Killing civilians in retaliation is not war and no amount of rabbinic rhetoric makes it right. Find a diplomatic solution.
It's almost like Israel [leadership] wants another generation of people to hate the Jews.
But what do I know of persecution; I'm just a gypsy. Everybody loves when my people come around.
Nobody can deny that the concept of "antisemitism" is weaponized against critics of Israel. But at the same time, nobody can deny that many critics of Israel, or out ignorance or animus, weaponize antisemitism against Israel.
Edit: Can't reply to you for some reason, and no, you don't know me, though we have met, and corresponded via email a few times, but attempting to make my reply about "being angry" is really gross dude. I responded substantively to both of your comments and your reply appears to be to simply ignore that; so be it!
Seems to me, given the text, that the image was depicting the hand as Israel. Poor choice imo but doesn’t reek of overt antisemitism.
The Star of David is on Israel’s flag and the official adopted symbol of Zionism.. The entire article was about Israel and Zionists. That you claim it is antisemitic is just another example of what I mentioned.
“‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
I am not disputing that it represents religious rhetoric used to justify IDF actions. I'm only pushing back on the notion that it refers broadly to Palestinians.
It’s pretty clear it means the Palestinian people.
That you are attempting to wiggle away from the plainly obvious nature of the quote, for some reason.
Nobody denies that an enormous number of civilians have been killed in the IDF's Gaza operation.
Except of course numerous Israeli government officials. (They don't deny that many civilians have been killed -- but they have continually attempted to dial down the proportion of civilian casualties, along with all the rhetoric about there being "no innocents" or "no uninvolved civilians" in Gaza to begin with).
This is a thread about rhetoric, not a judgement of the whole conflict.
In that it's plainly clear that the Amalek quote does mean what the parent commenter (and anyone else who understands the region) can easily see that it does. But you keep coming up with weird evasive arguments to claim that it doesn't. Like the above, for example.
If you think the quote is an unimportant side detail
Unfortunately and very tragically -- it is anything but.
Or, at least, that's what I think. We're running towards the right margin of the site with this thread now, and we're not going to convince each other of anything, so we can also let it go.
For example, it is odd that you attempted to claim, way up top, that it's just the "Kahanist extremists" who take the broader view of the Amalek reference, as this signifies some distance with what Netanyahu thinks. When what defines the current Netanyahu era is its willful alliance with Kahanist parties -- crowned by the appointment of two of its premier representatives to Minister positions.
Along with all the obscene horror of what's been happening on the ground.
Look more into what public figures there have been saying, not just in the past 4 months, but for several years now -- not just on the margins, but in the mainstream -- and you'll see why I'm saying what I'm saying.
That's the spin that the PM's office came up in an attempt to cover its tracks after the massive stink cloud that was raised once the quote became known outside Israel.
But for naught. Because it's manifestly clear from the language of the quote (and its historical context) that it refers to the entire population, not just Hamas. And unfortunately backed now by the IDF's actions on the ground, the zillions of TikTok videos gleefully posted by its soldiers, the rantings and ravings of countless government officials and other public figures, etc.
Netanyahu’s speech leading up to the genocide is even more clear then Trumps speech leading up to the Jan. 6th insurrection. Trump at the very least called off the insurrectionists (albeit late and unconvincingly). Netanyahu on the other hand has doubled down.
What I object to is the deployment of religious tropes that essentialize Netanyahu-ism or Kahanism into Israel, or, worse still, Judaism as a whole. If you're going to get into this "Amalek" stuff, get it right.
If not, it's not like you needed it to take shots at Netanyahu. There is a decent chance that when he is ultimately ousted, he's going to be imprisoned by the Israelis.
Which absolutely no one is doing here.
With the statement above the discussion has been formally pushed into the deep end, so I agree we can wrap up.
Likewise Trump also claims his speech didn’t mean to start an insurrection, however, it did to so, and whatever he originally meant became irrelevant as soon as the insurrectionists started, and he didn’t order them to back down.
That's why the quote is basically a dog whistle -- intended to be heard loud and clear by one's core constituency, while seeming more innocuous to others.
BTW you'll note that Rosenberg goes on to call accusations of the current genocide "cavalier", which says a lot about where he's coming from.
There are those that appear to fully back Netanyahu and his longstanding views on treatment of the Palestinian state, there are others who are loudly against the actions of the Israeli state in recent years.
( I'd remark that there are more than two extremes but feel this is not the right thread to comment about rabbis on a spectrum )