Latest / The Daily Article / Israel targets Hamas leaders in military strikes on Qatar: The corruption of Hamas and Amy Coney Barrett on the power of the law
Transcript
- 0:02[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Wednesday, September the 10th, 2025 edition of Dinnison Forum's Daily Article Podcast.
- 0:09[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Chris Elkins, narrator, voicing today's Daily article, authored by our CEO Dr. Jim Dinnison.
- 0:17[SPEAKER_00]: And Israeli air strike on Doha Cutter killed five members of Hamas and a member of Cutter's International Security Force yesterday.
- 0:25[SPEAKER_00]: The strike took place shortly after Hamas claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed six people at a bus stop in Jerusalem on Monday.
- 0:34[SPEAKER_00]: Hamas leaders were gathered in Cutter to discuss a U.S.
- 0:38[SPEAKER_00]: proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza.
- 0:40[SPEAKER_00]: However, the New York Times also reports that the attack, quote, targeted a residential headquarters where a number of senior Hamas politicians lived.
- 0:51[SPEAKER_00]: Here's a question worth considering.
- 0:53[SPEAKER_00]: Why were Hamas leaders living in a residence more than 1,000 miles away from the Gaza strip they presumably serve?
- 1:01[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what many people don't know.
- 1:03[SPEAKER_00]: Many of Hamas's leaders living abroad are billionaires.
- 1:08[SPEAKER_00]: According to the telegraph, those living in Qatar do so in five star luxury.
- 1:13[SPEAKER_00]: This, while according to the United Nations, 65% of Palestinians in Gaza live below the poverty line.
- 1:21[SPEAKER_00]: This disparity exists because Hamas is a dictatorship, after it came to power in Gaza in 2007, there have been no more elections.
- 1:30[SPEAKER_00]: Its terrorist leaders could therefore stage a horrific invasion of Israel on October 7 with no accountability to the people of Gaza.
- 1:38[SPEAKER_00]: They can profit personally, while impoverishing the population.
- 1:42[SPEAKER_00]: They can hide themselves and their soldiers and weapons
- 1:50[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, they want Israeli soldiers to harm Gaza's civilians in order to turn public opinion against Israel and advance Hamas.
- 1:59[SPEAKER_00]: By contrast, as John Adams noted, the United States is a government of laws, not of men.
- 2:06[SPEAKER_00]: Americans elect the president by national vote, the Senate by statewide vote, and the House of Representatives by district vote.
- 2:14[SPEAKER_00]: These leaders then enact laws intended to serve the common good.
- 2:18[SPEAKER_00]: If we disagree, we can elect leaders who will revise or recent such laws as has been done often in our history.
- 2:25[SPEAKER_00]: But what about holding our leaders accountable to the laws of the land?
- 2:29[SPEAKER_00]: James Madison noted, quote, In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this.
- 2:37[SPEAKER_00]: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place,
- 2:46[SPEAKER_00]: To enable such control, the founders devise another layer of accountability, creating an unelected Supreme Court whose sole job is to interpret the Constitution and other laws as written and hold leaders and their actions accountable to them.
- 3:02[SPEAKER_00]: These reflections have been on my mind in light of yesterday's publication of the book, listening to the law, reflections on the court and constitution by Supreme Court, Associate Justice, Amy Conan Barrett.
- 3:15[SPEAKER_00]: Her book is both readable and deeply fascinating, with behind the scenes descriptions of the actual work of the court, as well as her explanation of its function.
- 3:25[SPEAKER_00]: She states that the court's story cannot be separated from the U.S.
- 3:28[SPEAKER_00]: constitution,
- 3:29[SPEAKER_00]: which is both its birth certificate and life's work.
- 3:33[SPEAKER_00]: Accordingly, she writes, we judges don't dispense justice solely as we see it.
- 3:38[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, we're constrained by law adopted through the democratic process.
- 3:43[SPEAKER_00]: We exercise authority that the people have given us and resolve disputes according to the ground rules that the people have prescribed.
- 3:51[SPEAKER_00]: In our system, a judge must abide by the rule set by the American people, both in the Constitution and legislation, the guiding principle in every case is what the law requires, not what aligns with the judge's own concept of justice, in quote.
- 4:07[SPEAKER_00]: Justice Barrett cites the death penalty as a personal example.
- 4:11[SPEAKER_00]: A number of years ago, she co-authored an academic article, quote, expressing a moral objection to capital punishment, in quote.
- 4:20[SPEAKER_00]: Then soon after her appointment, the court considered a death sentence imposed on Johar Senarov, one of the Boston Marathon bombers.
- 4:29[SPEAKER_00]: She joined the courts holding that Senarov's death sentence was valid, as she notes, quote, that was not the only course opened to me, given my view of capital punishment.
- 4:40[SPEAKER_00]: I could have looked for ways to slant the law and favor of defendants facing the death penalty.
- 4:44[SPEAKER_00]: There were, after all, plausible arguments going Xenara's way.
- 4:49[SPEAKER_00]: The court of appeals agreed with him as did three of my colleagues in dissent.
- 4:53[SPEAKER_00]: Had I voted in favor of Xenara, no one would have known that I did it, because I objected to the death penalty rather than because I concluded that Xenara had the better of the argument.
- 5:04[SPEAKER_00]: But that would have been a derelection of duty.
- 5:07[SPEAKER_00]: My office doesn't entitle me to align the legal system with my moral or policy views.
- 5:13[SPEAKER_00]: Swaring to apply the law faithfully means deciding each case based on my best judgment about what the law is, not what it should be, in quote.
- 5:23[SPEAKER_00]: As she explains, judges are referees, not kings, because they decide whether people have played by the rules rather than what the rules should be.
- 5:33[SPEAKER_00]: As Justice Barrett's book and the corruption of Hamas officials both illustrate, a government of laws rather than of men is enormously preferable to the reverse.
- 5:43[SPEAKER_00]: However, such laws are, of course, created and enforced by people.
- 5:48[SPEAKER_00]: And people, including the founders, are obviously fallen and flawed, consider that the large majority of those who signed the Declaration of Independence with its assertion that all men are created equal or slave owners at the time.
- 6:03[SPEAKER_00]: This is why fallen people need wisdom beyond our own.
- 6:07[SPEAKER_00]: It is why we need the laws of God and the power of God by which to obey them.
- 6:12[SPEAKER_00]: The good news is that, as I noted yesterday, the same Holy Spirit who inspired the Word of God now guides us to interpret and empower us to obey it.
- 6:22[SPEAKER_00]: The key is wanting such guidance and power.
- 6:26[SPEAKER_00]: It is wanting to live by a higher standard than anything humans can produce.
- 6:30[SPEAKER_00]: It is seeking the holiness only a holy God can manifest in us, measuring ourselves by the fruit of His Spirit in our lives listed in Galatians 522 and 23, and paying any price to settle for nothing less.
- 6:46[SPEAKER_00]: Brother Lucas Hall of the Society of St.
- 6:48[SPEAKER_00]: John the Evangelist in Boston notes, quote, we might not be able to see over the horizon, but the pitched battle between good and evil that happens within the very mundane day-to-day aspects of our lives is one we can take up again and again.
- 7:04[SPEAKER_00]: The call to continue that work is the hallmark of a life of holiness.
- 7:09[SPEAKER_00]: It may cost us everything.
- 7:10[SPEAKER_00]: Our lives are understanding, our sense of clarity, and that offering is holy enough.
- 7:17[SPEAKER_00]: In quote, we'll use seek such a life of holiness today.