Sacralized scriptural precedent is invoked to authorize killing enemy civilians in the IDF

Evidence

Rabbis directed the appropriate code of conduct in the field by declaring, “When you show mercy to a cruel enemy, you are being cruel to pure and honest soldiers. This is terribly immoral” (cited in A. Harel 2009). As one of the soldiers testified about rabbis who addressed the troops: “Often … analogies are made, equating the Palestinians with the Amalekites, for example. The Palestinians are the enemy, whether they are Israeli citizens or subjects of the Palestinian Authority makes no difference. This covers everyone” (Breaking the Silence 2009, 41). Amalek was the first tribe that attacked Israel after the exodus from Egypt. For this sin, God commanded that Amalek and his name be absolutely wiped out, without sparing women and children. By equating the Palestinians with the Amalekites, they were dehumanized and the military could enhance the legitimacy of targeting Gaza’s civilians. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 893

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the reader’s MOC on the enemy-making machine operating to manufacture ‘the enemy’ as killable nonhumans fused with the sacred ‘ours’/‘true’ identity — and here run by actors inside the army’s own religious establishment.
• XREF: The Amalek-dehumanization move parallels the LRA and Rwandan case material in the reader’s massacre-lit knowledge, and echoes Cecil Rhodes/African dehumanization tropes in Black Marxism. — connects to: An IDF commander publicly framed battle in Gaza as a religious war defending God — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 897; Religious justification adds disinhibitory force to legal commands to kill; Religious precedent can reframe hired murder as legitimate practice (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Religious just-war framing pairs moral sanctification with enemy dehumanization to authorize slaughter #expands (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 349
• Religious justification adds disinhibitory force to legal commands to kill #complicates (0.80)
• Context makes some killing morally required rather than wrong #complicates (0.80)
• Moral authorities sanction effective violence even at the cost of theological contradiction #complicates (0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2242
• Identical rhetoric about killing is prosecuted or celebrated depending on the speaker’s religion #complicates (0.80) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 648
• Religious precedent can reframe hired murder as legitimate practice #complicates (0.75)
• Moral reconstrual, not personality change, converts civilians into killers #complicates (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 342
• Religious scruples against killing can be dissolved through biblical persuasion and prayer #complicates (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 344
• Executing a person requires stripping morality from each step of the process #complicates (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1868