RIP: Sunday evening, I had occasion to sit for a spell just outside Cottage Hospital’s main entrance. The moon rose in the evening sky and hovered above the buildings across the street. It wasn’t yet full, but plump and voluptuous none the less. Day was turning to night, summer tumbling to fall. The tensions of a recent visit were pulsating away. In that moment, I could savor the power and grace of our hospital. And how lucky a town our size was to have it.
Then I imagined mortars, rockets, missiles. Blowing shit up. Everything Israeli defense forces have thrown at hospitals in Gaza. How would Cottage hold up, I wondered. Hamas, we have been told, hides its warriors in hospitals, under hospitals. It uses hospitals as observation posts for its spies. Israel has no choice.
In that twilight moment, the name “Amalek” sprang unbidden to mind. I mention Amalek because three weeks after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 — killing 1,250 and taking another 250 hostage — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the specter of Amalek in a speech. “Remember what Amalek did to you,” he warned.
In the Old Testament, Amalek and the Amalekites — although direct descendants of Abraham themselves — waged implacable warfare against the Israelites since they fled Egypt. The Amalekites occupied the city we know as Jericho. The walls of this city — we know mostly because of Mahalia Jackson’s rendition of the gospel song — famously came tumbling down after Joshua and his trumpet-playing warriors walked around those walls seven times, pursuant to detailed instructions from the Lord.
The Lord had other instructions, as well. Jackson did not sing about them in her song, a not-so-subliminal celebration of freedom by escaped slaves. What God said was pretty simple.
Kill ’em all.
In the Bible, God told Joshua to have his men circumcised a second time and then attack Jericho. Joshua was to “utterly destroy all that was in the city, both old men and women, young and old, and ox and sheep and asses with the edge of the sword.”
The Almighty had given similar instructions to Saul. “Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not.” He told Saul to kill the infants and those still suckling on the breast. When Saul opted to spare the Amalekite king, Agag, God punished Saul for his defiance.
What happened to Jericho is pretty much a blueprint for what’s now happening in Gaza. After Netanyahu’s “Remember the Amalek” edict, his apologists have been trying to walk it back ever since: It was taken out of context; he got the Book of Deuteronomy confused with the Book of Samuel. It was a metaphor. He meant it figuratively.
No, it seems, he meant it literally.
Look what’s happening.
For the record, you won’t hear the words, “From the river to the sea” fall from my lips. I don’t wear a kafiya. And I am horrified by Hamas, whose now-deceased leader Yahya Sinwar famously ordered the brother of a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israeli authorities to bury his suspected brother alive using a teaspoon.
But here’s the deal: If Sinwar was the monster, Netanyahu is his Dr. Frankenstein. The two are flip sides of the same coin. And in many ways, Netanyahu is our monster.
For 10 years, Netanyau knowingly and strategically allowed billions of dollars of Qatari cash — delivered in cinematically bulging suitcases — to be funneled into the hands of Hamas. In part, Netanyahu authorized this to buy peace. In 2017, he lobbied the U.S. to allow this arrangement. His real objective — and he was upfront about it — was to play Hamas off against its rival, the Palestinian Authority. It was a divide-and-conquer gambit hatched with the express purpose of never having to negotiate with any Palestinians over the creation of any Palestinian State — ever.
But at what price? Sixty-five-thousand dead Gazans and counting, most of whom are women, children, and old people. These figures, Netanyahu says, come from Gazan health officials and are not to be believed. But Netanyahu refuses to allow independent media into Gaza. To date, anywhere from 124 to 247 reporters, mostly Palestinians, trying to cover the war have been killed. To date, nearly 400 Gazans have starved to death because there’s no food since the ceasefire expired in March. Another 2,000 Gazans trying to get food have been shot and killed by Israeli defense forces. We don’t know how many have been wounded.
Amalek?
This Tuesday morning — before the crack of dawn — I spoke to Jonty Ellaby, a program manager for humanitarian assistance working for ShelterBox, an international nonprofit whose American affiliate is headquartered in Summerland. Ellaby is in charge of humanitarian distributions in Gaza, a place he’s never been. It’s too risky. Mostly, he works with groups like the Palestinian Agriculture Development Association to deliver tents. In the past months, three humanitarian outreach workers with whom Ellaby worked were killed in Gaza. All three were killed by airstrikes. One was looking for food for his family. His job was to provide ShelterBox with a complete picture of what was happening on the ground. Two lost their entire families. According to Ellaby, half the humanitarian aid workers killed in the world are killed in Gaza.
Amalek?
He said the United Nations has 86,000 heavy-duty tents in warehouses in Jordan and Egypt to ship to Gazans. To date, only 1,174 have been delivered. This week, Netanyahu has put more than a million Gazans on notice: If they don’t move to the other side of the country — and now — they’ll be obliterated.
Who is the real Amalek?
Clarification and Corrections: Lest there be any confusion, no ShelterBox employees were killed in recent months in Gaza by Iraeli military personnel. The three humanitarian aid workers who were, in fact, killed and are alluded to in this column were Palestinians who worked for humanitarian assistance organizations in Gaza, such as the Palestinian Agricultural Development Association. ShelterBox — and ShelterBox U.S.A. — work in partnership with these organizations.
Because the risks in Gaza are so deadly, ShelterBox employees do not go there. Instead, its employees work with and through aid workers for these partner organizations.
In my conversation with ShelterBox Humanitarian Aid coordinator for Gaza Jonty Ellaby, we discussed the three aid workers killed in Gaza; to be clear, he never stated he worked directly with any of those three. One of the three, Ellaby had said, was a content provider for his organization. Again, to be painstakingly clear, this individual was not working to provide ShelterBox with content, but to provide that content for the humanitarian aid organization for which he worked.
Lastly, the conversation I had with Ellaby took place about 5 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. Clearly, the early morning fog had not lifted in my brain. As to the 86,000 tents alluded to in the column, these are tents available under the auspices of the United Nations coordinated system, not ShelterBox. Of those 86,000, ShelterBox accounted for 648. By any reckoning, that’s a significant discrepancy.
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