“You must ‘remember what Amalek has done to you,'” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admonished on Oct. 28, as he announced the “second phase” of Israel’s war in Gaza, the ground invasion that is now underway.
To many non-Jewish people around the world, the reference likely seemed obscure or meaningless. In the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, Amalek is a nation whose soldiers ambushed the Israelites as they made their way to the Promised Land. Following the attack, which the Israelites were able to beat back, God instructed them never to forget the near-catastrophe, and to wage an eternal war until no trace of Amalek’s existence remained.
