In the preparations for entering the Land, the Torah instructs us how to conduct ourselves in different kinds of wars - a commanded war (milchemet mitzvah), a discretionary war (milchemet reshut), and the war against Amalek.
A commanded war refers to the conquest of the Land and the defense of the people and the state. As its name implies, it is a mitzvah like any other mitzvah that we are obligated to fulfill with self-sacrifice. The Torah guides us on how to relate to our enemies, as it is written: "When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses and chariots, a people more numerous than you, you shall not fear them" (Devorim 20:1). Rashi explains: consider them as your enemies; do not have mercy on them, for if you fall into their hands, they will have no mercy on you. And those who go out to war must be pure and free of evil, as it is written: "When you go out to battle against your enemies, then keep yourself from every evil thing... for the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to save you and to deliver your enemies before you; therefore your camp shall be holy, that He see no unseemly thing in you and turn away from you" (Devarim 23:10,15).
By contrast, a discretionary war is as it says: "When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive, and you see among the captives a woman of beautiful form, and you desire her, then you may take her as a wife" (Devarim 21:10-11). Rashi explains: the verse is speaking of a discretionary war. Meaning, the king is permitted to go to war to conquer other lands for various interests, as King David went to war for the sake of the people's welfare.
The war against Amalek, however, is no longer about conquering the Land or for some interest, but against the enemies of Israel whose sole purpose is to annihilate, Heaven forbid, the Jewish People - as in the Holocaust, when they murdered one-third of our people solely because they were Jews. Concerning such a war it is written: "You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget" (Devarim 25:19).
Our Present Reality
At present, our generation is one of wars. Not that we desire or initiate wars. On the contrary, by nature we are a people that loves peace, and the vision of our prophets is the vision of peace: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war anymore." But against our will we live by our sword.
The end of days has not yet come. We still need to be strong enough to deter our enemies and to defeat them in battle. As is known, the strength of an army cannot rest only on advanced weaponry and equipment, but primarily on the spirit of its fighters, on their faith and conviction in the justice of the war. Our enemies wage war and spread false propaganda to weaken our spirit and undermine our faith in the justice of our cause and our very existence. They poison mankind by every possible means convincing the world that we are a foreign implant in the Middle East, that we are a cruel, conquering people. Some of our brothers have had their faith weakened in our right to our homeland - and upon us rests the duty to strengthen the spirit of the nation.
We must restore confidence in the justice of our struggle and our wars over our Land, by learning to recognize our generation as a link in the chain of all the generations. We must recognize that the People of Israel are the light of the world, and that the purpose of our enemies is to extinguish the light of God in the world, which is revealed through the People of Israel - not only in the distant past of the Bible, but throughout all generations, and especially in our own, the generation of rebirth.
We must know that our war today is a war of the Children of Light against the Beasts of Darkness. We will be confident in the justice of our wars, not only because of the existential threat, but because of our very essence, our identity, and our destiny. And from this awareness we will grow stronger and triumph in battle, and the eternal saying will be fulfilled in us: "Blot out the memory of Amalek, do not forget" - for "The Eternal One of Israel does not lie and does not relent."