Much of the bloodshed that has wracked the Middle East in the past decade has been motivated by intra-Islamic religious differences—most often pitting Shiites against Sunnis, but also Sunnis against Alawites (the ruling religious minority in Syria) and Islamic State against everyone who has not accepted its own particular brand of Sunnism. To Hassan Hassan, this violence has marked the culmination of four decades of sectarian conflict in the Muslim world that began with the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the late 1970 and the subsequent rise of the Salafist-jihadist ideology that motivates al-Qaeda and Islamic State. He now believes this period is coming to an end:

In May, Iraq held its first nonsectarian election since 2003. In contrast to previous elections, public sectarian discourse was noticeably absent. Most of the political blocs campaigned with cross-sectarian slogans. . . . Before the election, it also became common to hear politicians and commentators emphasizing the need to rise above sectarianism and vengefulness in order to stabilize the country. . . .

The rapprochement between Shiite leaders like Moqtada al-Sadr and Iraq’s Sunni neighbors is reinforcing this trend. The cleric—once notorious for his hardline views, his prominent role in Iraq’s post-2003 bloody civil wars, and his [followers’] attacks against American soldiers—visited Riyadh last year. The Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, also visited Baghdad six months earlier. Within Iraq, Sadr is now known for his comparatively moderate political and religious views that emphasize the inclusion and better treatment of Sunnis in Iraq. . . .

Recent changes in Saudi Arabia’s posturing, [meanwhile], might help to close off a major source of the new brand of sectarianism [as well]. Since the rise of the new crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has taken a different direction. Bin Salman has specifically referred to 1979, [the year the kingdom began exporting its own intolerant brand of Islam and encouraging anti-Shiite sentiment], as a year that changed the kingdom and said that he wanted to shift away from the policies that followed. His rhetoric, as many now recognize, is just that—rhetoric. But some aspects of his policies will have a real, positive impact. . . .

The political situation in the region is still volatile, and there will continue to be a degree of destructive sectarianism. . . . But sectarianism, for now, is at its lowest levels in the 40 years since . . . 1979, and will likely remain low for the foreseeable future. The changes in Saudi Arabia haven’t promoted moderation; they have merely stopped the pumping of sectarian hatred into the region. So now, moderate institutions and individuals have their best chance in decades to shape the future of the Middle East.

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.