IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir a few days ago announced the start of the second phase of the Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip under the name “Gideon’s Chariots II.” In response, Hamas declared the launch of a counter operation under the banner “Moses’ Staff.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been searching for some time for a more powerful name for the upcoming ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. The current title, “Gideon’s Chariots II,” seems to him insufficiently evocative and too closely tied to the last Gaza operation, the results of which left him dissatisfied.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas titled its massacre “Al-Aqsa Flood.” It drew on a biblical-Koranic image, the flood as divine judgment that sweeps away entire peoples. The message was clear: Israel should be extinguished like the sinful humanity of old. Now, in its counteroffensive, Hamas again uses a foreign symbol, the staff of Moses. But that’s where the absurdity lies. For both the flood and Moses, in the Bible and Koran, do not stand for the...

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