EGYPT’S PHARAOH AND AMERICA’S February 7, 2025
The Torah and the Israel-Gaza war offer lessons about denying reality and risking terrible consequences.
In Exodus, God strikes Egypt with ten plagues, concluding with the slaying of the firstborn. Pharaoh had continually refused to let Israel go. At first, he hardening his own heart. Then God hardened it. The biblical scholar Richard Elliot Friedman writes that God strengthened Pharaoh’s heart. After Pharaoh’s magicians are struck with boils, “one might expect that Pharaoh would begin to weaken, and so God bolsters Pharaoh’s resolve so as to achieve a particular outcome” (Comments on the Torah, p198). God knew Pharaoh would ignore Egyptian suffering.
Israel leaves Egypt. Yet in this week’s Torah portion, B’Shallach (Exodus 13:17–17:16), God again strengthens Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh angrily gathers his army, including chariots, and chases the Israelites to the Reed (or Red) Sea. The sea parts. Israel crosses. Pharaoh pursues.
“Moses held his arm out over the sea, and at daybreak the sea returned to its normal state, and the Egyptians fled at its approach. But the Lord hurtled the Egyptians into the sea” (Exod. 14:27).
Today, humans bent on power and revenge also refuse to see “the handwriting on the wall” (Daniel 5). On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked southern Israel, killed 1,200, and dragged away 200 hostages, living and dead. Hamas expected Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and Yemen’s Houthis to join the fight. They did, but in limited ways. Israel devastated Hamas, and Gaza, along with Hezbollah. Bashar al-Asad’s Iran-supported Syrian regime fell to rebels. Israel, with U.S. assistance, decimated Iran’s air-defense and offensive-missile systems.
Hamas failed to see Israel’s strength and, importantly, determination. It expected Israel to strike back, but the wider war never materialized. Israel’s response proved catastrophic to Gazans. Why such blindness? Since its founding, Hamas has committed itself to destroying Israel rather than seeking a two-state solution. Hatred foiled judgment.
Much of Gaza lying in ruins inspired America’s Pharaoh. Last Tuesday, Donald Trump stated that America will own Gaza. All two million Palestinians should leave for Egypt and Jordan—or whatever nation will take them in. Egypt and Jordan refused to accept the Gazans and the loss of a potential Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia wants to establish a formal relationship with Israel, but only if some rudimentary path to Palestinian statehood is laid out.
Violations of international law mean nothing to Pharaoh Trump. Why? There’s money to be made in ethnic cleansing. He wants the United States to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Trump did not address the impact on tourism in Tel Aviv, with its fabulous beach and hotels.
Oh, and no American troops will occupy Gaza. (Let Israelis fight and die to clear out Gaza.) And America won’t spend a dime.
Fareed Zakaria said on CNN, the President who wanted to pull America out of foreign involvements would likely face an insurgency reminiscent of Afghanistan and Iraq—and Vietnam. Where did those wars get us?
Rebuilding Gaza and establishing a Palestinian state living peacefully with Israel presents a monumental task. It will require enormous resolve, money and patience. Also, faith. But it can be done. More, it must be done.
Unless America’s Pharaoh leads a foolish United States to drown in a peril of his own making.
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Excellent post, David.
Thank you, Lisa. Sad that it had to be written.
Several days before Trump’s comment about taking over Gaza, he proposed clearing the Palestinians out of Gaza — permanently or temporarily wasn’t clear — so it could be rebuilt. My comment to Ellen was that he wanted to build golf courses there. I take no credit for prescience. All you need to remember is that for Trump, it’s all about the grift.
Why is Trump, who once derided crypto, now a big fan? Because crypto, which is otherwise useless, is a perfect avenue for unlimited, undetectable corruption.
In the meantime, Trump, Musk and their clueless adolescent minions are laying waste to vital programs — USAID, medical research, the list goes on — and endangering the federal workforce in ways that will take years to remedy. As a former federal employee, I worry for my ex-colleagues and the other federal workers who serve the public in ways that are frequently invisible, but almost always critical.
We thought it would be bad. It’s worse.
One more thing: The NY Times front page suggests that Trump’s Gaza gambit is a predicate to Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, which would end any hope of a peaceful future for Israel, and would actually turn Israel into the apartheid state that the anti-Zionists accuse it of being already.
All true, David. But I’m heartened that in Exodus, Pharaoh’s magicians come around to seeing the truth, telling him that the first plagues are “the finger of God.” Pharaoh is not all-powerful. Later, his courtiers urge Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. I wonder if—and certainly hope that—a critical mass of Trump voters and Republicans in Congress will see the handwriting on the wall and have the courage to acknowledge it. And, for a look at where we’re heading, given that Trump just signed an executive order to fight “anti-Christian bias,” my novel 2084 seems disturbingly prescient.
Yeah, but the analogy inly goes so far. Moses was the disruptor, not Pharaoh, and he wasn’t trying to disrupt the pharaonic system, just get the Israelites out of it. Pharaoh was the “deep state.” And, of course, Exodus was written many years after the (possibly mythological) events it describes in order to create a backstory for the Israelite people. Our current Pharaoh may get his comeuppance, but I doubt that magic will have much to do with it, and much of the damage he and his motley crew will do will be difficult to undo.
We shall see how this plays out, David.