Haus Jakob

In response to the recent controversies over Israel, this blog discusses the three reasons why Catholics should support the State of Israel, even to the extent of disregarding the allegations of the so-called “Gaza genocide.”

Reason I: Catholics are not called to only support perfect countries or to support countries only out of theological obligations

All man-made states are flawed, the State of Israel as much as the Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Holy Roman Empire. Humility requires Catholics to acknowledge the fact that perfection can only be achieved by God, and that a perfect state can only be established by God (Apoc. 21:2). Our Lord once encouraged His disciples to give tribute to Caesar (Luke 20:25), the leader of the Roman Empire, a deeply flawed pagan state that would unjustly put Him and many of His disciples to death. The Prince of the Apostles, inspired by the Holy Ghost, also exhorts the people shepherded by him to “Honour the king” (1 Peter 2:17).

It is true that many countries currently in existence are founded upon non- or even anti-Christian ideas. Even for these countries, the Holy Mother Church does not always call for their annihilation. For instance, knowing that the People’s Republic of China has been founded by “the enemies of all religion, especially of the religion divinely revealed by Jesus Christ,” Pope Pius XII, moved by the Holy Ghost, nevertheless exhorts Chinese Catholics to give “respectful homage to [their] public authorities in the field of their competency” and “to fulfill all [their] duties as citizens,” insofar as such deeds do not contradict their servanthood to God. As St. Paul writes, “those that are, are ordained of God” (Romans 13:1). It is God Who allows imperfect, non-Christian countries to exist for His reasons, which are not always clear to us. What is clear is that “they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation” (Romans 13:2).

The State of Israel was founded in 1948, as “a Jewish State,” under the influence of “the Zionist Movement.” Both terms here can be ambiguous. Jewish can indicate an ethnic group, the members of which constituted the early Catholic Church. It can also mean the believers of Judaism, a false religion “related to Christianity, in the same manner the devil is related to God.” The Zionist Movement or Zionism can mean both the movement to establish a secular state where ethnic Jews can live free from violent persecution, and the effort to establish a theocratic state framed around the false religion of Judaism and/or exclusively for the believers of Judaism.

It has to be clarified beforehand that it can be a mortal sin for Catholics to partake in Judaism or Jewish celebrations (Cantate Domino, The Council of Florence), and it can be impermissible for Catholics to support the State of Israel out of non-secular Zionism, which is to presume that the State of Israel has a theological mandate to claim certain territories in the Middle East. Our Lord has declared Himself that He was not “come to destroy, but to fulfil” the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17). This means that the collection of people known as Israel in the Old Testament, under the guidance of the covenantal Law, revealed to them by God, proclaimed and enforced by the Prophets, has been fulfilled in the Person of Christ our Lord and continues as the Church founded by Christ Himself, which is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church (Matt. 16:18). For this reason, just as God called His chosen people Israel “a priestly kingdom, and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), the Prince of the Apostles calls the Church of Christ, “a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation”, and moreover “a purchased people” (1 Peter 2:9). The sole purpose of Biblical Israel is to prepare humanity for the first coming of Christ, Who has purchased the entire world with His Passion and Death. If Biblical Israel still exists, it continues to exist as the Holy Catholic Church. The State of Israel, founded in 1948, has therefore no theological mandate to exist.

However, the lack of theological mandates does not automatically disqualify any countries from existing. Otherwise, some 99% of the world’s population today would be stateless. Catholics can nonetheless support certain countries for secular or practical reasons, even though there are no theological obligations to do so.

Reason II: Israel gives Christianity more freedom than its adversaries

Although Israel is called “a Jewish State,” only 73.5% of its population is religiously Jewish. Meanwhile, 1.9% of the Israeli population is Christian. As for its major opponents in the same region, namely the Gaza Strip and Iran, 98-99% of the population of the Gaza Strip and 98.5% of the Iranian population are of the Muhammadan religion, the major religious group in each of these two adversaries of Israel. However, less than 1% of the populations of the Gaza Strip (<1.0%) and of Iran (0.7%), respectively, are Christian. Since these data are from secular sources, almost certainly, not the entire “Christian” populations mentioned above can be recognised as true Christians. For instance, a certain portion of these “Christian” populations are known to be members of the heretical Vatican II Counter-Church, and therefore not true Christians. Nevertheless, these data show that Israel is most certainly not a theocratic state exclusively for the adherents of Judaism, and that Israel is more open to Christianity in a general sense than its adversaries.

The Holy Catholic Church prays for the conversion of the Jews, particularly in the Liturgy of Good Friday, with the recognition of God’s mercy on them. Pope St. Pius X allegedly said thus to Zionist Theodor Herzl, during an audience with him in 1904:

“Indeed, we also pray for [the Jews]: that their minds be enlightened. This very day the Church is celebrating the feast of an unbeliever who, on the road to Damascus, became miraculously converted to the true faith. And so, if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we shall have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you.”

Once again, the emphasis of the Holy Father was on the conversion of the Jews to Catholicism. During the decades subsequent to the audience, the persecution of Jews—ethnic and religious alike—rapidly intensified in Europe and beyond, which often escalated into massacres of Jewish people, such as the Pogroms and the Holocaust. Since dead men cannot convert, it had become necessary for the Jews to have their own sovereign and defensible land in order to live free from violence and persecution, so they might have a chance to convert.

Since its founding in 1948, not only has the State of Israel provided the Jews—ethnic and religious alike—with a defensible home, but it has also become one of the most likely places in the Middle East where “churches and priests” can be “ready to baptize,” at the wish of Pope St. Pius X. The State of Israel is indeed an imperfect, man-made state, with no theological mandate to exist, just like the over 200 others in this world. Supporting Israel, especially in terms of military, will indeed have negative effects, such as the loss of lives in the military conflicts between Israel and its adversaries. This blog has no intention to prove or disprove the so-called “Gaza genocide” allegedly committed by Israel, among other details in those military conflicts. However, it has to be clarified that the Holy Scriptures teach that even genocide can be not only permissible but also willed and commanded by God, when two nations simply cannot coexist (cfr. 1 Kings 15:3).

The adversaries of Israel indeed call for its total annihilation, particularly with their (in)famous “from the river to the sea” slogan, and reject any proposal of coexistence with the Jewish State, with their intermittent attacks on Israel. Under such circumstances, it is already permissible for Israel, as a sovereign state, to commit genocide against the hostile states in self-defence, from the perspective of the Holy Scriptures. For Catholics, the choice is between Israel, a country allowing Christians to practice their Faith freely and welcoming tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims annually, and its adversaries, Muhammadan theocratic states driving Christianity towards extinction, such as Iran and the Gaza Strip under the leadership of the Islamic Resistance Movement or Hamas.

St. Thomas Aquinas argues that “moral acts take their species according to what is intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental” (Summa Theologiæ, q. 64 art. 7), in line with the Scriptures that “If a thief be found breaking open a house or undermining it, and be wounded so as to die: he that slew him shall not be guilty of blood” (Exodus 22:2). In supporting Israel, Catholics do not necessarily intend for the genocide of people in the Gaza Strip, the majority of whom too need to survive in order to convert, but we must accept such a reality as an unintended, accidental, and yet inevitable effect of securing the only remaining foothold of Catholicism in the Middle East, so that the Jews and Muhammadans in that region may one day be illuminated by the light of the Gospel and convert to Catholicism. Alas, there is no cause nobler than this.

Reason III: The Bible proves that the ethnic Jews are native to the Middle East

While the first two reasons deal with why Catholics should support the founding and existence of the State of Israel, the third reason deals with why it is ideal to have Israel situated in its current location. All ethnic groups claim their rights to certain land and water based on myths or histories. This is the reason why Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians have been granted certain rights and titles to portions of land and water in the Americas and Australia, respectively. Catholics are required to believe that the Holy Bible has the most credible and infallible collection of history books, infinitely more credible than the myths of indigenous peoples around the world. The books in the Holy Bible, together with archaeological evidence, prove the ancestral title of Jewish people, as an ethnic group, to a territory in the Middle East, that a certain portion of land in the Middle East, even larger than the State of Israel today, is the ancestral domain of Jewish people.

Even though the Holy Mother Church has not issued any doctrinal declaration regarding indigenous land rights, 16th-century theologian Fr. Francisco de Vitoria argues that unbelievers should not be deprived of their right of ownership due to their unbelief, that “It is clear that it is not lawful to take away the possessions of Saracens, Jews, or other unbelievers on the grounds of their unbelief per se; to do so is theft or robbery, no less than it would be in the case of Christians” (p. 244). Applying this argument to indigenous rights and territorial claims, if indigenous peoples in the Americas and Australia can be granted indigenous rights to certain land and water, based on their myths, Jewish people most certainly have the right to claim a territory in the Middle East, based on the Holy Scriptures. This is a juristic question rather than a theological one, irrespective of whether the State of Israel has a theological mandate to exist. Therefore, since we have proven that it is necessary to allow Jewish people to have their own country, it is the most ideal scenario to let them build this country in their ancestral domain. Denying the ancestral title of Jewish people to the territory of Israel is to deny the credibility of the Holy Scriptures.