X To the Editor:

On October 7, 2023, Shani Louk, a pretty, innocent, 22-year-old girl, was attending a music festival in Israel. On that same day, Shani Louk was kidnapped, murdered, and decapitated by Hamas terrorists.

Her body was paraded through the streets of Gaza. A mob of Palestinians cheered her death and spat on her mangled remains.

I’m not sure which “shades of gray” Peter Carney would attach to such wickedness(“Life is varying shades of gray”, Nov. 23), but I think the evil nature of Shani’s murderers is as plain as black and white. Saying so is a matter of moral clarity.

There is no “discomforting uncertainty” concerning the diabolical actions of the terrorists who took Shani’s life and went on to slaughter hundreds of other innocent men, women, and children on that day in October. What is lacking is a willingness to acknowledge pure evil when it is staring us in the face.

Peter Carney can pretend that he just doesn’t see that evil. He can try to defend the uninformed opinions and misplaced sympathies of Linda Petersen.(“Midnight musings about Gaza”, Oct. 26)

But he should know that any effort that minimizes the absolute evil that is Islamic terrorism is not “innocuous”. It tends to make excuses for it.

There can be no “middle ground” when it comes to condemning cold-blooded killers. We should not be enablers or apologists for the terrorist group Hamas. We owe that much to Shani Louk.

A.H. Liddle

Warwick