by André Villeneuve for The Gatestone Institute.
While many the world over had the integrity to condemn "the hideous crime, naming its perpetrators and acknowledging Israel's basic right to defend itself against the atrocity," the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches were unable to muster up such moral clarity.
While the IDF goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties, Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups do their utmost to maximize them — not only by indiscriminately murdering Israelis, but also by hiding among their own civilian population and using them as human shields, resulting in disproportionately high numbers of Palestinian casualties, caused -- deliberately -- by Hamas.
If there is an "occupation" problem in Gaza, the occupier is Hamas, not Israel. In this war, Christians — and all of us — have a moral responsibility to support a civilized nation's fight against barbarism. Israel must eradicate a terrorist group, Hamas, just as we confronted ISIS. Then all of us need to contain the real mastermind behind such groups, the genocidal regime of Iran. Unfortunately, there is no other viable solution if we wish to preserve the West.
It is well known that the IDF warns Palestinian civilians by means of leaflets, text messages and even phone calls to evacuate areas close to military targets before they are attacked. While the IDF goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties, Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups do their utmost to maximize them — not only by indiscriminately murdering Israelis, but also by hiding among their own civilian population and using them as human shields.
October 7, 2023: Another day that will live in infamy: Israel's Pearl Harbor. Israel's 9/11. The quiet Shabbat morning of Simchat Torah, concluding the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, suddenly turned into a bloodbath. Under the cover of heavy rocket fire, thousands of Hamas terrorists attacked Israel's southern communities and left behind them a path of carnage and devastation, ambushing army bases and motorists, murdering some 364 people at a music festival, slaughtering families in their beds, raping women, executing children and Holocaust survivors, burning civilians alive, and kidnapping 244 people in Israel to Gaza. With at least 1,200 people murdered, it was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. The barbarity of the Hamas attack was so unprecedented that even the world was brutally — if briefly — jolted out of its usual apathy and left reeling in horror.
The outrage, however, was short-lived. As soon as Israel began its military response to Hamas's act of war, pro-Palestinian demonstrations erupted across the world, many of them quickly turning into anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate fests. Some even denied that the October 7 slaughter had taken place, despite the many eyewitness stories of survivors.
Catholic reactions to the massacre and ensuing war have been mixed, ranging from courageous moral clarity to questionable moral ambiguity and bewildering silence. While some have supported Israel's right to defend itself, others have opted for neutrality, judging it to be a more charitable, "Christian" stance not to take sides and equally condemn the loss of life on all sides. This posture of moral equivalence suggests that both parties in the conflict share equal blame and equivalent moral responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Intellectually, this is an easy path to take. But is it morally right?
One group that consistently resorts to moral equivalence is the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem. A brief look at their reactions to the crisis, along with responses from the Israeli Embassy to the Holy See, illustrates the problems with this position.
On the morning of October 7, as the Hamas massacre was still unfolding, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem immediately released a statement laden with moral equivalence. Instead of unequivocally condemning the massacre, the Patriarchate asserted that the "cycle of violence that has killed numerous Palestinians and Israelis in the past months has exploded this morning."
The statement continued with the vague language of "sudden explosion of violence," equivocating "the operation launched from Gaza and the reaction of the Israeli Army" — as if both sides were equally at fault. The "many casualties and tragedies" afflicting "both Palestinians and Israeli families," the statement continued, would "create more hatred and division" and "destroy more and more any perspective of stability."
That same afternoon, the Israeli Embassy to the Holy See released an initial statement which, though not directly addressed to the Patriarchate, sounded like a response to it. The Embassy warned that given the scope of the ongoing Hamas slaughter, "using linguistic ambiguity and terms that hint towards false symmetry should be deplored." Israel's response to Hamas's "hideous war crime" was legitimate self-defense, and "drawing parallels where they don't exist is not diplomatic pragmatism, it's simply wrong."
The Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem were undeterred. They released the next day a "Statement on Peace and Justice Amidst Unfolding Violence" that was just as morally ambiguous. This second statement said nothing about the Hamas murders. It lamented in the most generic terms that the Holy Land was "currently mired in violence and suffering due to the prolonged political conflict and the lamentable absence of justice and respect for human rights."
Although the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches said that they "unequivocally condemn any acts that target civilians" they essentially suggested that Israel should not fret too much over its thousands of dead, wounded, raped and kidnapped, asking instead for "the cessation of all violent and military activities that bring harm to both Palestinian and Israeli civilians."
In other words, Israel should bear the brunt of the barbaric attacks and literally let Hamas get away with murder by immediately halting its military response. Never mind the fact that Hamas had unilaterally and brutally started the war by invading Israel and committing unprecedented crimes against an unsuspecting civilian population.
On October 9, the Israeli Embassy to the Holy See responded. It lamented again the "immorality of using linguistic ambiguity" given the scope of the massacre, as it became clear that entire families had been "executed in cold blood" by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. While many the world over had the integrity to condemn "the hideous crime, naming its perpetrators and acknowledging Israel's basic right to defend itself against the atrocity," the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches were unable to muster up such moral clarity.
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André Villeneuve is Associate Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. He is the author of "Divine Marriage from Eden to the End of Days" (2021), and the founder and director of Catholics for Israel.
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