THE ICON OF AMALEK

“Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for
him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all
that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and
sheep, camel and ass.”1

“You must remember what Amalek has done to you.”2

Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the biblical memory of Amalek as the ground invasion of Gaza was
launched on 28 October 2023. In Deuteronomy the command is given to remember the
Amalekites attack on the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. “Remember what the Amalekites
did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt… you shall blot out the memory of
Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”3

Invocation of this memory is central to the aims and conduct of this war. The religious
inspiration for the assault defines its entire character and potentially its legacy. Eradication of
Amalek from the face of the earth is the touchstone of the conflict and inevitably necessitates
the mass slaughter of children as implied by the biblical command to “blot out the memory of
Amalek.”

The onslaught on Gaza was named ‘Operation Iron Swords,’ a term that in itself invokes ancient
religious imperatives. All three of the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
share traceable roots to a shared Semitic heritage. Archaic Mesopotamian myths underlie these
religions incorporating pre-historical religious concepts of a supreme deity that is castrated by a
gigantic scythe. This brutal act of castration splits the earth from the heavens. The blood of the
deity falls to earth and gives birth to primordial life forms. Thus the genital blood shed by the
god fertilizes the earth.
“Then the son (Kronos/Saturn) from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right
took the great sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father’s members and
cast them away to fall behind him. And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody
drops that gushed forth earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bore the strong
Erinyes and the great Giants with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands and the
Nymphs whom they call Meliae all over the boundless earth.”4

In Carthage ancient writers stated that the god, identified by Diodorus Siculus as Kronos was
propitiated with child sacrifice. A statue of Kronos in Carthage was described as having his arms
outstretched and tilted downwards to receive the sacrificial children. The sacrificial victims
rolled off the downward positioned arms into a pit of fire below.

“... the Carthaginians, believing that the misfortune had come to them from the gods… alleged
that Kronos had turned against them inasmuch as in former times they had been accustomed to
sacrifice to this god the noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing
children, they had sent these to the sacrifice instead… in their zeal to make amends for the
omission, they selected two hundred of the noblest children and sacrificed them publicly; and
others who were under suspicion sacrificed themselves, voluntarily, in number not less than
three hundred. There was in the city a bronze statue of Kronos, extending its hands, palms up
and sloping towards the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down
and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.”5
Plutarch supports the contention that the Carthaginians practised child sacrifice placing these
offerings within the context of sacrificial lambs and young birds. The cries of the victims were
drowned out by the noise of flutes and drums giving a sense of the religious rites that
accompanied the sacrifices.

“With full knowledge and understanding they offered up their own children, and those who had
no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many
lambs or young birds; meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan; but should she
utter a single moan or let fall a single tear, she had to forfeit the money, and her child was
sacrificed nevertheless; and the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of
flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.” 6

An associated deity connected with child sacrifice in the biblical area of Canaan was Molech. To
this deity children were slaughtered in a site termed the ‘Tophet’ after the area outside the
walls of Jerusalem in the valley of Hinnom. It was here that a form of child sacrifice was
conducted where the child was forced to pass through a fire.

“And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might
make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.”7

The Bible explicitly states that this location was the site of child sacrifice with the populace
burning their children in a sacrificial fire. The sacrificial rites are condemned by the Jewish deity
indicating that the rites survived from a prehistoric era preceding the rise of the Judeo-Christian
religions.

“For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their
abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it. And they have built the
high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their
daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. Therefore,
behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of
the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no
place.”8

The sacrifice of children, or human seed, is also the sacrifice of human genetic codes to the rival
deity. “And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou
profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.”9
Marnas, the supreme deity of Gaza, was associated with Cretan Zeus, a deity that annually died
and then was reborn. The annual regeneration of vegetation and specifically grain crops was
related to the continuous cycle of death and rebirth. The deep penetration of this god is evident
across the western Asian region with comparable deities such as Attis and Adonis representing
the cycle of vegetative death and regeneration.

“And straightway they went with the governors and the troops and overturned the places of the
idols of Gaza. Now there was in the city eight public temples of idols, of the Sun and of
Aphrodite and of Apollo and of the Maiden and of Hecate and the temple called of the Hero,
and the temple of the Fortune of the City, which they called the Tychaion, and the Marneion,
which they said was the temple of the Cretan-born Zeus, which they accounted to be more
famous than all the temples in the world.”10

Adonis was identified with a river in the vicinity of Mount Lebanon that carried his name and is
now called the Abraham (Ibrahim) River. The myth attached to this river is associated with the
blood of the dying Adonis that stained the river red.

An effect suggestive of blood-soaked water was created by reddish silt flowing from melting
snow water from the mountains colouring the river. This natural phenomenon was evident at a
specific time of year that was equated with sacred ceremonies that marked the death of Adonis
and the period of mourning for the god that followed. The myth is described by Lucian in ‘De
Dea Syria.’

“There is, too, another marvellous portent in the region of the Byblians. A river, flowing from
Mount Libanus, discharges itself into the sea; this river bears the name of Adonis. Every year
regularly it is tinged with blood, and loses its proper colour before it falls into the sea; it dyes
the sea, to a large extent, red; and thus announces their time of mourning to the Byblians. Their
story is that during these days Adonis is wounded, and the river’s nature is changed by the
blood which flows into its waters; and that it takes its name from this blood.”11

The phenomenon was witnessed in the spring as the snow water flowed off the mountains
carrying the reddish earth and silt into the river. In this myth Adonis was gored by a wild boar
and this event was thus associated with the vernal regeneration of nature. The river became
identified with a human artery and its severing was connected with the vernal equinox or
spring.

Ovid states that the tusk of the boar penetrated the groin of Adonis and the specific reference
to this bodily part indicates a sexual dimension to the myth. The blood of the god that spills to
the earth is therefore shed from the genital regions linking human fertility to vernal vegetative
regeneration. “... the savage beast raced after him, until at last he sank his deadly tusk deep in
Adonis’ groin; and stretched him dying on the yellow sand.”12

Continuous observation of the visible planets across the relatively static backdrop of the stellar
night sky led to an awareness of the ecliptic line or arc. All these planets essentially follow the
ecliptic line which forms an arc metaphorically described by ancient writers as a gigantic sickle.
“But Earth, grieved at the destruction of her children, who had been cast into Tartarus,
persuaded the Titans to attack their father and gave Kronos an adamantine sickle. And they, all
but Ocean, attacked him, and from the drops of the flowing blood were born Furies…” 13

The arc intersects, or metaphorically cuts, castrates or severs, the celestial equator. This is a
simulation of the earth’s equator projected out into space. The celestial equator is sliced
through twice by the ecliptic line corresponding to the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. At this
moment of transition the sun’s declination is at zero degrees. At these two points the power of
the sun begins to strengthen or weaken. In antiquity the autumnal equinox marked the point of
the sun’s progressive weakening and therefore of its castration.
Hesiod’s recital of the myth of the castration of Ouranos by Kronos with a giant sickle also refers
in close textual proximity to the movement of the seasons. “... for all the bloody drops that
gushed forth earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bore the strong Erinyes and
the great Giants…”14

The intersection of the ecliptic and celestial equator arcs marks the period of autumnal decay
and seeming death of vegetation. Rituals that focus on castration, circumcision and child
sacrifice are metaphorical rites that replicate the cutting of the path of the sun, and the
diminution of its life force. Similar rituals held at the vernal equinox reinforced the vanquishing
of the sun’s weakening torpor or disease and a return to regenerative virility.

Kronos is now immortalized as the planet Saturn giving these mutilation myths a contemporary
stellar dimension. The act of child sacrifice, castration and circumcision are interpreted as
cosmic interventions. “That this Cronus (Kronos), after his death was consecrated into the
planet, which is by his name called to this day Cronus in Greek, in Latin Saturn.” 15

Ouranos represented the overriding vault of the sky or the heavens. Through this vault a giant
sickle is wielded by Kronos or Saturn. The heavenly path of Saturn, the furthest known visible
planet to the ancients, extended over approximately thirty years. Being the longest known
cosmic circuit the planet became identified with time itself and the length of its transit also
became identified with the time span allotted to a standard human generation.

Tacitus draws parallels between worship of the Jewish deity and that of Saturn (Kronos) and
equates the two deities. “Others maintain that they do this in honour of Saturn, either because
their religious principles are derived from the Idaei, who are supposed to have been driven out
with Saturn and become the ancestors of the Jewish people; or else because, of the seven stars
which govern the lives of men, the star of Saturn moves in the topmost orbit and exercises the
mightiest influence, and also because most of the heavenly bodies move round their course in
multitudes of seven. Whatever their origin, these rites are sanctioned by their antiquity.” 16

In this text the seven ‘stars’ included the sun and the moon that were in antiquity classified as
stars. These two ‘stars’ were then added to the five visible planets that were then known
(Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). The numerology of seven also included the seven days
that were allotted to each phase of the moon. A giant arc in the shape of a sickle appears to cut
through the moon during the various phases and is especially evident when the moon replicates
the shape of the blade of a sickle during the crescent phases.

It is this deity that demands the sacrifice of every human and every animal that forms the
nation of Amalek. The equation of human children and “suckling” babies with sacrificial animals
confirms an association with the Tophet and the interrelated deity Molech.

“Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for
him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all
that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and
sheep, camel and ass.”17

“You must remember what Amalek has done to you.” - October 28 2023 - Benjamin Netanyahu’s
statement in Hebrew at the launch of the ground invasion of Gaza in Operation Iron Swords.

1. 1 Samuel 15:2-3
2. Benjamin Netanyahu - October 28 2023
3. Deuteronomy 25:17-19
4. Hesiod - Theogony 178-188
5. Diodorus Siculus - Library 20.14
6. Plutarch - On Superstition 171
7. 2 Kings 23:10
8. Jeremiah 7:30-32
9. Leviticus 18:21
10. Diaconus Marcus - Life of Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza
11. Lucian of Samosata - De Dea Syria
12. Ovid - Metamorphoses 10
13. Apollodorus - Library 1.1.4
14. Hesiod - Theogony 178-188
15. Eusebius of Caesarea - Praeparatio Evangelica
16. Tacitus - Histories 5.4-5
17. 1 Samuel 15:2-3