Pope Francis is a paradoxical figure.
Although he leads a Church with a long and egregious history of conflict, injustice and abuse, the ailing old Argentine Jesuit strikes me, deep down, as a modest clergyman who abhors human suffering and misery.
Like you and me, the Pope can see what Israel did with such ruthless ferocity to besiege the Palestinians for over a year in the barren, dystopian remnants of Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
I believe Francis understands that bearing witness to human suffering and misery on an almost incomprehensible scale requires a response, that silence in today’s terrible circumstances means, at least, blithe acceptance and, at worst, conscious complicity.
It is therefore to his credit that the pontiff said what needed to be said.
The Pope has, in fact, abandoned neutrality in favor of raw and refreshing honesty to declare – with frank language – his sympathy and solidarity with the millions of Palestinian victims of Israel’s relentless murderous thirst.
I am confident that Francis will be remembered for taking an honorable stand at the right time for the right reasons, while so many other “leaders” in Europe and beyond armed an apartheid regime with weapons and diplomatic cover to organize a 21st century still in development. genocide of the century.
Francis will also be remembered for rebuffing efforts to intimidate or intimidate him into qualifying or retracting statements made “from the bottom of his heart” that Israel is guilty of “cruelty” as it strives methodically to reduce a large part of Gaza and the West Bank to dust. and memory.
Instead, backed by truth and a righteous sense of righteousness, the pontiff refused to back down or “soften” his words.
The pope’s defiance is not only admirable but also tangible proof that he has no intention of abandoning the Palestinians. Many charlatans abandoned them, claiming, unconvincingly, to be appalled by the number of innocent people killed and the gruesome manner of their deaths.
What have Pope Francis and the Vatican said and done to arouse the apoplectic wrath of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the accused war criminal’s legion of apologists at home and abroad?
Israel’s apoplexy began in earnest in February. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin denounced Israel’s so-called military campaign, calling it disproportionate given the number of Palestinians killed suddenly under constant bombardment or slowly due to famine and the disease.
“Israel’s right to self-defense must be proportional, and with 30,000 dead, that is certainly not the case,” Parolin said at the time.
Israel’s response was as swift as it was predictable. Agitated diplomats attached to the Israeli embassy to the Holy See issued a missive calling Parolin’s comments “deplorable.”
Yes, I agree. The truth can sometimes be “deplorable”. However, this remains the truth.
Since then, of course, the “deplorable” number of Palestinian casualties has exploded with more than 45,000 killed – mostly children and women – and around 108,000 others injured, often seriously.
Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinians have endured forced marches to and from phantom “safe zones” in Gaza where they are bombarded while seeking futile refuge in makeshift “houses” amid the rubble or dying from cold in fragile tents swallowed up by rain and mud.
Then, in book extracts published by the Italian daily La Stampa at the end of November, the pontiff affirmed that a number of international experts had estimated that “what is happening in Gaza presents the characteristics of a genocide”.
“We should investigate carefully to assess whether this corresponds to the technical definition (of genocide) formulated by jurists and international organizations,” the pope said.
Once again, Israeli officials reacted with fury, insisting that the pontiff’s comments were “baseless” and amounted to a “trivialization” of the term “genocide.”
The hyperbolic response was curious since the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled almost unanimously in January that South Africa had presented plausible arguments demonstrating that Israel had demonstrated the intent to commit genocide.
Accordingly, the court was required by international law to conduct a full hearing and ultimately render a decision on the question posed by the pope: Is Israel guilty of the crime of genocide in Gaza?
Amnesty International delivered its verdict in early December, concluding “that Israel has committed and continues to commit genocide against the Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.”
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said Israel’s “specific intention” was “to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza.”
“Month after month, Israel has treated the Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intention to physically destroy them,” she added.
Based on reliable evidence, Israel and its surrogates have labeled Amnesty International a nest of anti-Semites in a modest attempt to discredit its damning findings.
It’s much harder to tar the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics with the same tired canard after he accuses you of “cruelty.”
In his Christmas speech, Francis condemned the killing of children in an Israeli airstrike the day before.
“Yesterday, children were bombed. It’s cruelty. It’s not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart,” the pontiff said.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican ambassador for a close interview to reportedly express its “deep dissatisfaction” with the pope’s direct comments.
According to Israeli media, the meeting did not constitute a “formal reprimand.” I’m sure the Vatican was relieved.
What I find instructive is that the Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed “deep dissatisfaction” with the pontiff’s justified use of a three-syllable word and not with the fact that his marauding forces killed 45,541 Palestinians in just over 14 months.
Regardless, I think the Pope showed remarkable restraint. He could have described the grief, loss and anguish that Israel has brought to Gaza and the occupied West Bank – without a moment of regret or remorse – as obscene, abhorrent or contrary to decency and humanity, without talk about the rules of “war”.
I suspect that “cruelty” touches a nerve because it scathingly reflects Amnesty International’s conclusion that Israel’s overriding intention is to engineer the mass destruction of Gaza and the desperate souls it effectively considers as “subhuman”.
Israel’s “cruelty” is deliberate. This is not a “mistake” or an unfortunate by-product of the unexpected vagaries of the “madness” of war.
Cruelty is a choice.
The unspoken dividend of this choice is that the perpetrator derives an intoxicating measure of satisfaction, even pleasure, from taking unapologetic revenge on a largely defenseless people.
This is the essence of cruelty.
Pope Francis did not say this, but he might as well have done so.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
