The biblical word brother already signals enmity and war

Evidence

There is one exception, as far as I could find, and it is an important one for what it reveals about the term “brother” and because it provides for an alternative space of intelligibility. In the eighteen-century commentary called Or ha-lfayyim, the Moroccan Kabbalist l:layyim Ibn cAttar writes the following: ‘“that his brother was captive’ : this indicates that someone was taken captive and that [the captors] knew that he was Abraham’s brother. With this word, it is revealed that they were the enemies of Abraham,” u-beze gilu ki oyieve Avraham hem. ”And that is the reason for his pursuing them.” What the Bible indicates by using the word “brother,” Ibn cAttar explains, is the declaration, by the captors and by the biblical text, that they are enemies. 59 The use of that specific word thus conveys crucial information about the reasons for the war: Because the word “brother” indicates that they are enemies, it provides the reason for Abraham’s going to war. Abraham went to war for his brother because through the brother, through the word “brother,” his enemies were revealed as enemies. The text, therefore, did call for some attention. That it was given as late as the eighteenth century in the commentary of an Arab Jewish interpreter does not diminish the originary tension, indeed, the explosiveness of an act of war. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 331

Categorization

• XREF: This reading of Abraham and Lot as brothers-at-war feeds the core antisemitism-Islamophobia genealogical bridge Anidjar constructs; useful contra the benevolent sibling reading.