Daniel Luban: A Final Word on Amalek

A guest post from Daniel Luban:

I have no desire to bore the reader with endless discussion of the Amalek controversy, so I will just weigh in with one final comment on the controversy and Jeffrey Goldberg’s response to it. First, Andrew Sullivan’s post on the controversy is worth reading, and reiterates the same basic point that both Zakaria and I made: how would Goldberg read the Amalek statement if it had come from Ahmadinejad?

An annoyed Goldberg responds that Netanyahu himself never used the Amalek analogy; rather, it was an anonymous Netanyahu advisor who mentioned it to Goldberg. This response is unconvincing. While it is true that Netanyahu’s advisor was the one who uttered the now-notorious words “think Amalek,” the advisor made this statement in response to Goldberg’s request to “gauge for me the depth of Mr. Netanyahu’s anxiety about Iran.” That is to say, the advisor was not stating his own opinions about the Iranian threat; rather, he was indicating that Netanyahu himself sees Iran as the new Amalek. It is, of course, perfectly possible that the advisor mischaracterized his boss’s views, but Goldberg gave no indication in his original op-ed that he sees it this way. Rather, he deliberately sought to play up the Amalek analogy and made it the centerpiece of his intellectual profile of Netanyahu. (Note his title: “Israel’s Fears, Amalek’s Arsenal”.)

Goldberg has clearly become frustrated that the Amalek debate has slipped out of his control and ultimately backfired. His op-ed deployed the Amalek reference to convince American audiences that, far from being a shallow opportunist or unthinking warmonger, Netanyahu is in fact a serious statesman whose belligerence toward Iran is deeply rooted in Jewish history, the Bible, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and so on. Readers are meant to come away with the impression (although it is never quite stated explicitly) that they should put aside their skepticism of the new Israeli government and trust its hawkish inclinations on the Iranian issue.

As it turns out, his op-ed seems to have had the opposite effect. Rather than reassuring American Jews about Netanyahu’s seriousness of purpose, all the talk of Amalek has simply reinforced their impression that Netanyahu is a dangerous zealot who should not be dictating U.S. policy towards Iran.

It is only now that Goldberg steps in to do damage control — claiming at first that there is nothing at all troubling about the Amalek analogy, next that there may be troubling aspects of the analogy but that these were completely unintended by those who used it, before finally falling back on the position that Netanyahu never espoused the analogy at all. He covers this retreat with familiar claims of expert knowledge, maintaining that anyone who draws attention to the commonsensical implications of the analogy is simply “misreading” or “misunderstanding” it, no doubt due to their lack of nuanced understanding of the rabbinic Jewish tradition. (Strangely, he does not demand that Western pundits refrain from commenting on the pronouncements of Iran’s ayatollahs unless they have a thorough grounding in Islamic law and a few years of seminary at Qom under their belts.)

In any case, the basic message throughout seems to be “defer to Netanyahu”. If the Amalek analogy increases our confidence in the prime minister, then we should focus on it; if it decreases our confidence, we should ignore it and pretend that it was never brought up.

Author: Jim Lobe

Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service's Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.

8 thoughts on “Daniel Luban: A Final Word on Amalek”

  1. “Netanyahou is in fact a serious scholar …” Oh, Brother what a crock that is! The only good thing about Netanyahou is that he looks and acts disingenuous and he is disingenuous. There are no secrets to unravel there. He is a racist and a complete liar and his word is worthless. Andy Rooney said it best …”Netanyahou, with the emphasis on the Yahoo”.

    1. I apologize for my spelling error – the scoundrel’s name is Netanyahu, not Netanyahou.

  2. I’ve always used the Samuel-Saul-Amalekite story as an illustration of how power corrupts. Early on, Samuel gives a beautiful and moving speech to the Israelites warning them of what will happen to them if they choose to have a king. Yet only a few pages later, Saul has become king, and Samuel, now his top adviser, has become a raving, genocidal lunatic. Samuel condemns Saul for failing to complete the genocide which Samuel ordered, and sets out to find a more pliant king (David).

  3. Jim Lobe writes:

    “Rather than reassuring American J ews about Netanyahu’s seriousness of purpose, all the talk of Amalek has simply reinforced their impression that Netanyahu is a dangerous zealot who should not be dictating U.S. policy towards Iran.”

    This is very interesting, Jim, because it implies that American Je ws do acknowledge that Netanyahu IS in fact dictating US policy toward Iran.

    But notice that these same people are not in any noticeable numbers calling AIPAC or the White House or their representatives in Congress to demand the obvious remedy for this situation: ending the “special relationship” which enables Israel to dictate US foreign policy, no matter who’s in charge of the Israeli government.

    The only thing we can do in this situation is to beg the Israelis pretty please to have another election and choose somebody less frightening to dictate to the stupid obedient Americans as to what their policy on Iran shall be.

    If we demand an end to the “special relationship” itself, we’re anti-Semites, of course.

  4. American and Israel: Two crazed nations filled with self-righteous religiousity that rationalizes their aggressive expansitionist desire to colonize the other people’s land.

    It’s a match made in hell .. er heaven.

    1. Well, the Americans are crazier. At least Israel is pursuing its *own* selfish interests exclusively. America is pursuing some of its most violent and ruinously expensive policies exclusively for Israel’s benefit and advantage, and directly *contrary* to America’s own interests, by any definition whatsoever.

  5. Nuts is nuts. Anyway one might care to slice it. Or them. Bibi’s nuts and Obama is nuts to pander to his wants and desires. Hmmm, wishes and whims? Dreams of Iranian nuclear demise?

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