Netanyahu, "Amalek" and religious-fundamentalist politics
Haaretz describes some of the nasty characters in Bibi Netanyahu’s current government in its lead editorial for November 6:
Sunday’s remark by Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu (Otzma Yehudit), who said that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip is an option, is a problem not for Israeli public diplomacy but rather for Israeli reality.
The problem is not any particular statement, but rather the power and legitimacy enjoyed today, in Israel as a whole and in the government, by the Kahanist, messianic Jewish far right, which supports annexation and occupation and Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, sees the current war as an opportunity and scorns the international community, international institutions and the laws of war.
This was not a slip of the tongue. In an interview with Radio Kol Barama, Eliyahu said that “there are no uninvolved [civilians]” in the Gaza Strip. Asked by his interviewer whether that meant Israel should drop a nuclear bomb on the Strip, he responded, “That’s one way.” And his subsequent “clarification” – “It is clear to anyone who is sensible that the nuclear remark was metaphorical” – is ridiculous. A metaphor for what?1 [my emphasis]
In a conflict in which Israel is using the alleged genocidal intentions of Hamas against Israeli Jews as a justification for massive bombing of civilian areas, at least in seeming disregard of the laws of war, the rest of the world including especially the United States should be asking some serious questions about what kind of government we’re backing in this Netanyahu cabinet.
Netanyahu isn’t the solution, but the problem. He has legitimized [the radical-right Zionist ideology] Kahanism and the far right. During his years in power, Israel has grown more extreme, and people who used to be loathsome pariahs are now senior cabinet ministers. Ideas and values that used to be outside the consensus, such as “transferring” Arabs from Israel, a second Nakba and Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, have been normalized under Netanyahu’s irresponsible leadership.
He is the one who lent legitimacy to political alliances with admirers of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the mass murderer Baruch Goldstein and the murderer of the Dawabsheh family. Under his leadership, the settlers have begun setting their sights on the West Bank’s Area B, which under the Oslo Accords is under Israeli security control and Palestinian civilian control. And the settlers’ radical “hilltop youth” have moved from being intelligence targets of the Shin Bet security service to serving as ministers, Knesset members, aides and advisers. [my emphasis]
Netanyahu’s reference to “Amalek” in a major speech and in a subsequent letter to soldiers has at minimum a genocidal undertone. (I’ll have more to say in a separate post about Hamas and genocide.)
As Joshua Krug puts it:
On the evening of Oct. 28, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed his country. Among other points, he made an argument for the war in Gaza, positioning Hamas as an iteration of the biblical Amalek. Netanyahu quoted Deuteronomy 25:17, “You must remember what Amalek did to you.”
However, Deuteronomy 25:19 continues: “You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Never forget!” The Hebrew Bible later calls for the killing of the entire — and profoundly antisemitic — nation of Amalek, as well as its animals, in I Samuel.
Although Netanyahu referenced only Deuteronomy 25:17, positioning Hamas as akin to Amalek — even if undertaken rhetorically — is tactically, strategically and morally wrong-headed. The prime minister’s words are read closely and taken seriously in diverse quarters.2 [my emphasis]
And he continues:
Within the biblical text, God commands the Israelites to regard the hateful Amalekites as the ultimate mortal enemy whose annihilation they must seek for eternity. The State of Israel shouldn’t wish to be portrayed in the same way. The word in contemporary parlance for what the ancient text commands is “genocide.”
He mentions that modern Jewish theological readings - and this would apply not non-fundamentalist Christian theology as well - give the Amalek passage in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament a more metaphorical reading or declare it straightforwardly obsolete:
In other contexts, rabbis positioned Amalek as an internal, psychological evil that needed to be vanquished within each individual. Many contemporary rabbis, following the lead of Jewish leaders of prior generations, consider the mitzvah to destroy Amalek obsolete.
Yedidia Stern and Avi Sagi wrote 17 years ago that “Amalek” functions in Jewish ritual and religious narrative as a symbolic demon, a representation of absolute evil. And they put it in the context of the rule of law and “rules-based” order more generally:
The human right to equality ensures uniform treatment of the loved and the hated; the right to freedom of expression enables the prevention of the silencing of the voice of the other by demonizing him; the right to human dignity is intended to set real limits with respect to the all-out war that the majority is liable to declare on anyone who is perceived as a demon. The law teaches us that there is no such thing as absolute evil: Every human being is endowed with basic rights (which are not absolute), and every human being has obligations. An independent authority, the court, is charged with allocating rights and obligations in accordance with deeds, according to known rules, in a transparent process that is the same for all.3 [my emphasis]
Some of the Christian Right and its Republican supporters are encouraging the imagining of Palestinians in Gaza as “Amalek.”
This is not the first time that right-wing religious groups across the globe have invoked Amalek against those they oppose. For centuries, Christian leaders have used Amalekite language to justify genocide, including against Native Americans and against Tutsis in Rwanda. Right-wing Jewish groups have also employed the Amalek trope. Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994, likely influenced by Amalekite language employed by the far right Kahane movement of which he was a part. (Israel’s current minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is also associated with this movement, which has largely dissipated but is still technically outlawed in Israel as a terrorist group.)
Now many on the Christian right, and some Jews as well, are continuing the tradition of employing Amalek language to justify genocidal tactics, this time employed by the Israeli state against 2 million Gazans, about half of whom are children.4
Politics and religious fundamentalism are a bad, destructive mix.
Voters in the US and Israel need to take seriously how destructive and reckless such characters can be.
And the Biden Administration as well as European leaders need to take full account of what an ugly, fanatical government they are currently supporting in its bombing of civilian areas in Gaza. None of this excuses atrocities by Hamas.
But Americans are not sponsoring Hamas. Netanyahu, on the other hand, promoted Hamas (“Amalek”) for years in order to divide the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from the secular Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.5
Editorial. Haaretz 11/06/2023. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2023-11-06/ty-article/.premium/fire-israels-far-right/0000018b-a11c-dc0b-a1cb-e5de69890000> (Accessed: 2023-06-11).
Krug, Josua (2023): Comparing Hamas to Amalek, our biblical nemesis, will ultimately hurt Israel. Jewish News of Northern California 11/02/2023. <https://brucemillerca.substack.com/publish/post/138630628#footnote-anchor-1> (Accessed: 2023-06-11).
Stern, Yedida & Sagi-Haartz, Avid (2006): The Monsters in Our Minds. Haaretz 03/16/2006. <https://www.haaretz.com/2006-03-16/ty-article/the-monsters-in-our-minds/0000017f-e232-d75c-a7ff-febf2a3f0000> (Accessed: 2023-01-11).
Orly, Aidan (2023): Christian Right Cites Violent Biblical Amalek Trope to Justify Israel’s Tactics. Truthout 10/22/2023. <https://truthout.org/articles/christian-right-cites-violent-biblical-amalek-trope-to-justify-israels-tactics/> (Accessed: 2023-06-11).
Schneider, Tal (2023): For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces. Times of Israel 10/08/2023. <https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-yearsnetanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/> (Accessed: 2023-20-10).