Is Hamas the Biblical Amalek that must be wiped out?
On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote a letter to the IDF soldiers fighting against Hamas. In the letter, Netanyahu referred to the Biblical commandment to remember Amalek:
Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt. how, undeterred by fear of Hashem, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when Hashem your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that Hashem your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget! Deuteronomy 25:17
The prime minister also described Hamas as Amalek in his address to the troops ten days ago upon beginning the land incursion into Gaza.
“They are longing to recompense the murderers for the horrific acts they perpetrated on our children, our women, our parents, and our friends,” Netanyahu said. “They are committed to eradicating this evil from the world, for our existence, and I add, for the good of all humanity. The entire people, and the leadership of the people, embrace them and believe in them. ‘Remember what Amalek did to you’ (Deuteronomy 25:17). We remember and we fight.
By referring to Hamas as Amalek, Netanyahu appeared to be invoking the Biblical imperative to wipe out Amalek entirely. Bible scholars will note the similarity between Biblical Amalek and modern-day Hamas, both of whom targeted children and the elderly.
It is interesting to note that in 2010, Netanyahu identified the Nazis as Amalek and in his speech, he invoked the Holocaust vow of, “Never again”, emphasizing, “Never again is now.”
The Torah commands Israel to entirely wipe out the nation of Amalek, raising the question of whether Israel is mandated by the Torah to wipe out Hamas.
Rabbi Pinchas Winston, a prolific end-of-day writer, noted that when Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up, he mixed up all the nations, confused them with one another, and exiled them from their place.
“So it is impossible to absolutely identify any nation as the physical manifestation of Amalek,” Rabbi Winston said. “But unrestrained violence and cruelty are the identifying traits of Amalek. Hamas is clearly exhibiting these traits of Amalek.”
He noted that among the rabbinic sources, there are differing opinions as to whether merely having the traits of Amalek warranted applying the commandment of wiping out Hamas as if they were truly from the genealogical line of Amalek.
Rabbi Winston went even further, noting that after Hamas carried out the atrocities, many of the Palestinian people celebrated the brutal massacre.
“Hamas locked their own people out of the tunnels, sealing their fate to die in the IDF attacks intended for Hamas,” Rabbi Winston said. This is not a nationalist struggle. This disrespect for life, this cruelty towards their own people, is even worse than Amalek who was cruel only to the Hebrews.”
“In that regard, they are Amalek on steroids,” Rabbi Winston said. “Their own people, the other Arabs know this, and that is why they won’t take in Palestinian refugees.”
Rabbi Eyal Riess, Director of the Tzfat Kabbalah Center, quipped, “Bibi said that Hamas is Amalek and who knows better than him?”
The rabbi then acknowledged that even from a serious Torah perspective, the Prime Minister was correct.
“The Torah is an instruction manual, telling us what to do,” Rabbi Riess said. “There is no room for an opinion that isn’t based in the Torah. And it is a practical guide, telling us how to act.”
“If we look at it from that perspective, then it is absolutely clear that we need to treat Hamas like Amalek,” Rabbi Riess said. “We should remove them from the face of the earth.”
“The Torah teaches us that Amalek is the ultimate evil. In Biblical terms, the ultimate evil attacks the children and the elderly. That ultimate evil is still in the world. Can anyone try to deny that what we witnessed Hamas do was the ultimate evil? It is not philosophy or politics. It is a Torah obligation we have to fulfill. We have an obligation to remove such evil from the world.”
Rabbi Yosef Berger also weighed in.
“No one can truly you with certainty who Amalek is today,” Rabbi Berger said. “Amalek is a symbol of ultimate evil in the world. Anyone who is on that level of evil can be identified as representing Amalek in the world.”
“But for our purposes, we don’t need to look for a people to be Amalek. Just on a simple level of being judged for what they did, anyone who identifies as Hamas deserves to be killed and removed from the world.”
Rabbi Berger emphasized that the nature of the Hamas attack indicated what was to come.
“They murdered the babies,” he said. “Who does such a thing? Pharaoh did this. And after he did, all of the Jews were redeemed and absolute divine judgment came into the world.”
Rabbi Berger explained that this was the nature of the Arabs, citing a verse in Genesis.
He shall be a wild ass of a man; His hand against everyone, And everyone’s hand against him; He shall dwell alongside of all his kinsmen.” Genesis 16:12
“The nature of Arabs is to fight and kill,” Rabbi Berger said. “That is why no peace agreement with them has held. Except for the agreement named after Abraham. Yishmael means ‘God will hear’. Their purpose is to cause the nation of Israel to cry out to God so that he will hear our suffering.”
Rabbi Berger cited a verse in Psalms to illustrate this point:
“were it not for Hashem, who was on our side when men assailed us, they would have swallowed us alive in their burning rage against us; Psalms 124:2
“King David said that an adam, a man, would assail us,” Rabbi Berger said. “In Genesis, Ishmael is described as a pere adam, a primitive man. King David was describing Ishmael, the Arabs, in the end of days. And, as King David said, were it not for Hashem guarding us, what happened one month ago would happen all the time. That is their nature. No army can stand up against this constant threat from absolute evil. Only God can protect us.”
The rabbi suggested that reciting the Shema declaration of the unity of God could help in this situation. The first line is simply Shema Yisrael, Hashem elokenu, Hashem echad (hear, O Israel, Hashem is our God, Hashem is one).
“Echad is an acronym for Iran, Hamas, and Daish (Arabic acronym for ISIS, the Islamic State),” Rabbi Berger said. “Establishing God as king, as our protector, is the only way to dispel their power.”
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