As we recall in the story of Pharaoh and Moses we have one of the most pivotal stories in the entire bible and Quran. In that story, we have the central protagonists of the Moses, Aaron, and the Hebrew people. The antagonist, is the evil Pharaoh, the arrogant king of Egypt. The story starts with the Hebrew people being enslaved and oppressed by the Pharaoh. Eventually the Hebrew savior, Moses came as prophesied, and warns the Pharaoh about God, inviting him to become a believer, God fearing, and stop sinning. Ultimately, Pharaoh arrogantly refuses, and gets the ultimate proof of his lord when it is too late – he got swallowed up by the sea. For a complete and detailed story, read the Quran and you can watch the various movie depictions of this story which also recount this story.
What lessons can we gleam from this story that God has relayed to us? One of the many lessons to this story, is to not be an evil tyrant. God hates evil tyrants. The Pharaoh was evil, but why? Well firstly, he was racist towards one race of people and he did not give them equal rights. He considered himself above the Hebrew people, and felt that they should be his slaves. He collectively punished all of the Hebrew people by killing all of their first borns. Said differently, in order to quell a rebellion, he decided to kill the first born sons. Further the Pharaoh was extremely arrogant and felt he was divine. Evidence of his divinity was proven to himself given his great and unequivocal power.
Similarly, the State of Israel seems to be mirroring the Pharaoh very closely. Israel has imprisoned and subjugated an entire people they refer to as “arabs”. They make “arabs” work as cheap labor for them, and the ‘arabs’ in Gaza and West Bank do not have equal rights. Israel might say Gaza and West Bank is not part of their state of Israel, whereas the Pharaoh may also have said the neighborhoods of the Hebrews were not part of the city state of Cairo. In order to quell unrest, Israel undergoes collective punishment by destroying the person’s parent’s house, arresting children in the village of the perpetrator, and other measures of collective punishment. Similar to the Pharaoh, the State of Israel feels they have a partnership with God and that their project is divine. This arrogance stems from their feeling that the jewish people are divinely chosen and have rights and an essence above other humans.
Similar to the Pharaoh, the State of Israel appears invincible, with power, money, and technology unmatched except for the United States, whom they have standing by to do their bidding. A recent Israeli-US military exercise, meant to threaten Israel’s enemies, consisted of 80% US troops and hardware.
The counter-argument for all of this by Israel would say that (1) they are believers of God unlike the Pharaoh, and (2) The Pharaoh was given a prophet to warn him, Israel has not seen a prophet yet do the same with them. But these arguments do not hold water because like the Pharaoh, Israel not only has to believe in God, but also act Godly without sin. Secondly, the Pharaoh was only given a prophet to warn him because he was a pagan unbeliever, and had never been given the message before. Whereas the Hebrew/Jewish people have received many prophets over the years and have a book to guide them they can all read.
The end fate of the Pharaoh and his army was not good, they were swallowed up by the sea. If I was a policy maker in Israel, I would find a way to live in peace with their neighbors, and this may have to mean you give up the idea of a Jewish majority state.
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