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Israel Is Using Its Genocidal Gaza Playbook on Iran

Just as in Palestine, the Israeli government is framing its latest conflict as a holy war of extermination.

Benjamin Netanyahu in the State Dining Room of the White House, on September 29, 2025.

On March 2, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke from the site of an Iranian ballistic missile strike in the city of Beit Shemesh, 19 miles west of Jerusalem. Beit Shemesh had come under fire from Iran’s allies before, with the Houthi movement targeting a military base near the city in November 2024 with a hypersonic missile. The Iranian strike, which came days after the US and Israel launched an unprovoked war on Iran, hit Beit Shemesh directly, killing nine Israelis and injuring 27 more. When Netanyahu spoke to the media from the site of the devastation, he remained defiant and told gathered reporters, “But we are acting here together with the US, in the name and for the sake of all humanity. In this week’s Torah portion, we read ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember and we act.”

Amalek, in the Torah, is described as one of the nations that fought against the Israelites. In the Bible, the prophet Samuel tells the Israelite King Saul that God wants him to “go and destroy Amalek. Destroy all they have, and do not let them live. Kill both man and woman, child and baby.”

Israel has long sought to deemphasize the invocations of Amalek in its Western-facing communications, not just because there may be unfamiliarity with the religious reference but because Israel routinely compares modern-day Palestine to Amalek as part of its justification for the Gaza genocide. “Wipe out the memory of Amalek” has become an oft-used phrase at the highest levels of Israel’s government, a dog whistle well understood to call for the extermination of the Palestinians.

Now, by linking Iran and Amalek, Israel’s government seems to be bringing that same genocidal logic to its latest conflict—only one of a number of different religious frameworks Netanyahu’s government is working within as it wages war alongside the United States.

Reports conflict about how far in advance the beginning of the war was planned, but reporting from Drop Site News indicates that the start date, on the eve of Purim, was apparently decided weeks in advance. While it is perhaps unlikely that the IDF, however committed to genocide against the Palestinians, would organize its campaigns around the onset of certain holidays, the Israeli government has seized on the religious significance of starting this conflict as Purim begins.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli strike last weekend, had long been referred to by Israeli commentators as a Haman of........

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