I think the letter is proceeding on an unstated assumption that it is antisemitic to criticize Israel’s conduct in the war. I’m not sure that position can be maintained. Perhaps the Pope’s remarks are unfair or misinformed, but I think calling them antisemitic is wrong unless we are to understand that the modern nation of Israel represents Judaism and that any criticism of Israel is, therefore, antisemitic per se. I’m not sure that’s a position that can be maintained or would be maintained by other Jewish people. Nobody insists, for example, that this letter is engaging in anti-Catholic bias by criticizing the Vatican despite the Vatican being the head of the Faith.
And I also think the letter is completely wrong to say that meeting with Iranian representatives is antisemitic. Many nations have Iranian embassies. Are we to understand each of these countries as antisemitic? It strikes me as absurd to make blood libels the equivalent to meeting diplomatic representatives.
At this current time, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism practically speaking. There are true differences between criticism of Israel, anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism. However, in the current global climate these differences fall away for all practical purposes. Jews, synagogues, and Jewish owned businesses around the world are being attacked by pro-"Palestinians" precisely because of the current conflict. So, yes, criticism of Israel by the Pope does fan the current flames of anti-Semitism. This most especially because his criticism has largely been one-sided. His statements make it clear that he is biased against Israel and sees Israel as the real aggressor in this war.
Further, Iran funds and controls multiple terror groups that have and still are indiscriminately firing missiles on civilian populations (with the intent of specifically targeting civilians which Israel does not do), but what has he said regarding Iran's actions toward Israel and it's civilian population? When he has said nothing but incendiary words against Israel that suggest they may be committing genocide and at the same time meets and smiles with Iranian representatives while not calling them out on attacking civilians in Israel, then, yes, that could certainly be seen as anti-Semitic.
The Rabbi’s broad point is correct. When Hamas massacre Israeli civilians and then retreat into tunnels behind civilians, it is feeble minded to accuse Israelis alone of cruelty. The Holy Father should demand Hezbollah and Hamas’ immediate surrender for the sake of Christians in Lebanon and Gaza.
Honestly this is why Christians should unironically be in control of the Holy Land: Christians make up the smallest minority, so putting Christians in charge of Levant-region states has practical benefits: not only are the Christians guaranteed protection from the Israeli jews and the Muslim arabs, the Christians will need to keep everyone happy because the arabs and jews outnumber them. This is a major principle behind why Lebanon's Constitution mandates that the Lebanese President and the Chief of the Military must always be a Maronite Christian.
The Israeli jews persecute Christians; Muslim arabs persecute Christians; the jews and the arabs are always at each other's throats. So funny enough, the "Kingdom of Jerusalem" meme is probably the most stable solution over and above the "two-state solution"
In spite of the longstanding policy of Hamas and Hezbollah, to hide their weapons and operations under schools, hospitals, mosques and other civilian areas, and many Israeli policies aimed at avoiding civilian casualties, the Holy Father declared that Israel (not Hamas or Hezbollah) should be investigated for genocide due to the high civilian casualties. He is either an influential figure publicly lobbing accusations on subjects that he is quite ignorant of, or he is knowledgeable and is unjustly attacking Israel deliberately. For Israel to challenge such statements, and to interpret other Papal statements in light of that one, is hardly unreasonable. Especially when they substantially rely on public opinion to continue existing.
However, it is absurd for Israel to make the Pope maintaining friendly relations with Iran into a problem for Israel-Vatican relations. Iran is an extremist-Muslim-run country with an endangered Catholic minority that is subject to official and unofficial persecution - that information is also readily available. If Israel objects to the Pope making an effort to protect those Catholics, *that* is problematic for Israel-Vatican relations.
I would agree with your assessment about Vatican-Iran relations if I thought the primary point was an absolute position and not a relative one. I don't think Israel would mind the Pope trying to protect Christians if he was being even-handed in his treatment of Iran and Israel. It is the contrast that is so disgusting. He kow-tows to Iran while taking every opportunity to blame Israel for cruelty, while simultaneously ignoring the hostages and use of human shields.
I do not believe Israel would have made that objection had the Pope's former statements respecting Israel been reasonable.
I don't think it's a relative thing though, where they object to how differently he treats them compared to Iran. Israel is a big boy, it knows international pressures are never even-handed. But on an absolute scale, taken by itself, what he said regarding Israel needing to be investigated for genocide was astonishingly unjust.
My ancestors died in the Holocaust, so I am not insensitive to the rising problem of anti-Semitism. Nor, indeed, is the Pope. But treating all criticism of the modern nation-state of Israel's changing governments, such governments' changing policies, and in particular the well-documented war crimes committed by soldiers and the current government in Gaza does not help prevent anti-Semitism, but indeed actively encourages and spreads it. Pope Francis is among the most personally philosemitic Popes in history, but his defense of civilians in Gaza reflects little more than basic moral conscience. It is in full continuity with the positions and teaching of his predecessors, and will be vindicated by reality, God, and, I hope, history.
All Hamas needs to do to end the slaughter is to free the Israeli hostages. The fact that they refuse to do so shows they are content with the huge loss of life suffered by the civilian population behind whom they are hiding. The responsibility for the deaths of their own people is theirs, not that of the Israelis fighting those who attacked them.
The Rabbi is correct about false equivalencies but not in the way he means. Gaza is an occupied territory, not a sovereign state, and has been living under occupation for approximately 60 years. While the Israelis may have "pulled out" of Gaza, it still controls its Gaza's borders and effectively exercises dominion over it. One only needs to watch some of the videos being posted by IDF soldiers in Gaza to see the depravity with which this campaign is being carried out. Israeli has used its vastly superior military might, including 2,000 lb US supplied bombs to kill tens of thousand of people and level entire densely populated urban areas, rendering them unlivable. The Pope calling that cruel was probably the most euphemistic term he could have applied so the Rabbi is way out of line for criticizing that mild rebuke.
The complexity of this issue cannot be dealt with in the length of a post but I would posit this question, if the Nazis just kept the Jewish population contained in a larger version of the Warsaw ghettos for 60 years and then a number of Jews broke out and started killing German civilians and Nazi officials, would you be advocating for the Nazis to go in and level the ghetto because that is effectively what Israel is doing now? Whatever one thinks about Hamas and Hezbollah, the Palestinians are God's children and the dwindling number of Christians in the area are Palestinians.
Not all Jews are zionists and and no all zionists are Jews (many are evangelical Christians). The bravest critics of the Israeli government and its conduct of this "war" are Jewish journalists and academics. However, if the zionists and the Israeli supporters continue to label all criticism of the Israeli government and its conduct as antisemitism, they risk creating the very problem of which they complain. If they make no distinction between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism, then eventually their critics will stop distinguishing between Israeli supporters and Jews and that will make what is already a human tragedy, far worse.
1) I've personally seen how this conflict has radicalized the previously-apathetic secular leftist jews of America, people I've known who had always been big leftists sharing criticisms of the occupation of Palestinian territories have become rabid, a guy I once went to school with started publicly advocating for the mass murder of all Palestinian boys under 13. Wack.
2) This is also seemingly in the long-standing tradition of "any criticism of any degree over anything relating to an action however objectionable by either Israel or an individual jew is horrifically antisemitic and abhorrent in the highest degree and it's the start of anotha shoah!" The antisemitism-card is extremely powerful, and can bend the will of entire nations when it's played right. The ADL knows it, AIPAC knows it, the Israeli state knows it, and this rabbi knows it. This rabbi knows he's trying to guilt-trip the pope, since '48 Israel has had a penchant for taking swipes at the Vatican. Antisemitism, and legacy of the Holocaust, has been (hate to say it) milked for socio-political gain. Back in the 1960s/70s, the Holocaust was something that everyone was very of and knew about, but it wasn't any more culturally prominent than other atrocities/events of the war. In the past 50 years, almost every mid-size city in America has built a Holocaust museum, there's a Holocaust Museum on the National Mall, and the Holocaust almost overshadows the entirety of WWII in school curriculums.
Thank you. I think you raise some excellent additional points. I always found the proliferation of holocaust museums in the U.S. somewhat odd given that the United States was one of the liberators of the camps and it was Dwight Eisenhower who made sure they were documented, lest people forget or deny what happened. Also the US has been one of the safest and most hospitable countries in the world for Jews to live and thrive (albeit imperfect, as it is for everyone). If the US is to be making museums of this type, it would be more appropriate to make them to remind us of the horrors of our national sins such as slavery and the genocide of native Americans.
Terms like antisemitism and racism can provide a societal shield against such conduct by virtue of the severe social opprobrium they rightfully engender. However, when they are used as a sword to shut down debate and dismiss legitimate criticism, they risk being denudered of their meaning and the behavior moderating social stigma they engender. Once this happens, the flood gates for real antisemitism and racism can open. This is what I fear as Zionists and Israeli supporters continue to apply a maximalist concept of antisemitism to any legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria.
Btw, the US government deserves as much criticism for enabling Israel's behavior because without our aid money, munitions and blind support of their policies, none of their bad conduct would be possible.
Gaza has a border with Egypt, which is not controlled by Israel. Gaza has been Jew free for 20 years, and rather than build a nation Hamas built tunnels. Your understanding of the situation seems to fall down in the face of very simple facts. There are also a few of God’s children that you didn’t mention: the 100 hostages being held (if still alive) in Gaza. Cardinal Pizzabolla tried a peaceful offer to release them, could you bring yourself to suggest what Israel should do instead?
My suggestion is quite simple: stop carpet bombing Gaza and making it unlivable for the survivors. Stop preventing international aid from getting to the victims. Stop building settlements in the occupied West Bank. Stop bombing Christian churches, all of the hospitals and schools claiming they all have munitions and tunnels under them, which in nearly all cases has been proven to be patently false. Abandon any plans for establishing Greater Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, Southern Lebanon and Western Syria.
As for building a nation, do you mean a self-determining nation with a recognized right to exist and defend itself with a military of its own (like Israel)? Don't forget, a Palestinian nation with a military that can defend itself is, and always has been, a non-starter for Israel because as Israel will tell you itself, its security is of primary importance. This means it must come at the cost of Palestinian security. Israel screams about Hamas "hiding military targets among civilians." If you can't have a military, you can't have military targets. This gives Israel carte blanche to bomb wherever they want and then after the fact label all of the dead as terrorists. I'm not saying there aren't terrorists among the victims but you reap what you sow. It is well established that Netanyahu and the Likud government funded Hamas because both Hamas and Likud are against a two state solution and Hama was viewed as a useful tool to create the situation for Israel to invade Gaza in order to displace the local population and expand Israel's borders to the sea.
QFE: "... democratic nation defending its citizens and terrorists who perpetrated the most barbaric massacre of Jews since the Holocaust."
Puh-leeze. Go talk with anyone who's actually lived in Israel, especially those Arab Christians who have been persecuted, and they will tell you how problematic the State of Israel is in its political and military machinations.
Don't be naive, people: the Zionists want you to believe that the State of Israel is some sort of perpetual Jewish victim so that the US will continue giving it the military aid it needs to pursue carte blanche politics in the Middle East. It's highly debatable whether this is good for the US or the world (9/11, anyone?). But Zionism has always been a primarily secular, nationalist, racist, colonialist movement. Here the DEI people manage to get it right, though I'm loathe to support any cause they do. The current Israeli government is all-in on expansionism and ethnic cleansing. The casualties from the war they've pursued are so far beyond the parameters of just war at this point that some of its officials will probably need to be prosecuted for war crimes once the dust settles and we have a clearer picture of what's been going on.
Need I also mention that Tel Aviv is LGBT central for the Middle East? Or that despite Israel having an atypically high birth rate, that most of it is due to the orthodox Jews who don't work and live on the dole, and the progressive Jews who hate them prop up the economy while having just as few children as the rest of the childless "West"? What are your American dollars going to support?
I don't see in the State of Israel the representative of international Jewey: rather, it's an outpost in the Middle East of the decadent and dying culture that is currently smothering Christianity here and abroad. Don't be guilted into supporting Israel. Those of Jewish descent do not have any inherent claim to Palestine: we are Christians, not bound to prop up the old covenant, which has been fulfilled in Christ and expanded to all people. If Israel wants to pursue its political aims, let it do so on its own dime. Our hands should be kept clean of their blood and the blood of their enemies. Nobody is clean in this conflict.
There are so many lies in here, it is hard to track them all. The current Israeli government is all-in on ethnic cleansing? What kind of fantasy-land talk is that?
Islam threatens to destroy Europe and Christians spend more energy repeating Al Jazeera lies about Israel than they do thinking strategically and acting to evangelize their home countries.
As if to prove his point, Vatican News released a papal statement yesterday statement calling for a ceasefire but not for the release of hostages. The bias is shameful and dangerous.
Unfortunately, it is not entirely unexpected. Argentina has long been a breeding ground for antisemitism, which is why so many Nazis hid out there after WWII. It is clearly not a country that is friendly toward Jews, and it isn't a coincidence that Argentina's deadliest terrorist attack was a synagogue bombing. It would be hard to grow up as a Peronist in such a culture and not develop at least a mild prejudice against Jews.
Pope Francis, as far as I can tell, is essentially a pacifist. That also informed his stance and various public remarks on Russia-Ukraine which many Ukrainian Catholics took offense to and even felt betrayed.
I think the letter is proceeding on an unstated assumption that it is antisemitic to criticize Israel’s conduct in the war. I’m not sure that position can be maintained. Perhaps the Pope’s remarks are unfair or misinformed, but I think calling them antisemitic is wrong unless we are to understand that the modern nation of Israel represents Judaism and that any criticism of Israel is, therefore, antisemitic per se. I’m not sure that’s a position that can be maintained or would be maintained by other Jewish people. Nobody insists, for example, that this letter is engaging in anti-Catholic bias by criticizing the Vatican despite the Vatican being the head of the Faith.
And I also think the letter is completely wrong to say that meeting with Iranian representatives is antisemitic. Many nations have Iranian embassies. Are we to understand each of these countries as antisemitic? It strikes me as absurd to make blood libels the equivalent to meeting diplomatic representatives.
At this current time, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism practically speaking. There are true differences between criticism of Israel, anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism. However, in the current global climate these differences fall away for all practical purposes. Jews, synagogues, and Jewish owned businesses around the world are being attacked by pro-"Palestinians" precisely because of the current conflict. So, yes, criticism of Israel by the Pope does fan the current flames of anti-Semitism. This most especially because his criticism has largely been one-sided. His statements make it clear that he is biased against Israel and sees Israel as the real aggressor in this war.
Further, Iran funds and controls multiple terror groups that have and still are indiscriminately firing missiles on civilian populations (with the intent of specifically targeting civilians which Israel does not do), but what has he said regarding Iran's actions toward Israel and it's civilian population? When he has said nothing but incendiary words against Israel that suggest they may be committing genocide and at the same time meets and smiles with Iranian representatives while not calling them out on attacking civilians in Israel, then, yes, that could certainly be seen as anti-Semitic.
The Rabbi’s broad point is correct. When Hamas massacre Israeli civilians and then retreat into tunnels behind civilians, it is feeble minded to accuse Israelis alone of cruelty. The Holy Father should demand Hezbollah and Hamas’ immediate surrender for the sake of Christians in Lebanon and Gaza.
Honestly this is why Christians should unironically be in control of the Holy Land: Christians make up the smallest minority, so putting Christians in charge of Levant-region states has practical benefits: not only are the Christians guaranteed protection from the Israeli jews and the Muslim arabs, the Christians will need to keep everyone happy because the arabs and jews outnumber them. This is a major principle behind why Lebanon's Constitution mandates that the Lebanese President and the Chief of the Military must always be a Maronite Christian.
The Israeli jews persecute Christians; Muslim arabs persecute Christians; the jews and the arabs are always at each other's throats. So funny enough, the "Kingdom of Jerusalem" meme is probably the most stable solution over and above the "two-state solution"
In spite of the longstanding policy of Hamas and Hezbollah, to hide their weapons and operations under schools, hospitals, mosques and other civilian areas, and many Israeli policies aimed at avoiding civilian casualties, the Holy Father declared that Israel (not Hamas or Hezbollah) should be investigated for genocide due to the high civilian casualties. He is either an influential figure publicly lobbing accusations on subjects that he is quite ignorant of, or he is knowledgeable and is unjustly attacking Israel deliberately. For Israel to challenge such statements, and to interpret other Papal statements in light of that one, is hardly unreasonable. Especially when they substantially rely on public opinion to continue existing.
However, it is absurd for Israel to make the Pope maintaining friendly relations with Iran into a problem for Israel-Vatican relations. Iran is an extremist-Muslim-run country with an endangered Catholic minority that is subject to official and unofficial persecution - that information is also readily available. If Israel objects to the Pope making an effort to protect those Catholics, *that* is problematic for Israel-Vatican relations.
I would agree with your assessment about Vatican-Iran relations if I thought the primary point was an absolute position and not a relative one. I don't think Israel would mind the Pope trying to protect Christians if he was being even-handed in his treatment of Iran and Israel. It is the contrast that is so disgusting. He kow-tows to Iran while taking every opportunity to blame Israel for cruelty, while simultaneously ignoring the hostages and use of human shields.
I do not believe Israel would have made that objection had the Pope's former statements respecting Israel been reasonable.
I don't think it's a relative thing though, where they object to how differently he treats them compared to Iran. Israel is a big boy, it knows international pressures are never even-handed. But on an absolute scale, taken by itself, what he said regarding Israel needing to be investigated for genocide was astonishingly unjust.
My ancestors died in the Holocaust, so I am not insensitive to the rising problem of anti-Semitism. Nor, indeed, is the Pope. But treating all criticism of the modern nation-state of Israel's changing governments, such governments' changing policies, and in particular the well-documented war crimes committed by soldiers and the current government in Gaza does not help prevent anti-Semitism, but indeed actively encourages and spreads it. Pope Francis is among the most personally philosemitic Popes in history, but his defense of civilians in Gaza reflects little more than basic moral conscience. It is in full continuity with the positions and teaching of his predecessors, and will be vindicated by reality, God, and, I hope, history.
All Hamas needs to do to end the slaughter is to free the Israeli hostages. The fact that they refuse to do so shows they are content with the huge loss of life suffered by the civilian population behind whom they are hiding. The responsibility for the deaths of their own people is theirs, not that of the Israelis fighting those who attacked them.
[My lawyers have advised me to decline commenting on this article]
The Rabbi is correct about false equivalencies but not in the way he means. Gaza is an occupied territory, not a sovereign state, and has been living under occupation for approximately 60 years. While the Israelis may have "pulled out" of Gaza, it still controls its Gaza's borders and effectively exercises dominion over it. One only needs to watch some of the videos being posted by IDF soldiers in Gaza to see the depravity with which this campaign is being carried out. Israeli has used its vastly superior military might, including 2,000 lb US supplied bombs to kill tens of thousand of people and level entire densely populated urban areas, rendering them unlivable. The Pope calling that cruel was probably the most euphemistic term he could have applied so the Rabbi is way out of line for criticizing that mild rebuke.
The complexity of this issue cannot be dealt with in the length of a post but I would posit this question, if the Nazis just kept the Jewish population contained in a larger version of the Warsaw ghettos for 60 years and then a number of Jews broke out and started killing German civilians and Nazi officials, would you be advocating for the Nazis to go in and level the ghetto because that is effectively what Israel is doing now? Whatever one thinks about Hamas and Hezbollah, the Palestinians are God's children and the dwindling number of Christians in the area are Palestinians.
Not all Jews are zionists and and no all zionists are Jews (many are evangelical Christians). The bravest critics of the Israeli government and its conduct of this "war" are Jewish journalists and academics. However, if the zionists and the Israeli supporters continue to label all criticism of the Israeli government and its conduct as antisemitism, they risk creating the very problem of which they complain. If they make no distinction between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism, then eventually their critics will stop distinguishing between Israeli supporters and Jews and that will make what is already a human tragedy, far worse.
Many salient points! I'll add two things:
1) I've personally seen how this conflict has radicalized the previously-apathetic secular leftist jews of America, people I've known who had always been big leftists sharing criticisms of the occupation of Palestinian territories have become rabid, a guy I once went to school with started publicly advocating for the mass murder of all Palestinian boys under 13. Wack.
2) This is also seemingly in the long-standing tradition of "any criticism of any degree over anything relating to an action however objectionable by either Israel or an individual jew is horrifically antisemitic and abhorrent in the highest degree and it's the start of anotha shoah!" The antisemitism-card is extremely powerful, and can bend the will of entire nations when it's played right. The ADL knows it, AIPAC knows it, the Israeli state knows it, and this rabbi knows it. This rabbi knows he's trying to guilt-trip the pope, since '48 Israel has had a penchant for taking swipes at the Vatican. Antisemitism, and legacy of the Holocaust, has been (hate to say it) milked for socio-political gain. Back in the 1960s/70s, the Holocaust was something that everyone was very of and knew about, but it wasn't any more culturally prominent than other atrocities/events of the war. In the past 50 years, almost every mid-size city in America has built a Holocaust museum, there's a Holocaust Museum on the National Mall, and the Holocaust almost overshadows the entirety of WWII in school curriculums.
Thank you. I think you raise some excellent additional points. I always found the proliferation of holocaust museums in the U.S. somewhat odd given that the United States was one of the liberators of the camps and it was Dwight Eisenhower who made sure they were documented, lest people forget or deny what happened. Also the US has been one of the safest and most hospitable countries in the world for Jews to live and thrive (albeit imperfect, as it is for everyone). If the US is to be making museums of this type, it would be more appropriate to make them to remind us of the horrors of our national sins such as slavery and the genocide of native Americans.
Terms like antisemitism and racism can provide a societal shield against such conduct by virtue of the severe social opprobrium they rightfully engender. However, when they are used as a sword to shut down debate and dismiss legitimate criticism, they risk being denudered of their meaning and the behavior moderating social stigma they engender. Once this happens, the flood gates for real antisemitism and racism can open. This is what I fear as Zionists and Israeli supporters continue to apply a maximalist concept of antisemitism to any legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria.
Btw, the US government deserves as much criticism for enabling Israel's behavior because without our aid money, munitions and blind support of their policies, none of their bad conduct would be possible.
Gaza has a border with Egypt, which is not controlled by Israel. Gaza has been Jew free for 20 years, and rather than build a nation Hamas built tunnels. Your understanding of the situation seems to fall down in the face of very simple facts. There are also a few of God’s children that you didn’t mention: the 100 hostages being held (if still alive) in Gaza. Cardinal Pizzabolla tried a peaceful offer to release them, could you bring yourself to suggest what Israel should do instead?
My suggestion is quite simple: stop carpet bombing Gaza and making it unlivable for the survivors. Stop preventing international aid from getting to the victims. Stop building settlements in the occupied West Bank. Stop bombing Christian churches, all of the hospitals and schools claiming they all have munitions and tunnels under them, which in nearly all cases has been proven to be patently false. Abandon any plans for establishing Greater Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, Southern Lebanon and Western Syria.
As for building a nation, do you mean a self-determining nation with a recognized right to exist and defend itself with a military of its own (like Israel)? Don't forget, a Palestinian nation with a military that can defend itself is, and always has been, a non-starter for Israel because as Israel will tell you itself, its security is of primary importance. This means it must come at the cost of Palestinian security. Israel screams about Hamas "hiding military targets among civilians." If you can't have a military, you can't have military targets. This gives Israel carte blanche to bomb wherever they want and then after the fact label all of the dead as terrorists. I'm not saying there aren't terrorists among the victims but you reap what you sow. It is well established that Netanyahu and the Likud government funded Hamas because both Hamas and Likud are against a two state solution and Hama was viewed as a useful tool to create the situation for Israel to invade Gaza in order to displace the local population and expand Israel's borders to the sea.
Israel did not conspire with Hamas so they could invade Gaza. You are in la la land, nothing you say is remotely serious.
Does the phrase "mowing the lawn" mean anything to you? If it doesn't, you have no idea what you are talking about.
I may be in la la land but before you dismiss what I said, try looking at these photos and tell me this is neither cruel nor designed to permanently displace the current population: https://www.reuters.com/pictures/what-gaza-looks-like-today-after-15-months-war-2025-01-21/
QFE: "... democratic nation defending its citizens and terrorists who perpetrated the most barbaric massacre of Jews since the Holocaust."
Puh-leeze. Go talk with anyone who's actually lived in Israel, especially those Arab Christians who have been persecuted, and they will tell you how problematic the State of Israel is in its political and military machinations.
Don't be naive, people: the Zionists want you to believe that the State of Israel is some sort of perpetual Jewish victim so that the US will continue giving it the military aid it needs to pursue carte blanche politics in the Middle East. It's highly debatable whether this is good for the US or the world (9/11, anyone?). But Zionism has always been a primarily secular, nationalist, racist, colonialist movement. Here the DEI people manage to get it right, though I'm loathe to support any cause they do. The current Israeli government is all-in on expansionism and ethnic cleansing. The casualties from the war they've pursued are so far beyond the parameters of just war at this point that some of its officials will probably need to be prosecuted for war crimes once the dust settles and we have a clearer picture of what's been going on.
Need I also mention that Tel Aviv is LGBT central for the Middle East? Or that despite Israel having an atypically high birth rate, that most of it is due to the orthodox Jews who don't work and live on the dole, and the progressive Jews who hate them prop up the economy while having just as few children as the rest of the childless "West"? What are your American dollars going to support?
I don't see in the State of Israel the representative of international Jewey: rather, it's an outpost in the Middle East of the decadent and dying culture that is currently smothering Christianity here and abroad. Don't be guilted into supporting Israel. Those of Jewish descent do not have any inherent claim to Palestine: we are Christians, not bound to prop up the old covenant, which has been fulfilled in Christ and expanded to all people. If Israel wants to pursue its political aims, let it do so on its own dime. Our hands should be kept clean of their blood and the blood of their enemies. Nobody is clean in this conflict.
There are so many lies in here, it is hard to track them all. The current Israeli government is all-in on ethnic cleansing? What kind of fantasy-land talk is that?
Islam threatens to destroy Europe and Christians spend more energy repeating Al Jazeera lies about Israel than they do thinking strategically and acting to evangelize their home countries.
As if to prove his point, Vatican News released a papal statement yesterday statement calling for a ceasefire but not for the release of hostages. The bias is shameful and dangerous.
Unfortunately, it is not entirely unexpected. Argentina has long been a breeding ground for antisemitism, which is why so many Nazis hid out there after WWII. It is clearly not a country that is friendly toward Jews, and it isn't a coincidence that Argentina's deadliest terrorist attack was a synagogue bombing. It would be hard to grow up as a Peronist in such a culture and not develop at least a mild prejudice against Jews.
Pope Francis, as far as I can tell, is essentially a pacifist. That also informed his stance and various public remarks on Russia-Ukraine which many Ukrainian Catholics took offense to and even felt betrayed.