Biblical 'Plague' Batters Israel; Not So 'Chosen' Anymore?

Biblical 'Plague' Batters Israel; Not So 'Chosen' Anymore?

From Kernow Damo by Damien Willey

April 18, 2026 · 16 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the implications of a bee swarm in Israel and its connection to biblical narratives used by Netanyahu in the context of war.

Netanyahu keeps reaching for the Bible to glorify war, but once Israel gets hit by a so-called ‘plague’ of bees, the sacred act stops looking so righteous. Right, so back in Old Testament times swarms of bees were seen as a sign of divine wrath and imminent threat, biblical plagues linked to Egypt and the Jewish people are well known too and of course Passover celebrates the culmination of Exodus, following a number of those plagues, and now, the City of Netivot, just to the East of the Gaza Strip, so the optics of location fit nicely here too, has been hit by a huge bee swarm. A plague of bees if you will. A shopping complex in a city in southern Israel has had bees suddenly appear all over it. Cars have had bees on them, balconies have had bees on them, and local authorities have had to tell residents to keep away while the mess got handled. Now you might be thinking, how much sympathy do I have over a few Israelis getting stung, probably not enough to bother to raise a single note on a tiny violin, and yet because of Benjamin Netanyahu, this freak of nature has still carried some weight, as well as ridicule. And that’s because Benjamin Netanyahu has spent years dragging…

Topics covered

  • Israel
  • biblical plagues
  • Netanyahu
  • war politics
  • bees

Keywords

  • plague
  • Gaza Strip
  • divine wrath
  • Old Testament
  • Passover

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Bible, Old Testament, the Old Testament

Places: Israel, Egypt, the City of Netivot, the Gaza Strip, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, the Middle East

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