Free Republic

Hashem said to Moshe, "Write this for a memorial in a book, and recite it in the ears of Yehoshua; for I will completely erase the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven" (Shemos 17:14). For most of our history, the struggle between the Jewish people and Amalek was seen as an external one, pitting the world's first (and for many centuries, only) monotheistic nation against one that vehemently and spitefully rejected our core values and beliefs. Recent history, however, has told a different story. Over the past few centuries, our struggle with Amalek has become increasingly internalized within the psyche...

Translated from the article on Israel's NRG website.Amalek is Israel's quintessential Biblical enemy. Amalek is not just another conventionally cruel nation. Amalek is the essence of evil. The Torah clearly teaches that there is no room for Amalekism in G-d's world. Amalekism is Darwinism; the survival of the fittest as a moral imperative. This is actually the basis of Nazism, and while it is not politically correct to say so -- it is also the basis of Islam. It is no coincidence that 'Mein Kampf' has remained a best-seller in Islamic countries. With the appearance of Amalek on the Biblical...

The thesis that is the Jewish Nation has an antithesis: Amalek. And just as the Jewish People is defined by its Torah, so is its polar opposite associated with a particular system of thought and attitude. Amalek the nation is unknown to us today; the Biblical command to destroy it to avert the mortal threat it poses to all that is good and holy is thus moot. Amalek the notion, though, is very much present — in the broader world, the Jewish one and perhaps, to a degree, within each of us as well. And its undermining remains an obligation...