We Need to Talk About Amalek
If Iran is Amalek, American power is not being used to defend national interests; American taxpayers are being asked to finance a foreign war justified by a foreign theology.
I drove down to Atlantic City last week to watch Word War Debate’s inaugural competition.
The night had 3 debates: the first was between two lawyers specializing in birthright citizenship, it was a treat to watch their elite legal sparring for an hour.
The headline debate was Ana Kaspartian, Executive Producer & Host of The Young Turks, vs. “Pearl”, a contrarian e-girl with 2,000,000 followers on YouTube.
It was a slaughter…
The e-girl couldn’t think on her feet, resorted to nervously reading a script most of the time, froze several times, and was literally on the verge of tears.
The most explosive debate of the night involved Michael Rectenwald, founder of Anti-Zionist America PAC (AZPAC), who is currently running attack ads against Randy Fine…
… and Rectenwald’s opponent, Shabbos Kestembaus, who plays the role of a whiz kid, but he is actually 27, so a bit too old to be a whiz kid.
The reason he was still a student while pushing 30 is that after his undergrad he spent a couple of years abroad training at Aish HaTorah, a conservative yeshiva best known for running "Hasbara Fellowships” in collaboration with Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
After Aish HaTorah, Kestenbaum attended Harvard Divinity School in 2024, where he became famous for suing Harvard. He now works at Prager U, whose CEO Marissa Strelater, served in the IDF’s Unit 8200.
His uncle, Rothschild-connected Lord Jonathan Kestenbaum, served on the board of Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square.
Kestenbaum has deftly positioned himself as the “Ben Shapiro of Gen Z”, except, I think he is much smarter and better connected than Ben Shapiro was at his age.
To open the debate, Kestenbuam gave a blistering 5 minute rant which went viral in all the right places.
The next 90 minutes was a bloody, knockdown brawl, but at the same time, it was actually quite cordial, they hugged, and respected each other.
At the Q&A portion, I stood up and asked a question, which went viral from two different perspectives:
Let’s read the transcript:
Chris Brunet: I have very simple question for Shabbos, who is Amalek?
Shabbos Kestenbaum: Who is what? Who is Amalek? Oh, Amalek?
Chris Brunet: Yeah, and do you believe they should be destroyed? Who are they, and do you believe they should be destroyed?
Shabbos Kestenbaum: I... I mean, I’m happy to have a Jewish theological debate, but I don’t want to be rude, I’m not sure how much Hebrew you know, but most of them [classic religious texts] believe that Amalek is more of a concept in the age of Golus.
Chris Brunet: Are they people today?
Shabbos Kestenbaum: No
Michael Rectenwald: According to Netanyahu, they are, in fact, he referred to the Palestinian people…
Shabbos Kestenbaum: Hang on, hang on, you don’t speak Hebrew so you wouldn’t know, I speak Hebrew, you can listen to the video yourself, [Netanyahu] clearly says…
Michael Rectenwald: Watch the video yourself, he said, we should treat [Palestinians] like we treat [Amalek] in the bible, which is to destroy all men, women.
Shabbos Kestenbaum: First of all, I’m going to give you all a Hebrew lesson, it’s not Amalek, it’s Amalek, all right, that’s first of all, second of all, you just sound stupid when you say it like that, the second way, the same way you said that there’s a Golan brigade, there’s no Golan brigade, it’s called Golan. So it’ll just make it sound smarter. The second thing is when [Netanyahu] said that, he said that Hamas is the equivalent of Amalek, which sure if that’s your theological political justification go for it. But again, I don’t know how much of a theological debate you want to have, but almost all the [classic religious texts] certainly in the Gemara as well say that Amalek in the age of Golus is not a practical people.
Chris Brunet: So when every Israeli politician says that Amalek must be murdered and destroyed, who are they talking about?
Shabbos Kestenbaum: Well, as I just said, when [Netanyahu] refers to Hamas, he’s comparing them to the Amalek nation in the Bible, but the thing is that...
Michael Rectenwald: The bible says, and I do know the Bible in this regard, it says the Amalek should be utterly destroyed, man, woman, child, and all the animals, wipe them out, so that’s not just Hamas, that’s all the Palestinians, that’s what he was referring to, and not only that, other Israeli officials called for total extermination. This is not a moral people. This is not a moral nation. This nation is barbaric.
Almost every word Shabbos spoke in this exchange consisted of calling his opponent stupid for not speaking Hebrew, and filibustering about proper Hebrew pronunciation. Still, we can confirm a few things:
The term Amalek has religious significance (Hashem needs to eliminate Amalek because that is a source of all evil)
Shabbos has heard the word a billion times, to the point where he has encyclopedia knowledge and cares about the proper pronunciation
Shabbos has Netanyahu’s famous Amalek quote memorized verbatim
Michael Tracey@mtraceyNetanyahu declaring invasion: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible" 1 Samuel 15:3 "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass"8:13 PM · Oct 28, 2023 · 16.5M Views3.74K Replies · 5.98K Reposts · 10.7K Likes
The Saviour@TheSaviour🚨#BREAKING: INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE Israel’s legal team are claiming that Netanyahu’s Amalek statement was “misquoted”
10:18 AM · Jan 12, 2024 · 7.36K Views29 Replies · 57 Reposts · 181 Likes
That Amalek rhetoric is not academic. Polymarket currently assigns a 53% percent probability that the United States will strike Iran before summer is over.
So, it matters very much if Iran is Amalek.
States can negotiate with rivals. They cannot negotiate with metaphysical evil.
If Iran is Amalek, American power is not being used to defend national interests; American taxpayers are being asked to finance a foreign war justified by a foreign theology.
Even if you don’t believe in Amalek, Israelis believe in it earnestly.
When Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of starvation of Gaza as a weapon, one justice described the war against “Amalek“ as “obligatory.”
When polled in a March 2025 Haaretz survey, 2 out of 3 of Jewish Israelis said there is “modern day Amalek”, and of these, 93% responded that the commandment to wipe out the memory of Amalek applies today.
Israelis literally kill people, today, because of Amalek.
So who, or what, is Amalek?
In the Hebrew Bible, Amalek refers both to a people and to a symbol. The Amalekites first appear in the Book of Exodus, where they attack the Israelites shortly after the Exodus from Egypt.
“Therefore it shall be, when the LORD thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”
— Deuteronomy 25:19
God then commands King Saul to annihilate Amalek in its entirety, explicitly including women and children. This verse is frequently cited by contemporary actors to religiously justify the killing of women and infants in Palestine.
“Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
— 1 Samuel 15:3
“Do not show mercy to Amalek. If I were the prime minister, I would wipe out Gaza with Jericho missiles and heavy artillery.”
— Tally Gotliv, member of the Knesset for the Likud party
Some understand Amalek as a specific ancient tribe long since extinct.
Some understand Amalek as a metaphor.
Israeli politicians and rabbis have variously applied Amalek to Palestine, Iran, Germany, Lebanon, Syria, Rome, “Spiritual Rome”, Armenia, Qatar, all Christians, all Muslims, all Arabs, or all Gentiles. Really, it’s whoever Israel happens to be fighting at any given moment.
Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who died last month in the Bondi Beach shooting, has a, extensivey documented history of justifying war crimes by labeling dead Gazan children and anti-Zionist political commentator alike as “Amalek.”
What a depressing legacy.
To be killed in a mass shooting and remembered primarily for spamming “Amalek” on X underneath footage of dead children.
Rabbi Eli Schlanger’s justification draws on the writings of the Rambam, widely regarded as a gold standard of rabbinic authority. In this tradition, Jews are commanded to eradicate the descendants of Amalek as a prerequisite for rebuilding the Third Temple.
The command in the Rambam does not end with an ancient enemy; it is understood to extend across generations—to Amalek’s presumed lineage in the present. Clearly, Amalek is not an idea floating in space, it’s people today they are literally commanded to kill.
But when I ask Shabbos Kestenbaum who“Amalek” is, suddenly it’s “no one.”
It’s so nebulous, in fact, that many Rabbis believe that White Supremacy is Amalek incarnate, therefore, anyone who espouses White Supremacy must be “blotted out” (murdered) along with their women, children, and pets.
Forgiving Amalek
If your enemy is Amalek—the embodiment of absolute evil—then war is righteous. Everyone you fight becomes Amalek by default, and therefore, their women and children a legitimate target. When Palestinians or Iranians are framed as Amalek—irredeemable, subhuman, beyond salvation—why would anyone seek peace with what they believe God commands them to destroy?
In 2025, Israel attacked at least six countries: Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, and Yemen. How many will they attack in 2026, using American tax dollars? Polymarket is currently predicting they will attack four.
In his New Year address to the Diplomatic Corps, Pope Leo warned that “war is back in vogue,” that peace is increasingly pursued through force rather than justice, and that humility, dialogue, and multilateralism are being cast aside.
His warning applies here with unmistakable clarity.
Rather than advocating for the bombing of Iran under the banner of Amalek, what is required now is repentance: a turning away from doctrines that sanctify annihilation and excuse the killing of innocents as obedience to God. A stable Middle East does not require the eradication of one’s neighbors. It requires restraint, moral accountability, and the rejection of theologies that render peace sinful and violence sacred. So long as Amalek remains a living category—invoked to dehumanize entire peoples—peace will remain impossible.
Repentance, forgiveness, and humility are prerequisites for peace.
If Amalek was once a people, they are long gone. What remains is a story that has outlived its moral usefulness and now functions only as a license for annihilation.
Forgiving Amalek does not mean denying history.
It means recognizing that history does not grant eternal permission to kill.
It means choosing to remember without reenacting.
Amalek should be forgiven, not because it was harmless, but because it is over.
Three thousand years later, the only unforgivable act is continuing to invoke it.
All of them need to stop the killing. All of the killing.
Yaaa, Amalek is a term that exemplifies the need to otherize and render unforgivable the target of on the other side of anyone's desired war.
I would say that you could find such a term in anyone's culture.
That doesn't give an excuse to Israel, but is recognition that Israel is just like any culture that wants to totally crush its enemy.
People still aren't long out of the trees.