The Logic of Rampage

Haman’s desire [in the book of Esther] to completely eradicate the Jews of Persia—man, woman, and child—mimics the actions of Iran and its proxies, specifically Hamas, which graphically demonstrated its genocidal nature on October 7, when it indiscriminately sought to murder every Jewish inhabitant along the Gaza border. These are the fingerprints, the modus operandi of Amalek, our arch-enemy throughout the ages. They carry within them the bloodlust for Jewish destruction; their DNA extends from Haman to Chmielnicki to Torquemada to the Nazis. They cannot be bribed or bought off, pacified or persuaded; they must be confronted and conquered if we are to survive.—Stewart Weiss, Jerusalem Post, March 3, 2026

This week it’s impossible to ignore the news from the West Bank: Jewish settlers have been attacking Palestinian homes, farms, and villages; they’ve been setting mosques ablaze. Yet, earlier today, hundreds of retired Israeli army officers released a letter urging US President Trump to tell Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to rein in these settlers. The letter proves Israeli society is not united behind the settlers. What is motivating these rampagers? In my new book, Oh No! Did My Family Screw Up the Middle East Peace Process? I address this topic. Most people probably aren’t familiar with the context, so here goes.

In the book of Esther—which is the basis for the Jewish holiday of Purim—late in the narrative, the Jews of Persia are given permission—by the king—to kill enemies, on a certain date.

The Jews are compelled to seize this opportunity because, there is already a prior outstanding edict from that very same king which states that on the subsequent day, those same enemies are permitted and ordered to kill the Jews.

It’s a crazy plot device.

The Jews, on the date provided by the king, then do kill 75,000 people—men, women, and children. These are the enemies who would, if given the chance to stay alive for one extra day, have themselves killed the Jews.

The Jews are doing a pre-emptive strike.

The book of Esther does not provide a graphic description of what it looked like for the Jews to kill their enemies. But since this story unfolds in Persia circa 480 BCE we can assume there were farms, homes, villages, shops…low-income households. To kill 75,000 people in one day, there must have been house-to-house invasions, sharp implements, dull implements; beating, bludgeoning, stabbing. Absolutely brutal. Horrific. This kind of “genocidal” behavior has a name: it’s a “Purim rampage.”

This is scripture. This is instructional. This is “how you live in the world.”

What’s happening in the West Bank today is this kind of rampaging.

OK—when one side in a longstanding feud goes out and kills the other side—a mob goes on a murderous rampage—there’s always a logical rationale, just like in the book of Esther. The logical rationale is often: those people hate us, those people want to kill us, so, we have to kill them first.

In other words, Purim rampaging—pogroms—ethnic cleansing—are justified by fear.

You look in the face of the rampager, and, deep inside those aggressive, vigorous, energetic, forceful eyes there is terror, abjection; weakness; feelings of insignificance, worthlessness, and powerlessness.

This overwhelming, embarrassing fear which has possessed this rampaging person conceals itself from that person by providing a logic of hatred. Their hatred makes sense. It’s a hard-headed, honest way of correctly understanding the real world. It’s us against them and that means we have to kill them.

Hatred dehumanizes its object, freeing the hater to act in a way they’d never act toward people “on our side” or “in my family.” A hated, dehumanized human is an object—the enemy. They are like an insect, or a rock. No human empathy stands in the way of hacking apart a dehumanized object: “the enemy.”

In the book of Esther, the mechanics of the plot make it crystal clear that a specific threat does exist and its implementation is imminent. Tomorrow, our people will all be murdered—the edict commands this. The Jews are not only justified in pre-emptively killing 75,000 people, but they would also be engaging in self-destruction if they failed to pre-emptively kill the 75,000 enemies who are waiting one extra day for their own turn to strike. The logic is ironclad.

In real life, it is rarely the case that a specific fear is guaranteed to be realized. So—this means, when fearful people decide, in real life, that they need to make a pre-emptive attack—killing before the other guys get their chance to kill—there’s no way to really be sure that pre-emptive attack was truly heading off an actual threat.  

But a hard-headed, logical analysis says: they hate us, they always hated us, everybody always hated us. They want to kill us, they have always killed us, whenever they could, everybody always kills us. These are facts. Anyone who denies these facts….might as well be one of the enemies! (Because they weaken our resolve.)

Today, the Jewish settlers in the West Bank are terrified that Palestinians are going to murder them. So, they’re murdering, ahead of time. They’re permitted, instructed, to do this pre-emptive murdering by biblical scripture, and by hard-headed, logical, informed historical analysis. Anyone who denies this logic is an idiot.

But—really—they are motivated by fear. By their deep feelings of worthlessness, insignificance, and powerlessness. Of course, they will never admit this.

The way to stop these rampagers is for Israeli society to call a halt. Thank you to everyone who is stepping forward to stop these terrified haters.