Francis’ sweeping indictment of all wars, regardless of how or why they are fought, buttresses his claim that violence is inherently self-defeating (“always, always, always a defeat”)—a ruse orchestrated by those who want to increase suffering and death. There can be no justifiable military action, for what lurks behind claims that war is just is selfishness and greed: “What is really at stake [in war] are the power struggles between different social groups [and] partisan economic interests” (6/7/24). These, he argues, are what “really” prompt wars and conflict. As an example, he says war serves no goal but the enrichment of those who sell weapons. No people or country can presumably decide rationally and appropriately to employ force, for they are certain to suffer a net loss. “The only ones to gain [in war] are arms manufacturers” (11/19/23). They “profit the most” (4/24/24).

This is a reductionist perception of history, as if Francis can discern what motivates combatants. (Were Hitler’s motives in WWII in fact no different from those of Churchill and Roosevelt, and is it not possible to make any moral distinction between the war of conquest fought by the Nazis and the defensive wars fought by the nations they attacked and sought to obliterate?) In this way, Francis’ judgment becomes speculative and undermines his admission that some forms of war are acceptable (while tragic and undesirable). According to his logic here, however, war becomes inherently unacceptable. In effect, there is no longer any evaluation needed and no reason to consider the claims of a potential combatant. In fact, casting a skeptical eye over wars from “recent decades,” he bemoans that “every single war has been ostensibly ‘justified,’” maybe with surreptitious help from those who will profit (FT 258). Again, this sort of sweeping judgment is symptomatic of a false dichotomy and leads him to the opposite extreme: If wars have been justified on spurious grounds, then he demands “never again war.”

It is on these spurious foundations that Francis erects his misleading characterizations of the two main combatants in the Israel-Hamas war, the State of Israel and Hamas. In over a year, he has never once mentioned Hamas by name, though mentions of Israel are ubiquitous. This imbalance is significant, not just because it is unsettling to fail to name (and describe the tactics of) one of the aggressors to a conflict (especially one widely considered a terrorist group), but because his studied ambiguity precludes a critical engagement with the nature of Hamas and other opponents.

Francis’ thinking seems constrained by outdated assumptions about the parties to a conflict. He speaks as if he is commenting on a conflict between two warring nation-states. He addresses his comments to both parties equally (again, without naming Hamas), asking for a cease-fire and the release of hostages (10/11/23, 12/10/23, 6/7/24, 9/15/24). However, it is clear that his comments are actually relevant for and directed almost entirely at Israel. For example, in pleading for an end to fighting, he appeals to law (“international humanitarian law”), our shared humanity (“the defence of human dignity”), and practical political goals (1/8/24). These are couched in language suitable for a modern democracy such as Israel, which, at least in theory, aspires to legal and moral behavior. However, this imbalance reveals his misunderstanding of the nature of Hamas.

Hamas is above all an extreme religious group committed in principle to the violent elimination of the State of Israel, even at the cost of its members’ own lives and the lives of innocent fellow Palestinians under its rule. Its leaders publicly affirm a desire to murder Israeli civilians. Hamas’ very existence as a terrorist organization is a transgression of international law, as is its leaders’ promise that they would repeat the murderous violence of Oct. 7 “again and again” if given the chance. Neither moral nor legal expectations have any relevance to Hamas, even if it has also served as leadership in Gaza. In light of this terrible reality, Francis’ hope that “the leaders of nations and the parties in [this] conflict may find the way to peace and unity … [and] all recognize each other as brothers and sisters” (6/7/24; see also 9/13/24) seems not just imbalanced but indifferent to reality. Hamas has repeatedly said the opposite: It endorses unyielding violence until victory. In this conflict, then, only one party—Israel—has leaders who even speak the same moral “language” as Francis. His hope, then, perhaps could have made sense in a conflict between two modern nation-states. That is definitely not the nature of the present conflict, and it is puzzling that Francis persists in seeing or presenting it this way.

There are a wide range of explanations for and understandings of the hostility that exists between Israel and numerous state and nonstate actors. In some cases, there are relatively explicable, pragmatic reasons for conflict. This is clearest in the tragic conflict with Palestinians, given disputes over land, sovereignty, and control of holy sites, among other things. Regardless of one’s biases, it is generally possible to understand rationally why there have been decades of clashes between the sides. However, some of Israel’s opponents have much less rational goals in a pragmatic, political sense and are primarily influenced by ideologically and religiously based hostility. Thus, Hezbollah in Lebanon, following Israel’s 2006 withdrawal from a security zone in the south, lost the justification it gave for maintaining its aggression. Nonetheless, it vigorously continued to prepare for war and invasion. Iran and proxies such as the Yemeni Houthis, both more than a thousand miles away, lack any obvious reasons for hostility toward Israel. They have no dispute over resources or borders or competing historical claims. Likewise, with Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Hamas too achieved almost all its ostensible goals, including political power over Gaza. The vital thread connecting these opponents is the motivation for their antipathy: not practical and explicable interests, perhaps amenable to negotiation and resolution, but unyielding, religiously based hatred.

Irrational hatred, grounded in extremist religious and ideological claims, has exploded in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the last few decades, especially among Jews and Muslims and among Israelis and Arabs. Most relevant here is the emergence of vitriolic anti-Judaism and antisemitism among Palestinians and other Muslims. As noted, while some conflicts can be understood rationally, Israel’s opponents have increasingly expressed their motivations in explicitly theological terms, using venomous language not just against Israelis but against Jews and indeed all Westerners. This turns Israelis into Jewish enemies of God and usurpers of Muslim land; this also turns a traditionally political and secular conflict into a religious war.

For example, Hamas’ recent official video bluntly says, “O Lord … let us kill your enemies, the Jews.” Likewise, the language of other aggressors is viciously antisemitic and anti-Jewish. The Houthis’ slogan illustrates this as well: “God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.” Hezbollah’s charter says its goal is Israel’s “final obliteration from existence.” Former leader Hassan Nasrallah spoke of Jews in terms borrowed from medieval antisemitism and anti-Jewish Quranic surahs (e.g., 82). Iran, the backer of these organizations, has made hatred of Israel and Jews a fundamental aspect of state policy since 1979 and, like Hezbollah, undertakes terror attacks against Jews throughout the world. Though sometimes these opponents insist they only hate Zionists or Israelis, not Jews, their actions and discourse indicate otherwise. Expressions of vicious hostility toward Jews, the use of traditional anti-Jewish tropes, and annihilationist threats of destruction of the only Jewish state are ubiquitous.

This context is directly relevant to Francis’ comments on and understanding of the Israel-Hamas war. Francis, with rare exceptions, ignores or minimizes the nature of the threats faced by Israel. While he usually speaks generally and succinctly about world events, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict consistently gets not only more attention than any other topic but typically occupies the first place in most of his reviews of international conflicts. Likewise, his specific commitment to the Jewish people reasonably raises expectations that he will be especially sensitive to threats to their well-being.

Without any military capabilities, all a pope has is his moral stature, and this current pope, who is widely respected, speaks with great authority on diverse moral questions. It is for this reason that his statements are so puzzling and undermine the admirable stances to which he has committed himself and the Church. Thus, it is surprising that Francis neglects to note that Israel’s enemies seek not a conventional military victory but the total destruction of the country and consequent immediate endangerment of all its citizens. This goal is uniquely malevolent. None of the other countries he mentions face state and / or nonstate actors seeking their physical elimination. (Russia’s attempt to conquer Ukraine does include acts of mass murder and is intended to impose brutal Russian control over the country.) Francis is sensitive to this possibility in general and denounces it: “No-one should threaten the existence of other [countries]” (4/14/24). Despite these avowed goals of Israel’s enemies, Francis never acknowledges this as distinctly genocidal in intent.

Francis harshly and regularly denounces terrorism (in the usual sense of the term) when looking at other parts of the world (e.g., an attack on innocent civilians in Kerman, Iran). He is also sensitive to the religious aspects of terrorist violence, especially for minority religious groups (1/6/24). However, when he mentions terrorism in the context of the Israel-Hamas war, he always lumps it in with other actions (such as “terrorism and war” [noted above, from 12/17/23] or “terrorism and extremism” [10/11/23, 1/8/24]). He never notes the distinctive features of terrorism nor the labeling of Hamas—the main aggressor in Gaza—as a terrorist organization. He obfuscates the deep moral divide between these two terrible but profoundly different acts.

Why does Francis fail to live up to the moral and historical commitments to Jews that he emphatically endorses? Does the appearance of anti-Judaism in the context of a war explain his silence? Perhaps he prefers to speak out against hatred of Jews only when Jews are exclusively victims.

Yet the presence of Jewish combatants (some of whom sometimes may transgress moral and international laws, as do members of all other legitimate armies) should not obviate his concern. From a moral and practical standpoint, there are, along with many Palestinian victims, Jewish victims, whose lives were lost because of the unyielding and genocidal acts of their aggressors. Do the terrible losses suffered by Palestinians make his concern for Jews moot? That would undermine the seriousness with which he speaks about the Jewish-Catholic relationship and suggest he has only finite reserves of compassion or imbalanced sympathies. Perhaps Francis hopes to maintain a future role as a negotiator and thus refrains from naming and describing Israel’s aggressors. That, however, seems a very high price to pay morally and reputationally for potential influence in negotiations in the future.

None of these explanations alone suffice here, for Francis’ political and religious views are complex and sometimes inconsistent. This might be understandable had not the Church determined to break with its own history of hostility toward the Jewish people and promised to say “no to any form of anti-Semitism and [to condemn] any insult, discrimination and persecution derived from that” (10/28/15). It is hard to see the pope’s recent statements as fulfillments of that promise.