Prime Minister Netanyahu responds to accusations against his statement comparing Hamas to ‘Amalek’ at the ICJ

Among the absurdities leveled against Israel at the Hague was the charge that after the October 7th massacre Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incited genocide by quoting the biblical phrase “remember what Amalek did to you.”

This false and preposterous charge reflects a deep historical ignorance.

The Amalekites mercilessly attacked the Children of Israel after the Exodus from Egypt. The comparison to Amalek has been used throughout the ages to designate those who seek to eradicate the Jewish people, most recently the Nazis.

That is why the words on a banner in a permanent exhibit at Yad Vashem, Israel’s famed Holocaust Museum, urge visitors to “remember what Amalek did to you.” This same phrase appears in the Hague at the memorial for Dutch Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Obviously, neither reference is an incitement to genocide of the German people.

So too Prime Minister Netanyahu’s reference to Amalek was not an incitement to genocide of Palestinians, but a description of the utterly evil actions perpetrated by the genocidal terrorists of Hamas on October 7th and the need to confront them.