My Take | A biblical guide to Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza
- As early European-educated social democrats of the Israeli Labor Party have given way to the far-right, the Zionist project has turned openly colonial and biblical
Over the decades, whenever Israel committed fresh atrocities against Palestinians, pundits often turned to the Bible for reference and understanding. The ongoing genocidal acts in Palestine are no different. In fact, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his by now infamous reference to Amalek at the start of the Gaza land invasion, which many experts – including lawyers for South Africa compiling evidence for genocide for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – argued showed genocidal intent.
Thus in its initial application to the ICJ, South Africa cited the following as evidence:
“On 28 October 2023, as Israeli forces prepared their land invasion of Gaza, the prime minister invoked the biblical story of the total destruction of Amalek by the Israelites, stating: ‘You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember’.
“The prime minister referred again to Amalek in the letter sent on 3 November 2023 to Israeli soldiers and officers. The relevant biblical passage reads as follows: ‘Now go, attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses’.”
That’s from 1 Samuel 15.3, but you probably need to read the whole chapter to appreciate the full flavour of Netanyahu’s meaning.
Amalekites
Saul, king of the Israelites, didn’t carry out the complete destruction of the Amalekites as God commanded, at least not to a tee.