Purim, the ‘Palestinians’ and Israel

Today is Purim 2014—March 16^th. Today, we celebrate how the G-d of Israel saved the Jewish people.

The key to understanding Purim is how G-d did it. He didn’t save us with a light show or a magic show.  He did it the hard way—with hidden miracles.

The miracles of the Purim story unfold just like our own story. The Hand of G-d is not visible.

In the Purim story—as today--individuals made decisions for their own reasons. For example, the King of Persia decided to replace his Queen. Mordechai the Jew decided to tell his ward, Esther, to present herself to the King. The King decided to marry her.

The wicked Haman decided to destroy the Jewish people. He decided to use a lottery to choose the day he would act (the word, Purim, comes from the word for lottery, ‘pur’). He decided to build a gallows for the Jewish Mordechai.

Jews in Israel today face a similar situation. Every attack against Israel has unfolded because of decisions people have made.

For example, the Muslim Waqf of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Hussieni (1897-1974) decided in the early 1920’s to incite Arabs to kill Jews in Israel; he decided to beg Adolf Hitler to bring the Nazi Jew-killing machine to Israel—and when Hitler decided to reject him, he decided to pursue his Jew-hate on his own.

Yasser Arafat decided to create the ‘Palestinian people’. Mahmoud Abbas decided to create the ‘State of Palestine’. He also decided to create maps of his new ‘Palestine’ which show Israel completely erased from the map.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) decided to ask to have the Fourth Geneva Conference apply to the ‘Palestinian Territories’. The UN has decided to support the PA against Israel.  

Today, we see how the PA seeks to build a Haman-style gallows for the State of Israel: in the six weeks leading up to Purim--on February 5, February 27 and March 5, 2014--’The State of Palestine’ sent official complaints to the United Nations. These complaints criminalize Israel.

The PA wants to lynch Israel in the central international marketplace (the UN). Like Haman, it wants to hang the Jews. It will build a gallows using, in part, the Fourth Geneva Convention.

For example, in each of these three recent PA complaints to the UN, the PA accuses Israel of violations of the Fourth Geneva Conference. It has been doing that for years. These new complaints offer nothing new; but they remind us at Purim how a Haman-like PA uses international law to build a Haman-inspired gallows for the Jew.

The PA complains that Israel violates the State of Palestine (yes, at the UN, the PA is now, ‘The State of Palestine’). Israel is an ‘Occupying Power’. It uses its ‘occupying forces’ to oppress the innocent people of the ‘occupied’ State of Palestine. It violates Geneva Conference requirements.

This is a main theme of Arab ‘lawfare’—using international and Humanitarian law to attack Israel. Lawfare is the gallows the PA will use to lynch the world’s only Jewish State.

Like Haman, the PA is arrogant. Like Haman, the PA thinks it can destroy the Jew. Like Haman, the PA has a plan.

Each of these three pre-Purim PA complaints reveals the PA plan: Israel, each complaint declares, is an occupying Power; it must be held accountable for its crimes against the ‘State of Palestine.’ Because the State of Israel is guilty of international crimes, the Jewish perpetrators of those crimes must be punished.

In its arrogance, the PA claims that more than 450,000 ‘Palestinians’ have been victimized by the crimes of Israel’s ‘occupation’. The PA wants every Israeli police officer, soldier and criminal justice employee who signed any document for detaining each of those 450,000 ‘Palestinians’ to face ‘justice.’

Like the Haman of old, the PA has been cunning. The PA has also been two-faced. It engages in ‘peace talks’. But at the same time, it reveals its Haman nature by criminalizing  its peace partner.

As with Haman’s plan, one man—Abbas--plots the strategy. Thousands of others will do the dirty work. Each one will willingly contribute because he chooses to do so. 

That’s the modern Purim story. It’s a story that will end in a familiar way. It will end just as the original Purim story ended—with Haman defeated and ruined.

Soon, just as things begin to look grim for the Jews of Israel, the G-d of Israel will go to work. He will start with hidden miracles. Just as with the original Purim story, individuals will make decisions that promote their own interests. But in this new Purim story, those interests will cause conflict.

That conflict will be catastrophic. That ‘catastrophe’ will ruin all the Hamans of the world.