As Jews celebrate Purim, let us end the slaughter in Gaza committed in our name | Peter Beinart

Jewish holiday of Purim is about an ancient story about an attempt to exterminate the Jews .

The tale comes from the book of Esther , where the Jews kill 75,000 people on the 13th day of the month of Adar .

The ending reads differently when a Jewish state wields life and death power over millions of Palestinians .

American Jewish leaders blame Palestinians for their own mass expulsion in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war .

They also say Palestinians only left their homes because Arab nations started a war against Israel .

The Talmud devotes almost an entire tractate to how Jews should respond to drought, its answer: fast and repent for our misdeeds. This theology is hard to stomach.

Peter Beinart : Israel ’s assault on Gaza became excessive on 9 October , when it cut off food and electricity to everyone in the Strip .

In the first five days of fighting alone, Israel bombed more than a thousand “power targets” which included high-rise apartment buildings, banks, universities and government offices that it struck not because of their military value but merely for psychological effect.