Nine days after Hamas’s invasion of Israel, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, publicly offered to trade himself for hostages being held by Hamas. This noble, if perhaps empty, gesture suggests something that distinguishes the attitude of the Catholic Church’s chief cleric in Israel from his predecessors, as does the fact that Pizzaballa called Hamas’s deeds “barbaric.” Cole Aronson provides a history of the Latin patriarchate and a profile of the “big, quick-witted, businesslike Italian, fluent in English and Hebrew, with a doctorate from Hebrew University” (on the subject of Jewish texts), who is now patriarch:

Pizzaballa does not admire Hamas. . . . But his patriarchate has also called for a ceasefire since October 7 of last year, when it published a statement condemning the “violence” of unnamed perpetrators against unnamed victims.

Pizzaballa knows the risks to Catholics of public sympathy for Israel. Criticizing Israel, by contrast, wins sympathy from Arab Muslims without eliciting much antipathy from Israeli Jews, who are otherwise engaged. Nor are the Holy Land’s Catholics the only Christians on the patriarch’s mind. According to a Palestinian source inside the patriarchate, the patriarchate did not want Gaza’s Catholics to comply with the Israeli army’s evacuation order from Gaza City early in the war. Apparent Catholic complicity in an Israeli campaign to depopulate Gaza risked setting Mideast Muslims against their Christian neighbors.

Alas, Pizzaballa’s judgment makes a certain brutal, survivalist sense. He gains nothing by saying nothing and might lose everything by blaming Hamas. But he gains something by blaming Israel: extra protection by the only military in the conflict zone that cares about the safety of Christians.

Stephen Daisley writes about the slaying of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim:

Yaron and Sarah were murdered in a climate of lies and vilification and hatred. . . . The more institutions participate in this collective madness, the more madness there will be. The more elected officials and NGOs misrepresent the predictable consequences of asymmetric warfare in densely populated territories, where much of the infrastructure of everyday life has a dual civilian/terrorist purpose, the more the citizenries of North America and Europe will come to regard Israelis and Jews as a people who lust unquenchably after blood.

The most intolerant anti-Zionism is becoming a mainstream view, indulged by liberal societies, more concerned with not conflating irrational hatred of Israel with irrational hatred of Jews—as though the distinction between the two is all that well defined anymore.

For years now, and especially after the October 7 massacre, the call has gone up from the pro-Palestinian movement to put Palestine at the heart of Western politics. To pursue the struggle against Zionism in every country, on every platform, and in every setting. To wage worldwide resistance to Israel, not only in Wadi al-Far’a but in Washington, DC. “Globalize the intifada,” they chanted. This is what it looks like.