Explaining the chaotic situation in the Middle East, Eran Lerman divides the various states and militias into four main camps, all vying for power and influence: Iran and its allies; the Muslim Brotherhood and its backers (Turkey, Qatar, Hamas, and parts of Libya); the global jihadists, comprising a resurgent al-Qaeda and an Islamic State possibly in decline; and the “forces of stability,” including Saudi Arabia and most of the Gulf states, Egypt, the Kurds, and others. Lerman evaluates how this struggle came about, what it portends, and what it means for the Jewish state, which finds itself aligned with the last group:

Efforts to reduce the intensity of fighting on several fronts of the “game of camps” may alleviate some of the suffering, but the ideological divides are too deep to be bridged. In the case of Islamic State, decisive action is needed to . . . degrade it to the point that the game will be reduced to a three-way contest. In the case of the Muslim Brotherhood, unless it gains unexpected political victories or uses [affiliated Muslim] communities in the West to shift the balance of power, it would seem likely that it too is destined to decline (but remain a strategic irritant).

As recent events indicate, the crucial factor for the future of the region will thus continue to be the power struggle—both geopolitical and ideological (and in some aspects, confessional) in nature—between the forces of stability, which seek a place in the existing global order, and the Iranian challenge, which is driven by an ideological urge (dressed up in religious garb) to overthrow it.

Specifically, Iran’s object is to undermine the post-1945 dispensation, which includes the right of self-determination for the Jewish people. The wish to undo [the creation of] Israel—inexplicable in terms of Iranian raison d’état, but central to the [1979 Islamic] revolution’s raison d’être—will thus remain central to Tehran’s purposes, and those of its “camp,” as long as the present regime stays in power. Israel’s position is therefore of growing importance in this struggle, and will increasingly influence its standing in the region. Ultimately it will still be the input of the international community and, above all, the next American administration that will determine the long-range outcome in the game of camps.

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.