Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly invoked the biblical story of Amalek to justify regional violence<\/p>\n
Thousands of Israeli<\/a> Jews came out into the streets of Jerusalem on Wednesday in defiance<\/a> of instructions from the police and Home Front Command.<\/p>\n On the other side of the city, Al-Aqsa Mosque<\/a> was closed for the fifth day in the middle of Ramadan, under the pretext that there is a war on and it\u2019s too dangerous to allow prayer in public.<\/p>\n For a brief moment, a carnival atmosphere developed in Israel. Knesset Member Limor Son Har-Melech<\/a> dressed up as an executioner. Her party is the main backer of a bill currently going through the Knesset that would impose the death penalty<\/a> on Palestinian<\/a> prisoners convicted of murder.<\/p>\n Was this a holiday or a war?<\/p>\n Etsiq, who works in a food shop in Jerusalem, has his own theory about why Israeli\u00a0Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose this time to bomb Iran<\/a>: to echo the killing of Haman from the story of Purim in the Book of Esther, which is read during the holiday.<\/p>\n Haman, an official in the court of the Persian king during the Achaemenid Empire, was foiled in a plot to kill the Jewish people of the region, and then put to death by hanging after the intervention of Mordechai.<\/p>\n When I asked Etsiq how he was holding up amid the current crisis, he replied: \u201cWe like wars. It\u2019s also good for the food business.\u201d<\/p>\n Etsiq is by no means alone. Social media has been filled with images of the late Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>, digitally transformed into today\u2019s evil Haman. One image depicts him with the \u201cears of Haman\u201d, a reference to hamantaschen, the triangular pastries<\/a> that Jews traditionally eat on Purim.<\/p>\n Many Israeli media sites have also wondered whether history was repeating itself. Avri Gilad, a veteran television personality on Channel 12 News, hosted his programme on Tuesday dressed as a pilot<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gilad said<\/a> a new chapter was being written in the Book of Esther: \u201cIt\u2019s amazing that it comes after 2,000 years, and it\u2019s really the same thing\u2026 the whole story closing on an astonishing historical scale.\u201d<\/p>\n Bit by bit, Israel is changing the narrative that it exists because of the Holocaust. A new language is emerging that uses biblical stories to justify a vision of Greater Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n On the eve of Purim, Netanyahu visited the site of an Iranian missile strike in Beit Shemesh<\/a>, outside Jerusalem, which killed nine Israelis<\/a>.<\/p>\n Afterwards, he posted <\/a>on X (formerly Twitter): \u201cWe read in this week\u2019s Torah portion, \u2018Remember what Amalek did to you.\u2019 We remember, and we act.\u201d<\/p>\n This comparison to the biblical enemy of the Jewish people was also cited against Hamas after the 7 October 2023 attack.<\/p>\n Before the premier appeared, one of the residents of the area discovered a tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl, that had survived the missile strike. \u201cEverything here was burned, and only the tallit and the Yalkut Yosef [prayer book] did not burn. It\u2019s a miracle, so let us pray together,\u201d the resident said.<\/p>\n Government ministers have also invoked a religious purpose in attacking Iran. Orit Strook, the minister of settlement affairs, said in a radio <\/a>interview: \u201cWhen the prime minister called me\u2026 I told him that it was fitting that this was happening on Shabbat Zachor, when we read about the erasure of Amalek.\u201d<\/p>\n Netanyahu reportedly replied: \u201cThis time we are not only remembering and reading; this time we are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n In a coalition propped up by religious parties, other members of Netanyahu\u2019s government have expressed similar views.<\/p>\n Knesset member Michal Woldiger from the Religious Zionism party told<\/a> an Israeli radio station: \u201cWe are making history. We are entering ourselves into the Bible. These are special and holy days for the people of Israel; everything is turning for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n This narrative of the Jewish people taking revenge for a biblical past is so strong that secular politicians are using it, too.<\/p>\n Yulia Malinovsky, a Knesset member from the secular opposition party Yisrael Beiteinu, reacted to Khamenei\u2019s assassination by posting<\/a>: \u201cThe modern Haman has been eliminated.\u201d<\/p>\n And Yair Lapid, the opposition leader who has become a symbol of secularism, supported the idea<\/a> of Greater Israel by saying: \u201cZionism is based on the Bible. Our mandate over the Land of Israel is biblical.\u201d<\/p>\n This idea has been given both intellectual and political framing. Eitan Lasri, a former adviser to Netanyahu, said<\/a> on the Channel 14 website: \u201cThe state of Israel once again faces a threat originating from that same historical arena, this time in the form of the regime in Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n Lasri concluded: \u201cThe campaign of Purim\u2026 is a struggle between the desire to destroy and the right to live. Just as in the days of Mordechai and Esther, the threat turned into victory; so too in our generation we can turn the threat into an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n For 75 years, this struggle was framed as a conflict over land, and as such it had parameters. It had definition and borders. It was a struggle to liberate Palestinian lands from occupation<\/a>. Land is negotiable; religion is not.<\/p>\n Those borders are now being crossed. If Israelis truly want to turn this into a religious struggle, they must think about the consequences. They should consider the forces in the Islamic world that would rise up to confront them.<\/p>\n The Palestinians are now struggling not just with occupation, but with a growing messianic religious fundamentalism.<\/p>\n To western audiences, Israel still manages to present itself as a western democracy. It claims the religious fanatics are Hamas and Iran. But increasingly, Israel itself is fighting a religious war.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Lubna Masarwa is a journalist and Middle East Eye\u2019s Palestine and Israel bureau chief, based in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nChanging the narrative<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Borders crossed<\/strong><\/h2>\n