Amalekites A Code-word for Palestinians

Netanyahu hat-tips settler who called for extermination camps | Mondoweiss |

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu yesterday responded to a video by former ‘Amona settler Avihai Boaron, who praised Netanyahu for building ‘Amona land thieves a new settlement, by thanking him and promising to visit.

Part and parcel of the job of the most settler-friendly PM ever, you would think. Particularly one who is unusually sensitive to the idea of losing face with the “base.”

But Boaron isn’t your garden-variety settler leader. He has made genocidal statements. In 2011 Boaron attacked so-called moderate rabbis, who had opposed a “rabbis’ letter.” That letter was a call, signed by 300 rabbis, demanding Jews refrain from selling or renting houses or apartments to non-Jews. Boaron published his attack in the 117th volume of the Sabbath newszine Ma’ayanei Ha’yeshua, in January 2011- unsigned, but he did not deny writing it later – and claimed the moderate rabbis

“are clerks, who don’t want to rock the boat, who say `this isn’t the halacha [law], precisely,’ […] rabbis, in short, whose bread and water is political correctness […] One wonders whether they will leave the concentrating of ‘Amalekites in death camps to others, or will they rule that the wiping out of ‘Amalek is no longer relevant. Time will tell. “ [My emphasis].

The ‘Amalekites are a mystical people, mentioned in the Bible and in the Talmud but not elsewhere, who are held in the Talmud to be the antithesis to Jews, a people dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish God and his people. Various nations were considered to be the modern ‘Amalek over the years. Germans became a prominent choice after the Holocaust, but before it the Romans were considered to have filled the bill, and for reasons beyond human ken, many rabbis thought the Armenians were `Amalekites. In contemporary Israeli Jewish parlance, however, ‘Amalekites is generally a code-word for Palestinians, who are seen as preventing the divine plan of rebuilding a temple in Jerusalem by their very presence. ‘Amalekites, of course, are destined for a genocide, hence the reference to death camps.