No. Period.

Shortly after I posted this article, Trump backed down. Was it something I said? Hardly. But he fulfilled his reputation as the TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) President, which in this case is a very good thing. I hope you’ll read this post anyways. Trump uttered words that place him squarely in the sh-thole of monsters and authoritarian beasts. Whatever happens two weeks from now, he has crossed the line between human behavior and depravity.

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One of the great moral questions of exodus from Egypt is the agonizing issue of collective punishment. At the outset of the story, the problem is Pharaoh, who refuses to release the Israelite slaves. His courtiers support him until he becomes an ossified monster, insensible to the claims of morality or justice. In the language of the text, God hardens his heart, which is the Bible’s way of describing his demented stubbornness.

But the Egyptians are painted with a different palate. They do not participate in Pharaoh’s madness and don’t seem hostile to the Israelites at all. Yet they, too, are swept up in the punishment God inflicts. It would be one thing to turn the palace water into blood, but the first plague brings ruin to the whole of the country. The same for every subsequent plague, from frogs in the cooking pots to the death of the first born. You could get the idea that the God of Exodus doesn’t discriminate. To my great regret, you would be right.

But that is never the end of the story. The rabbis of antiquity continued to elaborate on this story, followed by Jewish folk wisdom in every generation. In one famous piece of rabbinic literature, God rebukes the angels for rejoicing in slaughter, even when the victims are Egyptians. The issue here is the annihilation of people who do not bear responsibility for suffering and whose deaths cannot be conveniently justified.

We are at such a moment in American history. I am writing these words three short hours before Donald Trump has promised to annihilate Iran. He has vowed to destroy a civilization that has a history stretching back thousands of years. Whatever sins the ayatollahs have committed, the Iranian people do not deserve to be carpet bombed, their polity reduced to a smoking pile of rubble.

Because that would be genocide, pure and simple. It should be opposed by every American citizen and every citizen of the State of Israel, America’s only ally in the current war. As many people with legal experience assert, our soldiers should refuse any order that puts them on the side of war crimes, and we should demand that Republicans stand up to this president.

This is the moment to say no to madness and to the corrupt delusion that God supports the destruction of Iran. I do not always know what God wants of me, but I cannot believe that a God worth worshipping would demand the destruction of the Iranian people.

The time for an unqualified no has arrived. Too much damage has already occurred.