Both Christians and Jews revere what English speakers commonly call the Old Testament. In this sacred text, God declares, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Exodus 21:24).
This principle formed the security doctrine that shaped the world before World War II. It was a world most of us today would scarcely recognize—one in which the death penalty was the norm, even in democratic nations such as the United Kingdom, where it was typically reserved for murder and, at times, treason or rape. It was a world of leaders unashamed to project strength, a world in which friend and foe could still be clearly distinguished.
Today’s world is its opposite. We inhabit a society that has grown unfamiliar with the very concepts of justice and morality as they were understood for centuries. Foreigners who rape our daughters are often permitted, by court order and under the banner of human-rights law, to remain in the communities they have preyed upon. Murderers are offered a lifetime of taxpayer-funded comfort in prison. For years the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and much of the mainstream media insisted that a woman could have a penis—until a court finally compelled them to acknowledge the most elementary facts of human biology.
We live in a world shaped by a false doctrine: “An eye for an eye would leave the whole world blind.”
This maxim has molded the modern West’s understanding—or rather its misunderstanding—of justice and security. It has been promoted by some of the most influential voices of the modern era. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.” King, influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence, helped popularize the idea. The precise phrasing later appeared in the 1982 biographical film Gandhi, spoken by Ben Kingsley in the title role—though screenwriter John Briley later confirmed that he invented the line and that Gandhi himself never uttered it.
I regard this doctrine as a false prophet, one that promises salvation and a utopia that has never existed and never will. It has misled not only Christians but also many among the people of the Torah, who, in the generations after the Holocaust, helped spread the concept. In Fiddler on the Roof, a villager cites “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” Tevye the milkman replies, “Very good. That way the whole world will be blind and toothless.”
Through this lens most contemporary events are now interpreted. It is the prism through which the majority of Western commentators and thought leaders view the world.
A Muslim murders Jews in broad daylight while shouting “Allahu Akbar”? It must be a response to Jewish occupation and oppression of Palestinians. An Afghan Muslim murders Americans, Britons, or other Europeans in broad daylight? It must be a reaction to Western imperialism and colonialism. Six thousand terrorists invade Israel, murdering, raping, and kidnapping hundreds of Israelis in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust? Give them a state, and peace will follow.
Everything is rationalized. Everything is framed as an endless cycle of cause and effect. We are told we must never respond in kind, lest we intensify the vicious circle. We must never execute those who murder us and our people, because “that way the whole world will be blind and toothless.” When Westerners become the targets of violence, we are instructed that the cycle must end with us. And so we find ourselves permanently on the receiving end—lest we be accused of mere meaningless vengeance.
What is most striking is that the doctrine “an eye for an eye would leave the whole world blind” has produced the opposite result. Those who are left blind and toothless are overwhelmingly Westerners, compelled to watch the rape of their daughters, the murder of their people, and the gradual invasion of their countries while remaining silent. Despite living in an era of unprecedented hostility and aggression since the Second World War, large parts of the West remain wholly committed to this creed, like cultists committed to self-harm.
As reported by Sky News, a June 2026 YouGov survey of more than 2,300 British adults found that only 6 percent said they would volunteer to fight in the face of an “imminent” invasion. Fourteen percent said they would serve if conscripted; 17 percent said they would refuse to defend the country under any circumstances. Official findings from the Ministry of Defence corroborate the broader problem. The Strategic Defence Review 2025 described a “workforce crisis” in the Armed Forces, attributing it to “poor recruitment and retention, shoddy accommodation, falling morale, and cultural challenges.”
Comparable polls across other major Western European countries and the United States reveal a systemic pattern. A Gallup International survey from late 2023 asked, “If there were a war that involved your country, would you be willing to fight for your country?” In Italy, only 14 percent said yes (78 percent no). In Germany the figures were 23 percent yes and 57 percent no. In Spain they were 29 percent yes and 53 percent no. In the United States—still the last major beacon of relative hope—41 percent said yes and 34 percent said no.
A 2025 NATO-wide survey conducted by Riga Stradiņš University and the Center for Geopolitical Studies Riga (September–October 2025, more than 31,000 respondents) found Italy and Slovakia among the lowest at roughly 25 percent willingness. Germany and the Netherlands ranked near the bottom as well. The United States stood at around 37 percent. Turkey—where Islam explicitly teaches the principle of qisas, or retaliation in kind—led at 88 percent.
“An eye for an eye would leave the whole world blind” has produced a Western world that sees virtually no justification for the use of force—not even in defense of its own home against invasion. The postwar order has created an abomination. It has eroded traditional values and inverted right and wrong. With its mainstream media, International Criminal Court, left-wing orthodoxy, radical individualism, and self-serving politicians, this order now constitutes an existential threat to Western civilization.
The West must return to its traditional Judeo-Christian foundations. We must embrace President Trump’s doctrine of “a head for an eye,” as he stated this week in response to Iranian terrorism and aggression. Our lives depend on it.
Khaled Hassan is a fellow at the Ideological Defense Institute
Agree completely. Protect yourself or die.
I call it the bitchification of the west