The Sunni Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf emirates), threatened by Islamic State on the one hand and an expansionist Iran on the other, and without faith in American protection, increasingly find their interests aligned with Israel’s. Can this lead to a true, open alliance? Yes, writes Yaakov Amidror, but only by overcoming Palestinian intractability:

Israel is the only country in the area whose stability is not in question. It is a strong country, both economically and militarily, and it has the ability and willingness to defend its essential interests. This is the foundation for the blossoming relationships between Israel and these Sunni countries—classic status-quo countries in an ever-shifting region that are looking for an anchor with which to stabilize themselves. Israel can serve as this anchor.

[This] is a marriage of convenience, not of love, but it is one of increasing importance. . . .

However, a serious collaboration—a public, unhindered cooperation—between Israel and these Arab states requires a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Not because this issue is dear to the hearts of the Sunni leaders, but because without it these leaders would lose the support of the street, which is imperative if the relationship is to go public.

Sadly, the Palestinians are in no rush to advance a peace agreement or their relations with Israel. On the contrary: their recognition that they are the key to enhancing Israel’s ties with the nations of the region only makes them think more highly of themselves and prompts them to ratchet up their demands.

The only way to overcome this hurdle is to change the order of the steps. First, build a relationship that will serve as an inclusive umbrella for Israelis and Sunni Arabs, and then lead the Palestinians into it to engage in peace negotiations.

In 1946, Julius Streicher, a high-ranking SS-officer and a chief Nazi propagandist, was sentenced to death at Nuremberg. Just before he was executed, he called out “Heil Hitler!” and the odd phrase “Purimfest, 1946!” It seems the his hanging alongside that of his fellow convicts put him in mind of the hanging of Haman and his ten sons described in the book of Esther. As Emmanuel Bloch and Zvi Ron wrote in 2022:

Julius Streicher, . . . founder and editor-in-chief of the weekly German newspaper Der Stürmer (“The Stormer”), featured a lengthy report on March 1934: “The Night of the Murder: The Secret of the Jewish Holiday of Purim is Unveiled.” On the day after Kristallnacht (November 10, 1938), Streicher gave a speech to more than 100,000 people in Nuremberg in which he justified the violence against the Jews with the claim that the Jews had murdered 75,000 Persians in one night, and that the Germans would have the same fate if the Jews had been able to accomplish their plan to institute a new murderous “Purim” in Germany.

In 1940, the best-known Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda film, Der Ewige Jude (“The Eternal Jew”), took up the same theme. Hitler even identified himself with the villains of the Esther story in a radio broadcast speech on January 30, 1944, where he stated that if the Nazis were defeated, the Jews “could celebrate the destruction of Europe in a second triumphant Purim festival.”

As we’ll see below, Jews really did celebrate the Nazi defeat on a subsequent Purim, although it was far from a joyous one. But the Nazis weren’t the first ones to see in the story of Esther—in which, to prevent their extermination, the Jews get permission from the king to slay those who would have them killed—an archetypal tale of Jewish vengefulness and bloodlust. Martin Luther, an anti-Semite himself, was so disturbed by the book that he wished he could remove it from the Bible altogether, although he decided he had no authority to do so.

More recently, a few Jews have taken up a similar argument, seeing in the Purim story, and the figure of 75,000 enemies slain by Persian Jews, a tale of the evils of vengeance, and tying it directly to what they imagine is the cruelty and vengefulness of Israel’s war against Hamas. The implication is that what’s wrong with Israel is something that’s wrong with Judaism itself. Jonathan Tobin comments on three such articles:

This group is right in one sense. In much the same way as the Jews of ancient Persia, Israelis have answered Hamas’s attempt at Jewish genocide with a counterattack aimed at eradicating the terrorists. The Palestinian invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7 was a trailer for what they wished to do to the rest of Israel. Thanks to the courage of those who fought back, they failed in that attempt, even though 1,200 men, women and children were murdered, and 250 were kidnapped and dragged back into captivity in Gaza.

Those Jews who have fetishized the powerlessness that led to 2,000 years of Jewish suffering and persecution don’t merely smear Israel. They reject the whole concept of Jews choosing not to be victims and instead take control of their destiny.