Afrasianet - Ilham Meligi - Nations are surprised not only by the missiles that fall on them, but also by the ideas that precede the missiles, give them a sacred name, cloak them with false legitimacy, and then push them into the world as if they were a written destiny rather than a described crime.
This time the issue is not a passing article, nor an unbridled opinion that can be coldly passed. We are in front of an explicit threatening text, published in a widely circulated Israeli newspaper, that addresses the Egyptians directly, telling them with crude clarity: "You saw what happened to modern Knight on Purim; don't mess with us on Passover."
This statement came at the end of an article by Rabbi Stuart Weiss, published in the opinion section of the Jerusalem Post on March 14, 2026.
This is not just provocative talk. It is a declaration of intentions.
It is not a political discourse in the usual sense, but rather an armed religious discourse that distorts the threat as a creed, gives aggression a ritual color, and transforms war from a sinful human decision into a kind of "sacred act" in the consciousness of its owners.
A threat that comes out of the mantle of the text
What is dangerous about Weiss's words is that it does not proceed from the logic of states, nor from the well-known language of deterrence, nor even from the calculations of the regional conflict as understood by diplomacy or strategy.
Man does not see Egypt as it is: a modern, sovereign state, a history, an army, a location, and a weight. Rather, he summons it from an old symbolic reservoir and reconstructs it within the biblical imagination as "Egypt" that must remain in the position of the historical enemy that deserves to be punished. This is where the entire intellectual and moral scandal lies.
When the region is pulled from its political and legal maps and thrown into the maps of myth, the neighbor is no longer a neighbor, nor is the state a state, nor is the people a people. Everyone turns into characters within a religious story whose owners imagine that they are entitled to re-enact it on the ground whenever they have a surplus of power, an American cover, or the euphoria of victory.
The writer not only calls out "Persia," "Purim," and "Passover," but explicitly links this to what happened to modern Iran, and then sends his message to the Egyptians in the form of a direct warning.
When the rabbi speaks in the tongue of the rocket
Weiss's article is not content with a symbolic threat. He also celebrates the use of American and Israeli force against Iran, praises Donald Trump for giving Israel a broader green light in the war, and describes him as doing "God's work."
This is not a political analysis, but a full-fledged theology of war, in which heaven enters the operations room, and in which the military decision is presented as the execution of a higher function, not for considerations of power and expediency alone.
Here, the danger becomes even more deadly. Because the bomb, when carried with a doctrine, becomes even more savage, and because war, when given a salvageful meaning, transcends the boundaries of rational calculation into the realm of obsession, and because he who sees himself as the executor of a sacred promise does not look at blood in the way that normal human beings do.
Not an isolated margin
It might be said: This is just an opinion piece, not an official statement from the Israeli government. This is true in form, and it should not be ignored. But sticking to this aspect alone is a kind of cold card.
The article was not published in an anonymous publication or a fringe platform, but in the Jerusalem Post, one of Israel's leading English-language newspapers. The writer is not an emergency name, but is presented as the director of a Jewish Da'wah Center in Ra'anana.
This means that we are not facing an individual delirium in a dark corner, but rather a discourse that finds a platform, the legitimacy of publication, an audience, and a cultural context that allows it to come out in the public without embarrassment.
This is the point to be held tightly: the danger is not only in the article, but in the climate that allows this article to be written, published, and circulated, as if it were normal.
Boundaries of the text, not the borders of states
This current does not see borders as seen by international laws, nor as defined by UN maps, nor as understood by the modern world.
He sees the boundaries of the text—the boundaries that an extremist religious memory draws for itself, and then treats current geography as a temporary detail or an obstacle that must be broken. Egypt, Iran, and others, therefore, appear in this consciousness not as sovereign states, but as names within an older narrative, which can be invoked whenever faith decides to mix history with war, myth with blood.
In such an imagination, the holidays are not spiritual occasions, but mobilization stations. Power is not a means of defense, but a tool of discipline. The opponent is not a political party, but rather an object of symbolic punishment whose owners are required to wear the garment of the supreme will.
After-Netanyahu
The most dangerous thing that Weiss's text reveals is that it debunks the illusion that the tragedy of the entire region is reduced to the person of Benjamin Netanyahu. It is true that Netanyahu is the most brazen expression of this structure, but it is not the whole structure.
The article unequivocally reveals that there is a deeper current of people and governments that sees military force as a tool for writing history, religion as a repository of legitimacy, and war as a means of completing a redemptive narrative.
The author also invokes the wars of 1956 and 1973 in the context of glorifying Israeli power and supporting Trump, confirming that the past, in this consciousness, is not a historical experience to learn, but rather a repertoire for summoning, inciting, and mobilizing.
Therefore, the naïve belief that Netanyahu's departure alone will extinguish this fire is nothing but an illusion.
The problem is deeper: an institutional intellectual structure, not just a crisis leader.
An ideological mind sees domination as destiny, aggression as a message, and blood as a means of self-affirmation.
Egypt is in the crosshairs of the ideological summons
When Egypt is reminded of this formula, and in this context, it is not permissible to treat the matter as a structural slippage. The issue is more serious than that.
It reveals that Egypt is present in the consciousness of some extremist Zionist circles as not only a major country in the region, but also a heavy name in the bank of old hostile symbols.
This means that the confrontation is not only military or political, but also a confrontation with a mental structure that tries to drag Egypt from its present into a pre-made mythical image, to reintroduce it into a threatening scene based on religious invocation.
We must be clear: this article does not declare an official war on Egypt, but it does reveal what may be more dangerous than the declaration of war itself:
It reveals the mind that prepares for the threat, the language that legitimizes aggression, and the imagination that transforms the destruction of the other into a palatable symbolic ritual.
The masks fell off
What Stuart Weiss wrote is not an opinion that can be crossed out with the phrase: "Another extremist has spoken extremist."
This is a lazy simplification that is not befitting a moment of danger. More precisely, this text reveals a deep layer in the religious-political Zionist consciousness, where the rabbi meets the cannon, the prophecy intersects with the operations room, and the weapon is presented as a tool for the implementation of what its proponents believe to be a higher mandate.
When language reaches such a degree of ideological savagery, it becomes our duty not only to be preoccupied with what has been said, but with what is deeper:
How did this become possible? How did it become published, circulated, and available in the Israeli public sphere, without appearing outlandish, scandalous, or out of the ordinary?
What kind of environment is this, which no longer sees the threat of Egypt with a shameless and scandalous religious language, but as an opinion fit for publication and discussion?
That's the real question.
Because nations are not only surprised by the missiles that fall on them, but also by the ideas that precede the missiles, give them a sacred name, cloak them with false legitimacy, and then push them into the world as if they were a written destiny and not a described crime.
For this reason, what is needed is not hollow panic, not gratuitous panic, but rather a vigilance at the level of danger: a political, media, cultural, and security vigilance that realizes that what has happened is not just an emotion on paper, but a revealing display of a structure that sees our destruction as a legitimate possibility, in our humiliation as a language of deterrence, and in our aggression against us as a substance that can be wrapped in religion and presented to the public as if it were a form of worship.
The masks have fallen.
No one has the right to invoke misunderstandings.
We are not only facing an enemy that kills, but an enemy that wants to make killing a creed, a threat a text, and war a ritual.
