Since the end of World War II, the Vatican has tried hard to make up for its centuries of attacks on the Jewish people, including the Crusades, the Inquisition, priest-incited pogroms, and theological claims that the Jews killed Jesus. The Vatican’s complicity in genocide during World War II took the form of Pope Pius XII’s refusal to create a “crisis of conscience” among German Catholics by forbidding them from participating in the mass murder of Jews.
Since the death of Pope Pius XII, the Vatican has tried hard to make up for its sordid history. Pope Paul VI led the way by repudiating the allegation of collective Jewish guilt for deicide, with Pope John Paul II speaking of the Jewish faith as the ancestor of the Christian religion. In 1993, the Vatican, after too many years of silence, finally recognized the State of Israel, and over time, the relationships between the Vatican and the nation-state of the Jewish people improved.
Now comes Pope Francis, who has been afflicted with a bad case of “Palestinianism” — an obsessive focus on Palestinian rights to the minimization of concern for far more deserving groups around the world. In an act that flies in the face of the Christian Bible, the Vatican recently featured a nativity scene which laid the baby Jesus on a keffiyeh, thus accepting the false Palestinian narrative that Jesus was a Palestinian and not a Jew.
The Bible of the Catholic Church expressly states that Jesus was born a Jew in the Judean city with the Hebrew name of Beth Lechem (“House of Bread,” Bethlehem in English). He was born there on what has now become Christmas, around the time of the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah. He was circumcised as a Jew on New Years Day. He preached as a Jewish rabbi in the Jewish area called the Galil (Galilee in English). He was crucified as a Jewish enemy of the Romans in Jerusalem. During his lifetime, he never heard the word Christian. He lived as a Jew and died as a Jew. He did not wear a keffiyeh. The Muslim faith only began 600 years after his death. It would have been more appropriate for the Vatican to lay the baby on a Jewish tallit (prayer shawl) and wearing a Magen David (star of David). The Vatican willfully violated their own teachings by falsely trying to present him as a Palestinian.
Much more seriously, Pope Francis has joined the chorus of blood libelers who have accused Israel of genocide, writing: “According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.” This indictment is totally false as a matter of fact, law and morality. The Vatican knows what genocide is. It perfected this crime against humanity during the Crusades, the Inquisition and the priest-inspired pogroms that led to the Holocaust. Genocide requires an intent to destroy an entire religious, racial or ethnic group, without exceptions. It does not include acts of self-defense, such as those engaged in by the Israel Defense Forces following the massacres of October 7, 2023.
The Hamas claim that Israel has killed 45,000 Palestinians has now been debunked by several studies (such as here and here). This absurdly exaggerated figure includes thousands of Palestinians who died of cancer and other diseases. It includes Palestinians who were killed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets and by Hamas’s own murderous actions against fellow Palestinians who oppose its tyranny. It counts as children 16- and 17-year-old terrorists who have been recruited by Hamas to murder Jews. It includes as “civilians” people who directly participated in the murders and rapes on October 7.
The Hamas figures have turned men into women, adults into children and combatants into innocents. The reality is that Israel has killed far fewer civilians in relation to combatants than any nation in history while fighting comparable urban wars, especially where Hamas combatants hide among civilians, precisely in order to induce Israel to kill as many civilians as possible.
The Israel Defense Force does more to protect truly innocent civilians than any other nation in history.
The Catholic Church is a great institution that does so much good around the world. Its wonderful teachings have informed millions of followers to do great deeds. The current pope, a South American with “woke,” left-wing leanings, is doing a disservice to this glorious tradition. By accepting Palestinianism and supporting the Hamas narrative, he is siding with the enemies of Christianity, the enemies of Judaism and the enemies of decency. I will not curse Pope Francis; the Bible has already done so:
“Now the LORD had said unto Abram…. And I will make of thee a great nation…. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee.”
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of “The Dershow” podcast.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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