"Imagine someone you love—not a moral abstraction, a real person. Your child. Your mother. Your brother. Your spouse. Even just a friend. Everyone, even Peter Singer, has friends. Suppose your friend is a civilian—has never used a weapon and never will...You want to get them to safety. To get them away from the war. Of course...Now—extend this concern, mechanically, to all the civilians of Gaza. Since you care about these people, your first goal is to get them out of the war zone. To take them somewhere they have safety and food and water. Now—think about all the people in the world who care about the Palestinians. Who are in the streets, waving flags, the whole nine yards. How many care this way? How many are demonstrating to ask Hamas and Israel, together: please, let the civilians out of the war zone? Move them? Move them anywhere—an AirBNB in Thailand? A tent city in Mozambique? Anywhere that bombs aren’t falling? Hm....Also: if this isn’t what all the “pro-Palestinian” people in the West want, who does want it? Who would be happy with this outcome? How about—the Israeli army?...So: when you try to build sympathy for the Palestinians from first principles, you get—what most “Israel supporters” want. When you try to build cynical exploitation of the Palestinians from first principles, you get—what most “Palestine supporters” want. The one way it makes sense is if all these nice, nice people support Hamas more than the population Hamas governs—which is the exact opposite of what they say."
... the laws relating to our relationship with the physical nation of Amalek are not operable today. Period. I am confident that Amalek [which] refers to any people who are defined by their goal of killing all Jews - is a theoretical construct rather than a practical norm.
I advise you to read what the Prophet Shmuel said in support of your opinion (in the first picture of this site):
Can you please explain how, current inapplicability notwithstanding, our religous mandate to obliterate any remnant of Amalek (i.e., genocide) differs from their religious mandate to obliterate any remnant of Israel (i.e., genocide)?
That's a good and difficult question. A proper answer requires a long essay, or perhaps a course. A short answer, however, requires the following recognition: all religions have difficult texts, as indicated by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his book, Not In God's Name. The question we must confront when assessing the morality of a religious mandate is not the written word per se - where, frankly, all religious traditions will be found wanting - and instead in the way that those texts are interpreted, and the manner in which they are implemented (if at all). This gets to the heart of the difference between the Torah commandment to obliterate Amalek and the warped opinions of Hamas and the Iranians mullahs: the Jewish tradition has (in the Talmud) already eliminated any practical relevance of the mitzvah around Amalek, whereas those particular Islamic fundamentalists see the mandate of killing Jews as an active norm that must be implemented.
Obviously, I cannot speak for Muslims regarding Islam, any more than they can speak for Jews regarding Judaism. I do know that there are plenty of Muslims who reject this fundamentalist reading, and reject the idea that killing can be a religious requirement. I'm speaking of those fanatics who believe that destroying the State of Israel and its Jewish population is a religious norm.
Without offering a discussion of our misunderstanding of the relationship to the subject of Amalek, which (the relationship) was much more developed than ours in a very distant time, and without spoiling what I saw in the first painting on this site (for at least 200 years before the destruction, no one took the matter of "Amalek" in our simplicity!) I suggest you look at the first picture on this site:
בלי להציע דיון על אי-הבנה שלנו של היחס לנושא עמלק אשר (היחס) הייה הרבה יותר מפותח משלנו כבר בתקופה מאוד רחוקה מאיתנו, ובלי לקלקל את מה שראיתי בציור הראשון באתר הזה (כבר לפחות 200 שנה לפני החורבן אף אחד לא התייחס לעניין "עמלק" בפשטנות שלנו!) אני מציע לעיין בנאמר על גבי התמונה הראשונה באתר הזה
I think this is a valid answer, but only if we are willing to make the statement that the commandment to blot out Amalek is not only inapplicable in our times, but also morally wrong. If we say that blotting out Amalek is good and wise and just because it's in the Torah, but unfortunately isn't applicable due to various technicalities the Rabbis imposed, then we are not taking a moral stand against genocide at all.
It stood for our fathers and for us too, that in every generation arise those who wish to destroy us. But the Almighty One (blessed be his Name) saves us from their hands. (From the Pesach Haggadah).
Thank you for sharing this.
Great article. The Palestinian supporters care nothing about the Palestinians: I would encourage people to read this: https://graymirror.substack.com/p/clearpill-yourself-on-gaza
"Imagine someone you love—not a moral abstraction, a real person. Your child. Your mother. Your brother. Your spouse. Even just a friend. Everyone, even Peter Singer, has friends. Suppose your friend is a civilian—has never used a weapon and never will...You want to get them to safety. To get them away from the war. Of course...Now—extend this concern, mechanically, to all the civilians of Gaza. Since you care about these people, your first goal is to get them out of the war zone. To take them somewhere they have safety and food and water. Now—think about all the people in the world who care about the Palestinians. Who are in the streets, waving flags, the whole nine yards. How many care this way? How many are demonstrating to ask Hamas and Israel, together: please, let the civilians out of the war zone? Move them? Move them anywhere—an AirBNB in Thailand? A tent city in Mozambique? Anywhere that bombs aren’t falling? Hm....Also: if this isn’t what all the “pro-Palestinian” people in the West want, who does want it? Who would be happy with this outcome? How about—the Israeli army?...So: when you try to build sympathy for the Palestinians from first principles, you get—what most “Israel supporters” want. When you try to build cynical exploitation of the Palestinians from first principles, you get—what most “Palestine supporters” want. The one way it makes sense is if all these nice, nice people support Hamas more than the population Hamas governs—which is the exact opposite of what they say."
You:
... the laws relating to our relationship with the physical nation of Amalek are not operable today. Period. I am confident that Amalek [which] refers to any people who are defined by their goal of killing all Jews - is a theoretical construct rather than a practical norm.
I advise you to read what the Prophet Shmuel said in support of your opinion (in the first picture of this site):
barkamtza2007.wordpress.com
Can you please explain how, current inapplicability notwithstanding, our religous mandate to obliterate any remnant of Amalek (i.e., genocide) differs from their religious mandate to obliterate any remnant of Israel (i.e., genocide)?
That's a good and difficult question. A proper answer requires a long essay, or perhaps a course. A short answer, however, requires the following recognition: all religions have difficult texts, as indicated by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his book, Not In God's Name. The question we must confront when assessing the morality of a religious mandate is not the written word per se - where, frankly, all religious traditions will be found wanting - and instead in the way that those texts are interpreted, and the manner in which they are implemented (if at all). This gets to the heart of the difference between the Torah commandment to obliterate Amalek and the warped opinions of Hamas and the Iranians mullahs: the Jewish tradition has (in the Talmud) already eliminated any practical relevance of the mitzvah around Amalek, whereas those particular Islamic fundamentalists see the mandate of killing Jews as an active norm that must be implemented.
Obviously, I cannot speak for Muslims regarding Islam, any more than they can speak for Jews regarding Judaism. I do know that there are plenty of Muslims who reject this fundamentalist reading, and reject the idea that killing can be a religious requirement. I'm speaking of those fanatics who believe that destroying the State of Israel and its Jewish population is a religious norm.
Without offering a discussion of our misunderstanding of the relationship to the subject of Amalek, which (the relationship) was much more developed than ours in a very distant time, and without spoiling what I saw in the first painting on this site (for at least 200 years before the destruction, no one took the matter of "Amalek" in our simplicity!) I suggest you look at the first picture on this site:
barkamtza2007.wordpress.com
בלי להציע דיון על אי-הבנה שלנו של היחס לנושא עמלק אשר (היחס) הייה הרבה יותר מפותח משלנו כבר בתקופה מאוד רחוקה מאיתנו, ובלי לקלקל את מה שראיתי בציור הראשון באתר הזה (כבר לפחות 200 שנה לפני החורבן אף אחד לא התייחס לעניין "עמלק" בפשטנות שלנו!) אני מציע לעיין בנאמר על גבי התמונה הראשונה באתר הזה
barkamtza2007.wordpress.com
I think this is a valid answer, but only if we are willing to make the statement that the commandment to blot out Amalek is not only inapplicable in our times, but also morally wrong. If we say that blotting out Amalek is good and wise and just because it's in the Torah, but unfortunately isn't applicable due to various technicalities the Rabbis imposed, then we are not taking a moral stand against genocide at all.
It stood for our fathers and for us too, that in every generation arise those who wish to destroy us. But the Almighty One (blessed be his Name) saves us from their hands. (From the Pesach Haggadah).