Pope Francis is a paradoxical figure.
Despite leading a church with a long, scandalous history of being synonymous with strife, injustice and abuse, the old and ailing Argentine Jesuit strikes me as, at his core, a humble cleric who hates human suffering and misery.
Like you and me, the Pope can see what Israel has done with such merciless brutality to the Palestinians besieged for more than a year in the barren, dystopian wastes of Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
I believe that Francis understands that witnessing human suffering and misery on an almost incomprehensible scale demands a response, that silence in the dire prevailing circumstances means, at least, brave acceptance and, at worst, complicity in conscious.
So, to his credit, the Pope has said what needed to be said.
The Pope has, in fact, abandoned neutrality in favor of a raw and refreshing honesty to declare – in plain language – his sympathy and solidarity for the millions of Palestinian victims of Israel’s merciless killing lust.
I am confident that Francis will be remembered for taking an honorable stand at the right time for the right reasons, while many other “leaders” in Europe and beyond have armed an apartheid regime with weapons and diplomatic cover to created a 21 still unfolding. genocide of the century.
Francis will also be remembered for resisting attempts to intimidate or bully him into qualifying or retracting statements made from the “heart” that Israel is guilty of “atrocity” while methodically going about reducing most of Gaza and the West Bank in dust. and memory.
Instead, buoyed by the truth and a proper sense of justice, the pope has refused to back down or “tender” his remarks.
The Pope’s defiance is not only admirable, but also tangible evidence that he has no intention of abandoning the Palestinians. So many charlatans have abandoned them, claiming unconvincingly that they are horrified by how many innocents have been killed and by the gruesome manner of their deaths.
What have Pope Francis and the Vatican said and done to draw the apoplectic wrath of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the legion of apologists for the war accused 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 as disproportionate given the number of Palestinians killed suddenly under sustained bombardment or slowly by starvation and disease.
“Israel’s right to self-defense must be proportionate, and with 30,000 dead, it certainly isn’t,” Parolin said at the time.
Israel’s response was as swift as it was predictable. Concerned diplomats attached to Israel’s embassy in the Holy See issued a message calling Parolin’s comments “deplorable.”
Yes, I agree. The truth can sometimes be “miserable”. However, it remains the truth.
Since then, of course, the “dire” Palestinian death toll has risen to more than 45,000 killed – mostly children and women – with an estimated 108,000 more wounded, often seriously.
Meanwhile, many Palestinians have endured forced marches to and from phantom “safe zones” in Gaza, where they are bombed as they seek futile shelter in makeshift “homes” amid the rubble or freeze to death in flimsy rain-soaked tents. and mud.
Then, in parts of the book published by the Italian daily La Stampa in late November, the Pope argued that a number of international experts found that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide”.
“We must investigate carefully to assess whether this fits into the technical definition (of genocide) formulated by jurists and international organizations,” the Pope said.
Once again, Israeli officials reacted with fury, insisting that the Pope’s remarks were “baseless” and amounted to a “flattening” of the term “genocide”.
The hyperbolic response was curious after the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled almost unanimously in January that South Africa had made a credible case that Israel had shown intent to commit genocide.
As a result, the court had, according to international law, to proceed with a full hearing and, ultimately, make a decision on the question posed by the Pope: Is Israel guilty of the crime of genocide in Gaza?
Amnesty International issued its verdict in early December, concluding “that Israel has committed and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.”
Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said Israel’s “specific aim” 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 intent to physically destroy them,” she added.
With credible innuendo, Israel and its proxies dismissed Amnesty International as a nest of anti-Semites in a pedestrian attempt to discredit its damning findings.
It’s much harder to hit the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics with the same tired crap after he accuses you of “cruelty.”
In his Christmas address, Francis condemned the killing of children in an Israeli airstrike the day before.
“The children were bombed yesterday. This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart,” said the Pope.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican’s ambassador for a stern talking-to to convey what it said was its “deep displeasure” with the Pope’s blunt comments.
According to Israeli media reports, the meeting did not amount to a “formal reprimand”. I’m sure the Vatican was relieved.
What I find instructive is that the Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed its “deep displeasure” with the Pope’s justified use of a three-syllable word and not the fact that its marauding forces have killed 45,541 Palestinians and counting at just over 14 month.
In any case, I think the Pope showed remarkable restraint. He could have described the grief, loss and anguish that Israel has caused in Gaza and the occupied West Bank – without a moment’s regret or remorse – as shameful, disgusting or contrary to decency and humanity, let alone the rules of ” the war”.
I suspect that the “atrocity” has struck a chord because it is a poignant reflection of Amnesty International’s finding that Israel’s primary goal is to orchestrate the wholesale destruction of Gaza and the desperate souls it truly considers “subhuman.” .
Israel’s “cruelty” is deliberate. It is not a “mistake” or a regrettable byproduct of the sudden vagaries of the “madness” of war.
Cruelty is a choice.
The unspoken dividend of this choice is that the author takes an intoxicating measure of satisfaction, if not pleasure, in exacting his unfettered vengeance on a largely defenseless people.
This is the essence of cruelty.
Pope Francis didn’t say that, but he might as well have.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
