The Conquest of Canaan

The Children of Amalek, Ch. 1

And Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore hearken to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I will punish what Am′alek did to Israel in opposing them on the way, when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and smite Am′alek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.’ - 1 Samuel 15

Toward the beginning of the invasion of Gaza, the longest-serving prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, invoked a reference to a mythological adversary of Israel, the Amalekites. According to the Tanakh, a canon of literature traditionally revered by Jews (and by Christians, Muslims, and Mormons to an extent), the Amalekites attacked Moses and his followers during their journey out of Egypt into Canaan. Because of that attack, Yahweh, the character the Tanakh claims is an omnipotent god who created humans, Earth, and the universe, commands his devoted servants to exterminate the Amalekites. The command was thorough — it included men and women, “sucklings”, and livestock. The Amalekites, according to the Tanakh, are the descendants of Amalek, who is the grandson of Esau, who is the brother of Jacob (later named Israel by Yahweh).

These are the descendants of Esau the father of the E′domites in the hill country of Se′ir. These are the names of Esau’s sons: Eli′phaz the son of Adah the wife of Esau, Reu′el the son of Bas′emath the wife of Esau. The sons of Eli′phaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz. (Timna was a concubine of Eli′phaz, Esau’s son; she bore Am′alek to Eli′phaz.) - Genesis 36:9

The genealogy is primarily relevant because it demonstrates that the Amalekites are conceptualized in a racial way by the Tanakh. The Amalekites are not simply people who practice a different religion; they are a biological lineage. The Tanakh is filled with racial lineages; indeed, Canaan is promised by Yahweh to the descendants of Abraham through Isaac specifically.

I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you.

And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.

And I will give to you, and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. - Genesis 17:6-8

It is interesting to note that Amalek and Israel (Jacob) share common ancestors, Isaac and Abraham, but the promise of Canaan to Isaac only passed on through to Israel. Furthermore, because of Israel’s deceptions, Esau didn’t receive his birthright or the blessing from Isaac. Isaac wanted to pass on a blessing to Esau, the grandfather of Amalek, but Israel, with the assistance of his mother, camouflaged himself to resemble Esau when his blind father gave the magical blessing.

Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her older son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son; and the skins of the kids she put upon his hands and upon the smooth part of his neck; and she gave the savory food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob. - Genesis 27:15

When Benjamin Netanyahu referred to Amalek, he was referring to the Amalek of these stories.

You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember. And we are fighting. Our brave troops and combatants who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions of Israel are joining this chain of Jewish heroes; a chain that started 3000 years ago from Joshua until the heroes in 1948 the six day war, the 73 October war and all other wars in this country. - Benjamin Netanyahu

How are people to interpret such a statement? When there was backlash about the fact that, on the face of it, it seems like an incitement to genocide, Netanyahu assured the world that his genocidal references were not to be taken in such a way. His office released a statement:

So too Prime Minister Netanyahu’s reference to Amalek was not an incitement to genocide of Palestinians, but a description of the utterly evil actions perpetrated by the genocidal terrorists of Hamas on October 7th and the need to confront them.

Thus, Likud, the party of Netanyahu, has no problem accusing Hamas of being genocidal, but finds it preposterous why people may suspect that a government is committing genocide when it is systematically starving a civilian population and its Prime Minister is invoking clear genocidal references. References like that of course found their way to the International Court of Justice, including Tik Tok clips of soldiers dancing and singing about wiping out the “seed of Amalek” and that there are no “uninvolved civilians”.

Even if we very charitably grant that Netanyahu was referencing Hamas specifically, and not Gazans generally, we are left with the fact that the command in the Tanakh in reference to the destruction of Amalek includes ostensibly innocents, including infants and animals. It doesn’t matter, as it was pointed out by the Prime Minister’s office, that references to remembering Amalek also appear in places like the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum for Jews murdered in World War 2 by Nazis. References to passages of wanton murder and destruction should not be invoked at any memorial that I’m aware. Why are some people still invoking such passages these days? When is it acceptable to wantonly murder infants out of retribution for what some ancestors of those infants did?

Personally I have yet to conceive of such a scenario. And how would such references apply to Hamas? Some members of Hamas have committed atrocities — does that imply it’s justified to murder the infants of everyone who is a member of Hamas (which seems to be an amorphous blob of people identified at the whim of anyone who supports Likud)? After all, the dancing soldiers’ song suggests all Gazans are Amalekites. But it disturbs me that people try to defend not simply the use of the reference in the context of the invasion of Gaza, but even within the context of the Tanakh. Why did the children of Amalek deserve to be slaughtered, why do people worship the character who supposedly commanded it, and why do people revere the book that glorifies it?

Remember what Am'alek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way, when you were faint and weary, and cut off at your rear all who lagged behind you; and he did not fear God. Therefore when the LORD your God has given you rest from all your enemies round about, in the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the remembrance of Am'alek from under heaven; you shall not forget. - Deuteronomy 25:17-19

When Netanyahu invoked Amalek, he also praised the “soldiers” and “combatants” who are fighting in Gaza, which logically includes those soldiers filmed dancing and singing about killing Palestinian civilians. In his televised speech and in a letter to the Israel Defense Forces(IDF) soldiers he specifically mentions a “chain of Jewish heroes” and includes “Joshua”. In the Tanakh, Joshua is the original commander who is given responsibility by Moses to complete the mission of conquering the land of Canaan, aka Palestine, thousands of years ago in a mythical past. The story about the conquest of Canaan in the Tanakh is a brutal and pitiless series of murder and destruction. For example, in the conquest of Jericho, Joshua is commanded by Yahweh to kill “everything” in it.

On the seventh day they rose early at the dawn of day, and marched around the city in the same manner seven times: it was only on that day that they marched around the city seven times.

And at the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, "Shout; for the LORD has given you the city.

And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction; only Rahab the harlot and all who are with her in her house shall live, because she hid the messengers that we sent.

But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction, and bring trouble upon it.

But all silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD."

So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people raised a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.

Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.

- Joshua 6:12-21

Netanyahu is praising the soldiers who did that. He venerated Joshua, the man who according to the Tanakh gave innocent human sacrifices to Yahweh (“devoted to the Lord for destruction”), as a hero. Personally, I think anyone who gladly gives innocent human sacrifices to an imaginary tyrannical god is a villain. And for some historical context, the idea that the Jewish homeland is Palestine, and that because Jews once lived there it justifies the right for Jews today to have a pseudo ethno-theocratic state in Palestine called Israel — is fundamentally dependent on the notion that because Joshua conquered Canaan through genocide Jews have a right to rule Canaan (Palestine). Based on the Tanakh, ancient Jews would never have ruled Canaan if it were not for the command to exterminate all the people in Canaan.

When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.  If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God. -Deuteronomy 20:10

Personally I don’t believe that if the forebears of a religious tribe once conquered some territory thousands of years ago through slavery and genocide and settled there that future members of that religious tribe have a right to rule that territory in the future. The idea that Jews have some kind of historic right to the land of Canaan can be found expressed by organizations like PragerU or in the words of the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel:

ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.

It is a pillar of modern “Zionism.” We can debate about exactly what establishes a just and righteous state but I think that it should not be controversial that past genocidal conquests by religious forebears should not grant people the right to rule a territory. Neither should a right to rule be granted by having had people from your religious tribe once living in that territory. If I joined a cult of Jupiter, I wouldn’t have a special right to rule Europe.