The Pope´s Genocide Canard

“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” Pope Francis says in his book Hope Never Disappoints, co-written with Argentine journalist Hernan Reyes Alcaide, which comes out this week in Italy, Spain and Latin America, and later in other countries. “It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies,” he adds. As deplorable as this comment may be, it should surprise no one that the left-leaning and ultra-pacifist Argentine Pope would think -and say- so. An overview of his early statements on the Israel-Hamas war illustrates where the Head of the Vatican stood politically from the beginning.

Pope Francis reacted to the invasion of Israel’s sovereign territory and the subsequent massacre of around 1,200 Israelis, thousands of wounded and more than 250 people kidnapped, mainly with pacifist speeches and generic condemnations of wars. Through his statements, he sought to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians, called for the release of the Israeli hostages, favored reconciliation between the peoples, and hoped to attain a resolution to the conflict. He insistently called to prioritize the well-being of civilians and dreamed of a future free from violence, as he equivocated in facing rhetorically Palestinian Islamic fundamentalism and terror. Overall, he called for the release of Israeli and foreign hostages captured by Palestinian terrorists and balanced those calls with humanitarian appeals on behalf of Gazan civilians. He did not explicitly condemn Hamas or its actions during the first three months after that fateful 10/7, preferring to make vague allusions, and when he clearly repudiated the brutal attack, he did so without naming Hamas. During this early period, he suggested that Israel was committing war crimes and that it had responded “to terror with terror.”

The tone was set at his first Angelus, delivered in St. Peter’s Square, on October 8. Pope Francis declared:

“I am following apprehensively and sorrowfully what is happening in Israel where violence has exploded yet more ferociously, causing hundreds of deaths and injured. I express my closeness to the families of the victims. I am praying for them and for all who are living hours of terror and anguish. May the attacks and weapons stop. Please! And may it be understood that terrorism and war do not lead to any resolutions, but only to the death and suffering of many innocent people. War is a defeat! Every war is a defeat. Let us pray that there be peace in Israel and in Palestine.”

Note that Hamas was neither mentioned nor condemned.

At the end of his weekly audience on October 11, the Holy Father said that “It is the right of those who are attacked to defend themselves, but I am very concerned about the total siege under which the Palestinians are living in Gaza.” The Holy Father had a tense phone call with Israeli President Isaac Herzog shortly thereafter; given that, according to The Washington Post, “The pope was calling their campaign in Gaza an act of terrorism.” He also repeatedly called for a ceasefire, which from the Israeli perspective was tantamount to granting victory to Hamas.

At the end of October, he made a prayer for peace that did not incorporate a condemnation of Palestinian terrorism, choosing instead to stick to spiritual meditations such as “Mary […] Queen of Peace, you suffer with us and for us, as you see so many of your children suffering from the conflicts and wars that are tearing our world apart.” Faithful to his particular vision of equanimity, Francis received in Rome in mid-November both relatives of kidnapped Israelis and relatives of Gazans. “Let us pray for the Palestinian people; let us pray for the Israeli people,” intoned the Pope, “so that peace may come.” After those meetings, he said publicly: “Here we’ve gone beyond war. This isn’t war anymore, this is terrorism;” a phrase that was interpreted as a harsh criticism of Israel. A small controversy arose due to reports -claimed by the Palestinian delegation and denied by the Vatican- that the Supreme Pontiff had called a “genocide” what was happening in the Gaza Strip.

In subsequent Angelus pronouncements the Holy Father repeated his opposition to the war. “Enough! Wars are always a defeat, always!” (October 15); “War is always a defeat; it is a destruction of human fraternity. Brothers, stop! Stop!” (October 22); “Let no one abandon the possibility that weapons may be silenced. Let there be a ceasefire!” (October 29); “In God’s name, I beg you to stop: stop the fighting!” (November 5); “May the weapons be stopped: they will never lead to peace, and may the conflict not widen! Enough! Enough, brothers! Enough!” (November 12); “Those who do not want to dialogue do not want peace” (November 26). In successive speeches he reiterated a few common themes: the pain of war, the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis, the need for a ceasefire and to never stop “trying to take courageous paths to peace.” During the December 17 Angelus in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis called Israel´s prosecution of the war as a form of terror: “I continue to receive very serious and sad news about Gaza. Unarmed civilians are targets for bombs and shootings […] Yes, it is war, it is terrorism.”

On January 8, 2024, on the occasion of his traditional New Year’s greeting to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, Francis delivered one of his most powerful messages up to then. Unlike the Angelus, directed at the Catholic faithful, here the audience was the diplomatic community, and the Pope’s words sounded more emphatic. The Supreme Pontiff once again urged the release of the hostages, asked for a ceasefire – “even in Lebanon” -, and expressed his concern about the events “in Israel and Palestine.” To his credit, he clearly condemned Hamas’s atrocities as he had never done before:

“All of us remain shocked by the October 7 attack on the Israeli people, in which great numbers of innocent persons were horribly wounded, tortured, and murdered, and many taken hostage. I renew my condemnation of this act and of every instance of terrorism and extremism.”

It is worth noting that the Italian version of this speech published at the Vatican website contained the word “terrorist” just before “attack,” whereas the English version omitted it. The Pope chose not to name Hamas explicitly, but stated “my condemnation of this act.” The Holy Father then held the Palestinian Islamist movement responsible for the consequences suffered by Gazans as a result of their invasion:

“This is not the way to resolve disputes between peoples; those disputes are only aggravated and cause suffering for everyone. Indeed, the attack provoked a strong Israeli military response in Gaza that has led to the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians, mainly civilians, including many young people and children, and has caused an exceptionally grave humanitarian crisis and inconceivable suffering.”

As expected in light of the balancing acts typically pursued by Vatican diplomacy, Francis made sure to include this dart at Israel:

“Moreover, modern wars no longer take place only on clearly defined battlefields, nor do they involve soldiers alone. In a context where it appears that the distinction between military and civil targets is no longer respected, there is no conflict that does not end up in some way indiscriminately striking the civilian population. The events in Ukraine and Gaza are clear proof of this. We must not forget that grave violations of international humanitarian law are war crimes…”

That is to say: the Hamas attack against civilians was a “terrorist” act (an attacco terroristico according to the Italian version of Francis´s speech), but Israel commits “war crimes”; even though it never deliberately targets civilians. The moral equivalence was established. “Even when exercising the right of legitimate defense,” the Pope further stated, “it is essential to adhere to a proportionate use of force.” Francis asked the international community to “pursue with determination the solution of two states, one Israeli and one Palestinian, as well as an internationally guaranteed special status for the City of Jerusalem…”. This last comment exceeded the contours of the ongoing war and ventured into the realm of a long-standing Vatican diplomatic aspiration regarding the status of the holy city. In the following Angelus, the Holy Father escalated his anti-war rhetoric by stating that “war is in itself a crime against humanity.”

In sum, throughout his first public statements after October 7, 2023 the Pope protested against the war itself without acknowledging that Hamas was responsible for starting it. He did not denounce Hamas’ well-known practice of embedding its military arsenal and fighters in Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, whether in hospitals, schools, mosques, homes and UN offices. He did not denounce Hamas´s jihadism as a crucial component of a supremacist religious ideology, nor did he call for combating it. The Holy Father did not urge Hamas to desist from continuing this confrontation, limiting himself to asking for the release of the kidnapped people. These calls would have somewhat balanced his repeated exhortations on behaf of Gazan civilians (for whose fate Israel was seen as primarily responsible) and for a ceasefire (which militarily would have only benefited Hamas).

Francis has displayed a staunch pacifism, going so far as to protest against “arms manufacturers”, which revealed a limited understanding of the region´s geopolitical reality: the destructive ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the role played by the ideology of fundamentalism in the Middle East, of the interests of various regional actors and world powers. His expectation of zero collateral casualties, in addition to being unrealistic in the context of a war -any war- was equivalent to demanding the surrender of Israel, which was the attacked nation. That which is “being built on rubble will never be a true victory,” the Pope declared, in disregard of historical precedents that refute this claim: the democratic transformation of Japan, Germany and Italy after the Second World War.

Thus, when Pope Francis asserts “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide”, as he reportedly does in his latest book, that phrase can be viewed as one more regrettable expression of his skewed take on the Israel-Hamas war.