fighting the war as if there are no negotiations, and
negotiating as if there is no war
Avi Melamed

It is dangerous to be found in the company of God's enemies

Operation Iron Swords

18 In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,
Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt
unto the great river, the river Euphrates: Genesis 15, King James Version (KJV)

2 Therefore David enquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines?
And the Lord said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah.
3 And David's men said unto him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah:
how much more then if we come to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?
4 Then David enquired of the Lord yet again. And the Lord answered him and said,
Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand.
5 So David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and
brought away their cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter.
So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.
1 Samuel 23, King James Version (KJV)

2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel,
how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3 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.
7 And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah
until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt.
8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and
utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
9 But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen,
and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them:
but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
14 And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and
the lowing of the oxen which I hear?
15 And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people
spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and
the rest we have utterly destroyed.
22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold,
to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
32 Then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites.
And Agag came unto him delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past.
33 And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless,
so shall thy mother be childless among women. And
Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal.
1 Samuel 15, King James Version (KJV)

13 Then said Esther, If it please the king,
let it be granted to the Jews which are in Shushan
to do to morrow also according unto this day's decree, and
let Haman's ten sons be hanged upon the gallows.
14 And the king commanded it so to be done: and the decree was given at Shushan;
and they hanged Haman's ten sons.
15 For the Jews that were in Shushan gathered themselves together
on the fourteenth day also of the month Adar, and
slew three hundred men at Shushan; but on the prey they laid not their hand.
16 But the other Jews that were in the king's provinces gathered themselves together,
and stood for their lives, and had rest from their enemies, and
slew of their foes seventy and five thousand, but they laid not their hands on the prey,
24 Because Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite,
the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them,
and had cast Pur, that is, the lot, to consume them, and to destroy them;
25 But when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device,
which he devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head, and that
he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
26 Wherefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur.
Therefore for all the words of this letter, and of that which they had seen
concerning this matter, and which had come unto them,
Esther Chapter 9, King James Version (KJV)

Netanyahu had said, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember”, as Israeli forces prepared to launch an assault on Gaza. Joshua Shanes, a professor of Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston, explained in the magazine Mother Jones: “The lesson, when read literally, is clear: Saul’s failure to kill every Amalekite posed an existential threat to the Jewish people.”

Daniel, in his famous prophecy of the seventy weeks, foretells that the end of the Jewish nation shall be with a flood, or (agreeably to the language of prophecy) a hostile invasion, and that their land shall be laid utterly desolate.