King Saul’s Failure to Lead

July 19 2024

One of the most powerful and gripping narratives in the Hebrew Bible is that of King Saul’s sudden rise from obscurity to kingship and his eventual descent into madness. In analyzing this segment of the book of Samuel, James A. Diamond explores how Saul goes astray by confounding the proper roles of religion and political leadership:

[I]n Saul’s manipulative hands, sacrifice, the most ubiquitous form of religious worship in the ancient Near East, becomes a tool to maintain the military’s allegiance so that Saul’s own hold on the reins of power will remain intact. Politics has divorced itself from religion in the service of [the monarch’s own] interest. In effect, by using religious observance to retain his own position as king, Saul has replaced God with himself as the ultimate object of sacral worship. At this point, Samuel declares that Saul’s dynasty will not endure, but Saul retains his throne.

At the same time, Saul’s own arrogation of authority to himself is paired with his ceding of authority to the people, which leads to his tragic sin of allowing the Israelites to plunder the Amalekite flocks:

Saul failed to lead and instead set a standard of disobedience for the people to follow. . . . A battle launched by a rallying call to listen to God perversely unfolds as one driven by a listening to the sound of the people.

Read more at theTorah.com

More about: Book of Samuel, King Saul, Religion and politics

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula