Netanyahu declares holy war against Gaza, citing the Bible

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been slammed as calling for 'a holy war of annihilation' against the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip after he invoked the ‘Amalek’, a nation in the Hebrew Bible that the Israelites were ordered to wipe out in an act of revenge. 'You must remember what Amalek has done to you,' he said in a speech yesterday announcing the start of a ground invasion in Gaza, adding that Israeli soldiers were part of a legacy that goes back 3,000 years.

Critics have highlighted that the text in the Hebrew Bible which addresses revenge on the Amalek constitutes a narrative of ‘genocide’. “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

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