implementing lasting solutions to the serious crisis currently underway, for the common good of all the Lebanese people,” the pope said.
During a visit to a Rome parish later, the pope said war could never resolve problems and hit out at people who invoke God to justify killings.
“Today many of our brothers and sisters in the world are suffering because of violent conflicts, caused by the absurd claim that problems and disagreements can be resolved through war, when instead we must engage in unceasing dialogue for peace,” he said during his homily.
“Some even go so far as to invoke the name of God to justify these choices of death, but God cannot be enlisted by darkness. Rather, He always comes to bring light, hope and peace to humanity.”