web analytics
May 23, 2013 /14 Sivan, 5773
At a Glance
InDepth
Sponsored Post
The Tosfos Yomtov was convinced that the death of 300,000 –600,000 Jews during the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49 were because of improper Tefila. Communicated: Tefilla

Chillul Tefila Bifarhesia, as well as halachicly challenged verbiage and dress, are external manifestations of a critical lack of personal yiras shomayim which has lethal consequences.



Home » InDepth » Op-Eds »

George Galloway, Purim and the Legacy of Amalek

He has never before uttered these words…at least not with a video camera present: “I will not debate an Israeli.”
tell a friend
British MP George Galloway (center) arriving at the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza, leading an international aid convoy of more than 500 activists, January 06, 2010.

British MP George Galloway (center) arriving at the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza, leading an international aid convoy of more than 500 activists, January 06, 2010.
Photo Credit: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash 90

It’s all over my Facebook news feed and has invaded YouTube like a plague. People posting the same one minute video over and over again. Unabashed and unrepentant anti-Semite, lover of all anti-American and anti-Israel tyrants, in George Galloway walking out of what was supposed to be a debate at Oxford University with a Jewish student who was originally from Israel. Galloway was not informed that the student, who had an unmistakably British accent, was originally from Israel but he did know that the student was Jewish. The fact that Galloway agreed to debate a Jew to begin with should have been the shocking part.

Throughout his career as a British MP, Galloway has gone out of his way, whether intentionally or not, to further the case that anti-Zionism is just a thinly veiled formed of anti-Semitism. That the old and tired line of “I’m not against Jews…I’m against Zionism and the apartheid state of Israel” just doesn’t fly. It’s either the sentiment of a complete ignoramus at best or a Jew-hater at worst. More often than not, it ends up being the latter.

Since were on the topic of his ‘outlandish behavior’, Galloway has done everything from: praising Hezbollah and Hamas—even requesting Palestinian citizenship from Hamas—to openly supporting Saddam Hussein during both Gulf Wars. From suggesting that Tony Blair be put in front of the International Criminal Court at the Hague and being especially supportive when Saddam was lobbing rockets at Tel Aviv, to being an ardent supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran and the Assad regime in Syria.

But he has never uttered these words…at least not with a video camera present: “I will not debate an Israeli”.

So while George Galloway’s sentiments shouldn’t come as a surprise to us, one thing we as Jews should be taking note of is that this happened right before the holiday of Purim. Purim is the story of how a man by the name of Haman wanted nothing more than to wipe out the Jewish people from existence, and yet was undone by the very plot he was attempting to hatch. This Haman was a direct descendant of Amalek.

Amalek is the eternal and perpetual enemy of the Jewish people. He hates us for no other reason than our very being. And it’s not merely on this planet. If all 14 million of us got on a spaceship and moved to the Moon, he’d follow us there and accuse us of occupying the moon, right before he attempts to wipe us out. We exist; therefore he hates us. We have survived; therefore he still plots against us. We have fought him at various points on the space-time continuum; therefore his mere essence continues to haunt us. While one of the Ten Commandments instructs us not to kill another human being…there is also a strict and direct commandment, out of our 613, to remember and wipe-out Amalek wherever and whenever we come across him.

Unfortunately, these days it’s hard to identify who Amalek is. For example, many great rabbis of the 20th century identified the Nazis to be Amalek. Stalin, who actually died on Purim, was thought to be Amalek. But besides being a group of people or one man, it can be an idea, an abstract entity, a movement, all of the above…and lastly, ourselves—the Jewish people—can be Amalek. We can be our own worst enemy. We can hate ourselves for no rational or logical reason. In this case, we have an example of something that has in fact become an abstract entity.

Over the past two decades, we have witnessed the undue courtship and subsequent marriage of the international leftist movement and fundamentalist Islam. Two groups, who couldn’t be more different in terms of their values, yet who have been united by a common enemy. “Western capitalism and Imperialism”. And since both of these groups have a virulent hatred of America, in their eyes, Israel is nothing more than America’s bidder in the Middle East. The former claims that it wants nothing more than “freedom” for people of all persuasions and socio-economic backgrounds…especially freedom from colonization and oppression. The latter wants nothing more than to colonize and convert the entire world to its ideology, this time more so via silent cultural usurpation and less by the sword. Whether they realize it or not, the majority of the left serve as ‘useful idiots’ of the Islamist movement.

tell a friend

About the Author: Greg Lauren was born in Ukraine and grew up in the NYC metro area. After working as a trader on Wall St. for 8 years, he made aliyah in 2010. Now living in Jerusalem, he runs the blog IsraelUnseen.com, where he educates young Jews about Israel, the Middle East and Judaism. His ultimate goal is to inspire young Jews to seek out their spiritual heritage and become interested in Judaism in a way that's connected to the Land of Israel itself, then visit independently and even consider moving here.


You might also be interested in:


no comments

You must log in to post a comment.

No Responses to “George Galloway, Purim and the Legacy of Amalek”

  1. Anthony Kent says:

    Type "Galloway What's New pussycat" into youtube and you will see narcissist Galloway pretending to be a cat on when he was in the 'Big Brother' house. Better than most purim spiels.

  2. Anthony Kent says:

    Type "Galloway What's New pussycat" into youtube and you will see narcissist Galloway pretending to be a cat on when he was in the 'Big Brother' house. Better than most purim spiels.

  3. Gil Gilman says:

    Galloway's loins went slack and he fled to the latrine ;-) .

  4. Gil Gilman says:

    Galloway's loins went slack and he fled to the latrine ;-) .

  5. Joey Haveman says:

    In the video, he said "I don't debate with Israelis." You are saying he never said, "I will not debate an Israeli." That's called splitting hairs.

SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Current Top Story
Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, having lunch. Peter likes long walks on the beach with fellow "insider" correspondents and dumping on Israel.
Yes, There Is an Anti-Israel Media Cabal and They All Meet on Facebook
Latest Indepth Stories
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has said he will never recognize a Jewish state and there will be no Jews allowed in a Palestinian State.

parently an affront to J Street’s worldview, the focus of which appears to be the creation of a Palestinian State, whether or not that will bring peace.

Member of Knesset Moshe Feiglin (Likud).

The importance of the caucus on organ harvesting in China, sponsored recently by the Liberal Lobby in the Knesset, cannot be exaggerated. On the surface, the caucus’s topic seems odd. Knesset members and other VIPs were called together to discuss horrors being perpetrated by the Communist regime in China against what the government there calls “regime opponents.”

Shurin-Dov

My mother, the eldest daughter of Reb Yaakov Kamenetsky, zt”l, was niftar last month at the age of 92. She took her last breath in her home in Efrat, Israel, next door to the shul that was my father’s for 24 years before his passing in 2007.

Following the Boston Marathon bombing, one crucial point will likely remain overlooked. The most loathsome aspect of this or any other terror bombing attack on civilians will always lie in the inexpressibility of physical pain. While all decent people will abhor the idea of bombs expressly directed at the innocent, whether here or in other countries, none will ever be able to process the very deepest horrors of what has been inflicted.

It’s only natural to see increasing evidence of Jerusalem’s glorious Jewish past being unearthed, quite literally, under modern Israeli sovereignty. The new archaeological finds are also very timely – as the Arab onslaught attempting to detach Jerusalem from its Jewish roots gains steam, the facts on the ground, or “under” the ground, show quite otherwise.

The Talmud (Berachot 26b) says, “tefillot avot tiknum” – “prayer was established by the avot.” The Talmud then uses the following verse (Bereshit 19:27) to prove how Avraham established prayer: “Vayaskem Avraham baboker el hamakom asher amad sham et pnei Hashem” – “And Avraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before God.”

Nearly 13 years ago, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak journeyed to Camp David to end the conflict with the Palestinians. With the approval of President Clinton, he offered Yasir Arafat an independent Palestinian state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza and in part of Jerusalem. Arafat said no.

The news that the Internal Revenue Service unfairly targeted conservative groups has brought renewed spotlight on a 2010 lawsuit filed by the pro-Israel group Z Street, which alleges it was also singled out by the IRS when applying for tax-exempt status.

In an editorial last week (“Circling the Wagons”) we noted the efforts by the administration and its supporters to dismiss allegations that the government’s spin on the Benghazi attack was designed to shield the president and that the IRS was improperly used to stifle opposition to Mr. Obama’s reelection.

As the controversies besetting the Obama administration continue to grow in number and intensity, the prospect that President Obama would seriously consider military action against Iran, should that country continue its drive to become a nuclear power, becomes more and more remote. So we welcome the current enhancement of sanctions against Iran on the federal and New York State levels.

To his parents’ friends, he was “Mrs. Greenberg’s disgrace,” but to sports fans he is one of the greatest – if not the greatest – Jewish baseball players of all time. Long before Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg excited Jewish sports fans with his prowess on the baseball diamond.

To eat is to live – to keep our physical bodies alive. For without the body, there is nothing. No experience. No memory. No joy and no hardship. But man, unlike animals, eats to live and to enjoy. So how should a Jew respond when he is challenged as to why he imposes upon himself not just ceremonies dedicated to the enjoyment of eating but even more to the limiting of what he can eat?

Neither Secretary of State Kerry nor the president he serves seem to understand Russia’s goals in the Middle East.

More Articles from Greg Lauren
AIPAC

The best thing we can do is educate the next generation on what the source of our light in the world is.

British MP George Galloway (center) arriving at the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza, leading an international aid convoy of more than 500 activists, January 06, 2010.

He has never before uttered these words…at least not with a video camera present: “I will not debate an Israeli.”

    Latest Poll

    Which is the most beautiful location in Jerusalem?









    View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...

Printed from: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/george-galloway-purim-and-the-legacy-of-amalek/2013/02/22/

Scan this QR code to visit this page online:

Close