AP Photo/Ariel Schalit
RABBI MICHAEL BARCLAY | PJ Media
(This column is Part 3 of a series of articles explaining the fallacies that have led to the world’s leftists supporting Palestine, Gaza, and Hamas’ horrors. There are links in this article to graphic and disturbing videos. Please only view them if you want to have the horrors of Hamas burned into your mind.)
Although entirely fallacious on every level, there has been a 70 -ear campaign to have the “Palestinians” be the victims that anti-Semites need to justify their hatred of Jews. These lies about a “Palestine” need to be exposed and rejected so that we can begin to have a real dialogue and create a lasting peace. There is now a powerful media campaign to castigate Israel for defending herself from the evils demonstrated by Hamas. This attempt to draw a moral equivalency between Hamsas and Israel needs to be repudiated and rejected in favor of an honest appraisal of Hamas’ evils; of the ludicrousness of “proportionality” in the face of that evil; and of Israel’s commitment to striving to always preserve lives…even of their enemies.
But recognizing the evil of Hamas and the fallacies of a “Palestine” country and people isn’t enough in the struggle for a permanent peace in the region. We need to determine what really must be done in the face of the horrors that Hamas performs in the name of “Palestine.” Education is meaningless unless it leads to action, and we must now determine how to act.
Before we can really know how to interact with Hamas, we need to be clear about what Hamas really is. Hamas is a terrorist group that uses its own civilians as human shields, including children. Hamas prevents the citizens of Gaza from evacuating so that Hamas can take images of wounded Gazans for the world press. They are killing their own people just so they can get photo opportunities! Hamas is a group committed to destroying all Jews, and to targeting civilians over soldiers. It is a group that forces children to slaughter animals from the time they are toddlers, and then teaches them that Jews are less than animals. Hamas is a group that consciously and specifically goes after children, the elderly, and the weak first…to kill and/or kidnap. They are the personification of an evil that has not been seen in a thousand years, with the exception of the worst of the Nazi atrocities.
So what should be done about Hamas, given their conscious choice to embody the worst qualities of any living being?
As a rabbi, I look for my answers in our sacred texts, most especially in the Torah and Hebrew Scriptures. It is here, in these texts that are considered holy by Jews, Christians, and the Western world, that I believe the pathway is taught as to what to do about Hamas.
Our Sages taught that if we find words of hate or anger in the Torah, it is us, not the text; and that God specifically commands us to not hate others in our heart (Lev. 19:17). This is as much for our benefit as for others: if we hate, then we lose our own souls. So according to our tradition, we are clearly not to “hate” Hamas, but what should we be doing?
The biblical answer is found in understanding the story of Amalek, a repeated character in the Bible. Although God demonstrates forgiveness and redemption over and over to even the worst of characters for their actions, Amalek is the one biblical character who is never to be forgiven. God instructs us to “always be at war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Ex. 17:16). Even more clearly, God instructs us twice to entirely “blot out” Amalek (Ex. 17:14 and Deut. 25:19). This is especially unique language as the text does not say “the children of Amalek,” but rather Amalek by name. How are we to destroy a being that physically died over 3000 years ago? And how important is this mandate? The utter destruction of everything Amalekite is so important that when King Saul, the first king of Israel, chose to not totally destroy Amalekites, he was relieved of his kingship by God through the prophet Samuel (Sam 1:15).
The bible is a book of love and justice, and yet, in a book of forgiveness, Amalek cannot be forgiven. Ever. For all eternity. Not Amalek’s physical descendants, but specifically Amalek by name. To understand this dictate, and why it is so important to our current question of how to deal with Hamas, we must understand what Amalek really is, and why we are to utterly and without hesitation destroy Amalek for all time.
The great and unforgivable sin that Amalek committed is that he attacked the ancient Hebrews from behind, where the children, elderly, and weak resided. He was a perpetrator and persecutor in the worst way. He consciously attacked those who could not defend themselves. Like a cancer, he purposefully went for the easiest target. And like a cancer, he must be totally eradicated without leaving a trace of existence, lest the cancer return in the future. This is why the text does not say “children of Amalek,” as the actual descendants of this man can be forgiven. The commandment to destroy Amalek is a commandment to unhesitatingly and completely destroy any personification of Amalek at any time this manifestation rears its head. Without mercy, we are to completely destroy any version of Amalek… forever.
Here we see what must be done. The leadership and soldiers of Hamas are the personification of Amalek in our time, and must be entirely rooted out and destroyed. Like Amalek, they have consciously chosen to target their attacks on the weak, young, and old. Like Amalek, they worship death and not life. Like Amalek, they demonstrate total disregard for even the most vulnerable in the world–not only brutally murdering Israeli children, but killing their own wives and children as they use them as shields of protection for themselves.
And like Amalek, Hamas must be completely and totally destroyed. As painful as it is, we must do whatever it takes to “blot” Hamas off the earth. Hamas is a cancer on all of humanity, and it must be completely annihilated.
As important as this destruction of Hamas as a modern Amalek is, we must simultaneously remember to protect our own souls. We cannot take any joy in the destruction of Hamas, but we must destroy them or our own sake, so that we never become in any way like them. We can never be like the Hamas supporters who celebrated in the streets of Gaza and Tehran when Israel was attacked. We have an obligation to utterly destroy Hamas, but we can never let ourselves rejoice in the death of even the worst of humanity.
There is a midrash, a Jewish teaching 2,000 years old, that when the Egyptian soldiers of Pharaoh were drowning in the Sea of Reeds the angels rejoiced. God stopped them, chastising them that the work of His hands was being destroyed and there was no joy in this. We cannot allow ourselves to be happy that we are ever forced to kill others, even those who are truly evil.
Editors note: The instagram reel below will not embed here. Click the link to watch.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyRUFU9yWvM/
We must remember this aspect of the war we now are experiencing. Hamas has demonstrated that they are Amalek. They must be entirely blotted out of existence. But for the sake of our own souls, me must not allow ourselves to do this in vengeance, hate, or anger. We must kill every one of them, and it is profoundly sad that we have to do this. Although evil now, all of these men were born with pure souls, which were quickly degraded as they grew older, until they became the animals that we see killing babies, kidnapping hostages, and personifying evil.
If you owned a dog that got rabies, you would do everything you could to heal the animal. But the moment the animal attacked a child, you would put it down. And you would probably cry at the loss of what the animal once was. In the same way, while we put down these animals of Hamas, we need to mourn that they have forced us to do this. We must mourn not for their benefit, but for the benefit of our own souls so that we never, God forbid, embrace any of the true evil that Hamas demonstrates.
Golda Meir said two quotes that are paramount for each of us to remember as we fulfill our spiritual obligation of destroying Hamas in its entirety. The first is: “If the Palestinians lay down their weapons, there will be peace. If the Israelis lay down their weapons, there will be a massacre.” Hamas’ actions on October 7 demonstrate the profoundly sad but absolute truth of her statement.
She also spoke about what could happen in the future during a time of peace: “We will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for making us kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
Hamas hates not only every Jew but even their own people, including their own children. Like rabid dogs they sought out children, both Jewish and Arab, to maim, kill, and use as sacrificial human shields for their own protection. This, above all other horrors they have committed, is why it is obvious that they are a modern Amalek, and must be blotted out and completely destroyed. And we must protect the holiness of our own souls while we destroy this organization, which is truly, in every sense of the word, evil.
May the Holy One and His Presence help us to entirely blot out Hamas as the modern Amalek, while keeping Israel in safety. May we never find hate or anger in our hearts as we do what must be done to Hamas and her allies. And may God always bless us, Israel, and the entire world with real peace–a peace based on respect and not on the fallacies we see all around us. A peace built on the truth and foundation of an Israel that is supported by the world as a light for peace in this time.
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