Mordechai instructed the Jews, the satraps, the governors, and the nobles of the provinces from Hodu to Cush…[saying] that the king had allowed the Jews of every city to gather and stand up for their lives; to annihilate, kill and destroy every army of any nation or province that might attack them, [including their] children and women, and to plunder their possessions…For the Jews there was light and happiness, joy and glory [because] in every province and city to which the king’s edict and law reached, there was happiness and joy for the Jews, a celebration and a holiday. Many of the gentiles converted to Judaism, for fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.

Yeah, that’s basically the part – see, the Jews, who were threatened with genocide, rallied and formed their own paramilitary units, and beat the gentiles so bad that the gentiles became Jews (note: it was a desire to join the Jewish people and not a belief in the God of the Jews that made them Jews).

(They wanted to be on the side of the people who had the power to defend themselves and took that seriously. A lesson for our nation-building projects: Kill the bad guys, don't be wishy-washy, make it blindingly obvious which horse to back. Then you won't find yourself two years later trying to convince Congress to fund a surge.)

Ariel sees other parallels:

. . . . [In] steps a guy like Haman, who thinks that Persia has no strategic, political or moral reason to ally with the Jews. Haman makes his argument to the highest of possible decision-makers, wins the concession, and moves to cut the Jews out of the political sphere.

This pattern was repeated in Spain, in Germany, in Russia and elsewhere–everywhere where Jews get too prominent in government or the economy, it seems, a sort of mystical hatred emerges. What is interesting to me, therefore, in the Purim narrative is that the Jews strike back – that is, they don’t just lobby and, once they win, sit back and suck on candy in their blue-and-white robes; instead, the Jews in the Purim story press their advantage, go on the offensive, and show such overwhelming force that the non-Jews realized that these are some bad ass folks and are not to be messed with.

In that regards, I think we have quite a bit to learn from this narrative. No, I’m not advocating violence and looting–but I do think that community whines that break out when communal leaders speak out against anti-Zionists are contrary to this paradigm – and the “wisdom” that they represent, one that calls for us to sit back and be happy that its “never been better,” is not wisdom at all – but rather a folly that the Purim story should rid us of.

I see a lesson to last summer's leaders of Israel: You had the go-ahead from "the international community" to decisively defeat Hizb'allah, and the Jews of Persia should have been your model. Too bad the soldiers weren't kidnapped in March rather than July, so the Purim story would be fresh in Olmert's mind.