This week's Torah portion -- which I will cover on Saturday -- happens to be the one in which the nation of Amalek attacks the Children of Israel as they are having Egypt. Jewish tradition holds that the Amalekites targeted children and the elderly.
That is the background for the commandment later, in Deuteronomy 25, that the children of Israel are to "remember" Amalek. It is that commandment that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited in several early speeches about the war to both soldiers and civilians.
A Jewish audience would recognize the reference. The story of Amalek -- from Exodus and Deuteronomy -- is told every year, with the reading of the relevant Torah portions. "Amalek" is a catch-all for anti-Jewish villains throughout history. It is interpreted as an injunction to remember, and to fight, evil -- never to mass murder.
But a clumsy translation, amplified by anti-Israel and anti-war voices on social media, claimed (falsely) that Netanyahu was calling for "holy war" and citing a different passage entirely, in I Samuel 15:3.
In that case, King Saul is commanded to wipe out Amalek entirely, from the king down to the children and animals. (Saul balks at this task, and as a result he is stripped of his kingship.) But Netanyahu's quote was specifically a reference to Deuteronomy, word-for-word.
At The Hague this month, South Africa's lawyers, who have probably never cracked open a Bible in their entire lives in that lawless country, used the Samuel citation in claiming that Netanyahu's reference to Deuteronomy was proof of intent to commit genocide.
Ironically, one of the South African lawyers making this absurd claim is also the lawyer for firebrand black nationalist Julius Malema, who likes a song called "Shoot the Boer." This same lawyer has argued that the song's inciting phrases are not meant to be taken literally.
At first I blamed laziness and ignorance for the misquote. I imagined that some anti-Israel activist did a word search on the Internet for "Amalek" and came up with the reference from Samuel. But my friend James Myburgh did some digging and found another source.
It turns out that Nazi propagandists were quite enamored of the Samuel quote and used it to accuse Jews of plotting the murder of all Germans. This, they said, justified killing Jews. Those are the roots of South Africa's case, which had other antisemitic features.
How fitting that today's Amalek -- Hamas and its collaborators, including the wicked South African government -- would seek to accuse others of what they themselves are guilty of: namely, the seeking of genocide. That is pure Amalek, and it must be stopped.
https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/hitlerism-returns-to-the-hague
I should have noted in my message about the weekly Torah portion that this week is Shabbat Chazon, the Sabbath of Vision. We are about to mourn -- but see through that pain to something better that lies beyond, on the other side.
Wishing you the best vision -- and an incredible reality to follow. It happens!
We begin the final speech of Moses to the people of Israel before they enter the Promised Land. He relates the ups and downs of the years of wandering in the desert, before, finally, the people have the merit to enter the land itself.
This Sabbath always precedes Tisha B'Av, the Ninth of Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. It is the anniversary of the destruction of both of the Holy Temples, and a catch-all for many calamities that befell the Jewish people.
A word on Tisha B'Av. This year I am leaving for an overseas trip during the afternoon of the holiday -- in the middle of a fast day. Not idea, but there was no other choice. But my flight is in the afternoon, which is significant.
We relax some of the harsh, mournful customs of the day in the afternoon. We start to pray normally; we sit on regular chairs; we start to have hope again in the redemption that will, one day, lead us all back from exile to our home.
I'll be taking a trip to a land where an important part of ...
President Trump is in Scotland, playing golf and making big trade deals -- a major deal with the EU, in fact. Meanwhile, there is a global outcry about humanitarian aid to Palestinians (not about the Israeli hostages, mind you).
On top of that, Democrats are at their lowest polling numbers ever -- so they are trying to win control of the House by redistricting in the middle of a 10-year Census cycle. Oh, economic optimism is up, so they have a tough road.
And Tulsi Gabbard's revelations about the Russia collusion investigation make it clear that Obama's lieutenants lied to Congress. How deeply was he himself involved? The media continue to ignore the evidence, but we certainly won't.
Special guests:
Nick Gilbertson - Breitbart News White House correspondent, on EU deal
Frances Martel - Breitbart News foreign editor, on Trump abroad and Russia
John Spencer - urban warfare expert, on humanitarian aid and war in Gaza
Bradley Jaye - Breitbart News congressional correspondent, on the ...
