Queen Esther, Pam Bondi, and the Cost of Complicity

When survival, power, and fear collide, even “heroes” can become instruments of oppression.

Pam Bondi’s refusal to engage with or apologize directly to survivors of Jeffrey Epstein occurred during a contentious congressional hearing on February 11, 2026, when she was testifying before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee about the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files. It has become clear that she refused to interview survivors, nor would she acknowledge them in court or even look in their direction. There was no hint of behaviour in keeping with a genuine apology. It became painfully obvious: Bondi’s priority was to defend, hide, and protect the individuals named as conspirators in the sex trafficking operation.

People were shocked. How could this be? Social media erupted with outrage - one post suggested the only thing worse than a trafficker is a woman who protects him. I don’t know that there is a hierarchy of heinous crimes, but I understand the anger.

Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington, as Jeffrey Epstein survivors, stand left.

Tom Brenner/AP

My immediate response was less surprising. Women are not inherently righteous because they are female. Women can be anything - including agents who perpetuate injustice and protect systems of oppression. Gender does not ensure virtue. If you doubt the equality of the sexes, you could make just as strong a case by examining patterns of oppression, not just patterns of righteousness.

But here’s a crucial point: abusive behavior is often the outcome of systemic oppression. Anyone who has worked with victims of sexual exploitation knows that some survivors end up participating in the very systems that harm others. Victimization often comes with an unspoken invitation to comply or participate - as a survival strategy, and sometimes as a way to prevent further harm. Traffickers have long used well-groomed victims as lures for new victims. Tyrannical leaders often recruit traumatized individuals, initiating them into the very violence they endured. The oppressive cycle repeats itself. As Friedrich Nietzsche warned, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

Sami Awad (the Co-Director of Nonviolence International, based in Bethlehem, Palestine where he has been a leading advocate of nonviolent resistance) has observed this cycle in the Middle East: both “sides” of the conflict are trapped in trauma patterns that perpetuate oppression. He does not excuse violence; he highlights the intentionality required to break cycles and heal from the inside out.

“We negotiate peace out of fear, we resist out of fear. Fear is what motivates and if we are not able to bring about healing, there can never be any peace for the future… there was never a healing for the Jews. Both groups, the Jews and the Palestinians have a similar type of trauma - an existential threat to their existence - so they can never let their guards down.”

Trauma is passed across generations and shapes group identities.

Recently, I heard a podcast interview on Across The Divide Podcast with South African theologian and biblical scholar Sarojini Nadar about the weaponization of the Bible, particularly how the book of Esther has been distorted to normalize violent ideologies. It was eye-opening.

Sarojini Nadar - check out her interview at Across the Divide

Esther is far more complicated than the sanitized story we often tell children. A simplified reading ignores the moral, ethical, and political tensions embedded in the text - tensions that demand wrestling if we want to be faithful to its message and understand its relevance today.

Nadar was studying Esther through the lens of sexual violence when she realized that the text is being co-opted for modern political violence. Netanyahu cited Esther to justify the slaughter of Palestinians, and President Trump referenced it in Project 2025 under the label “The Esther Project,” a component of a U.S. Christian nationalist strategy.

This is the book Netanyahu used to defend the killing of over 70,000 people, mostly unarmed civilians, including more than 20,000 children. And now it’s embedded in a political plan as a guiding narrative.

Esther is not a story of good triumphing over evil. Its complexities, ambiguities, and moral challenges are weaponized today, and if we fail to pay attention, we risk missing how ancient texts can justify modern atrocities.

Let’s take a closer look.

Esther: From Victim to Instrument of Violence

This pic was the most interesting thing to pop up on a google search.. the images were pretty funny - a lot of beauty queen narratives out there for Esther.

Esther begins as someone “used”, and today her story is again being used to justify sexual, racial, and political violence. The familiar “beauty pageant” reading always made me uneasy. Esther was trafficked, abused, and objectified by a king who exploited young women. She didn’t ‘win a beauty pageant’ she survived sex trafficking! We can frame her as a heroine who rises above oppression, but the story does not end with a ‘happy ever after’ - especially if you weren’t Jewish.

Esther ensures not only the survival of the Jews but also the mass execution of Haman’s people. She is often celebrated either as a weak, godly survivor or as a pretty princess who saves the day. But the reality is far more complex: oppression limits choices, and victims often become complicit to survive. Hurt people hurt people - and trauma gets passed down through generations.

Esther hides her identity, serves a sexually abusive king, and helps her uncle rise to power. Every man in her life uses her for their own gain. Is there a “good guy” in this story? Hardly.

When Esther wins the king’s favor and exposes Haman’s plot, the reversal of power does not end violence. Mordecai, with Esther’s full participation, issues orders empowering Jews to arm themselves and kill anyone who threatens them or their families, seizing the property of their enemies (Esther 8:9-13). After the initial defense strategy the violence still doesn’t end. Esther insists on the public humiliation of Haman’s dead family, and asks to continue the killing for the entire next day as well. It ensures that the Purim celebration is not just salvation - it is revenge, superiority, and publicized violence, culminating in the killing of 75,000 people (Esther 9:16). The text confirms that “many people of the land became Jews themselves, for they feared what the Jews might do to them” (Esther 8:17).

The Cycle of Violence

This is the myth of redemptive violence. Oppression produces fear, fear produces loyalty to power, and loyalty produces complicity. People perpetuate cycles of destruction while thinking they are acting for survival or justice. Queen Esther is never truly free: she is trapped in fear, her identity hidden, her story celebrated as righteous while it enacts mass violence.

The story mirrors modern patterns of abuse and power: survivors become recruiters, abused children become agents in oppressive systems, and nations with massive military power justify violence in the name of security.

Breaking the Cycle

Dr. Scilia Elworthy is a three times Nobel Peace Prize nominee for her work with Oxford Research Group to develop effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics. She’s spent a life researching peacemaking and how cycles of violence can be broken. Here’s a diagram she offers to help explain the cycle (and here’s a link to her article!).

What I pray for is new awareness of these cycles of fear, oppression, and violence. By naming the patterns, recognizing fear-driven behaviors, and embracing forgiveness and genuine peace, we can begin to disrupt the cycles that have enslaved survivors, distorted justice, and sanctified violence for millennia.

The story of Esther is a story of survival - and a warning. It challenges us to see how fear, trauma, and the misuse of power can twist even heroic narratives into instruments of oppression. It also invites us to write a different ending to our own cycles - to stop repeating the behaviours that kill, steal and destroy. I pray we will listen, choose differently, interupt cycles that perpetuate harm and write a future that is life-giving for generations.