Messianic nuts with nukes: Iran, or Israel?

Just when you thought the apocalyptic nuttiness was over: Jeffrey Goldberg of the New York Times published an op-ed in which he cites an advisor to Israeli PM Netanyahooooo on how he views Iran as "Amalek", an indigenous tribe in the Levant who, according to the Bible, were supposedly opposed to the ancient Hebrews and were eventually exterminated by King David (I should add "mythical" to that sentence since most of the old bible stories are wilting; including the story of King David and the Exodus from Egypt.) Acording to the Bible, God herself had promised the land of the Amalek to the Hebrews, and so the Hebrews were commanded by God to exterminate the Amalek and take their lands by force:

"When the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget."

And when God says "blot out" she apparently really, really means it:

"Strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." (1 Sam. 15:2-3).

The Hebrew King Saul, who was to finish the job, apparently wondered why he should kill the women and children too, and God supposedly told him not to be a wise-ass and just do as he's told. And when King Saul was insufficiently bloodthirsty to carry out this Godly command to completely exterminate the Amalek by murdering unarmed prisoners, the prophet Samuel stepped-in and stripped Saul of his crown, and then executed the Amelekite prisoners himself. 

Naturally, all this massacre by the ancient Hebrews was "pre-emptive" and/or in self-defense. Isn't it always?

So anyway, lets get this straight: the Iranians are said to be crazed religious nuts who seek to "wipe out" other people with weapons of mass destruction, and yet here's an official from nuclear-armed Israel which is citing one of the bloodiest chapters of the Bible on justifying mass murder.

Gosh, I wonder what would have happened had some advisor to a top Iranian official said these sorts of things?

Comments

[William deB. Mills]

The real war in the world today is between fundamentalist zealots and those who believe in individual liberty. The fundamentalist zealots—Christian, Muslim, Jewish—know exactly what they are fighting for: an unforgiving dictatorship by their favored ideology. Most of the rest of the world’s population, many already dying, still do not even know what is happening.
Fundamentalists need not be extremist nor need extremists be fundamentalist, but when a mythological past is taken literally by those who also are eager to employ extreme methods to achieve their goals, one has a self-feeding danger of a particularly virulent kind. Faith rather than reason as the basis for belief inclines one to discount disconfirmatory evidence and to focus on confirmatory evidence, leading to ever stronger evidence regardless of what the evidence actually shows.
It is precisely the existence of these two fundamentalist extremist camps at the same historical moment that creates the danger and a struggle severe enough to merit the term “war” because each side feeds off the other in a double cycle very difficult to control. First, as mentioned above, each side independently filters evidence through its lens of faith, misinterpreting everything as proof of its own infallibility. Second, each side radicalizes the other. With Side A asserting that Side B represents “the devil,” any hostile act is seen as proof of the opponent’s evil intent and any conciliatory act is seen as a trick. Opinion based on faith rather than analysis twists reality. The cycles interact, every action inflaming passions all around.
The Christian-Muslim-Jewish fundamentalist battle today is even further enflamed by cynical politicians who exploit the naïve attitudes of the true believers to achieve their own entirely worldly goals: the Israeli expansionist using the threat of war with Iran to cement Israel’s 60-year-long campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestine; the American neo-conservative exploiting the fear of terrorism to pursue dreams of an “American century” powered by U.S. military control over global hydrocarbon resources; the Arab dictator exploiting the Salafis to retain power; the Iranian neo-con IRGC officer colluding with Shi’ite Twelvers waiting for the Mahdi to return and bring the “end of days” but dreaming of Cyrus the Great. The longer the battle of fundamentalisms continues, the more it gets wrapped up in nationalism, totally confusing most moderates on both sides, almost none of whom have knowledge about either side to understand what war is really being fought.
In order to prevent these extremists from controlling the political agenda, moderates needs to learn how to work together more effectively and develop a strategy for political action.

[Amir]

Speaking about a crime is not a crime. But it alarms people. But in this case, we don't need to listen to what they 'SAY' to be alarmed. Israel has already wiped Palestine off the map. (google 'map of middle east' and try to find Palestine on the map... good luck!).

The interesting part is that they distort Ahmadinejad's speech to portray it as if Iran is going to militarily attack Israel. Something that Iran has not done to anybody in the past couple of centuries.

Israel, on the other hand, has attacked its neighbors on many occasions and has wiped Palestine off the map, by force.

I guess this Persian phrase is very true: "Kaafar hame ra be kish e khod pendarad", metaphorically meaning that a thief always assumes that others steal from him.