Rome — wall street journal' editorial board accused Pope Francis of choosing “sides” against Israel in the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The council said the Pope “took sides in the war between Hamas and Israel. The headlines all read 'Pope,' 'Israel,' and 'genocide,' a major victory for anti-Israel forces.” Ta. said In this week's editorial.
As reported by Breitbart News, in a book-length interview with Hernan Reyes Alcaide, Hope Never Disappoints: A Pilgrim for a Better WorldThe Pope called for a “careful investigation” by international experts to determine whether Israel's military actions in Gaza met the “technical definition” of genocide.
“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide,” the pope said in the book, excerpts of which were published last Sunday.
Pope Francis had already described Israel's military invasion of Gaza as “terrorism” and “genocide,” but he significantly escalated his comments by suggesting that Israel's actions could amount to genocide.
The magazine's editorial states, “At a time when Jews are fighting for survival on a variety of fronts against an enemy who seeks to destroy them, the Pope has committed genocide against Jews who are themselves victims of genocide.'' There is something alarming about making these accusations.”
“Especially after the brutal October 7 massacre of unarmed Israeli civilians that started the war and Hamas' subsequent strategy of using innocent Palestinian civilians as human shields,” the paper said. added.
By using the word genocide, WSJ editors said, “Pope Francis has brought Gaza no closer to peace.” “All he did was give aid and comfort to the enemies of the Jews and of civilized society as a whole.”
Pope Francis' words also prompted a swift reaction from the Israeli embassy in the Holy See, rejecting any comparisons between Israel's military operations and genocide.
in a statement published Regarding X, the embassy said: “The October 7 massacre was a genocide against the Israeli people. Israel is acting in self-defense in accordance with international law. Any attempt to call this self-defense by another name is an attempt to name the Jewish state. Become.”
Last week, Italian Holocaust survivors also criticized Pope Francis for suggesting that Israel's actions in Gaza could be considered “genocide.”
“Genocide is something else. You can talk about genocide when a million children are burned to death,” Edith Brooke, 93, said in an interview with an Italian daily on Monday. La Repubblica.
Mr Brooke, a Hungarian-born Jew and survivor of Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen, said the bloodshed in Gaza was “a tragedy that concerns us all”, but said Israel would seek to eliminate all Palestinians. He argued that he was not doing so.
That's rather what Hamas “wants to do,” she said, noting that Hamas has said it “wants to wipe out the Jews of the entire world.”
The risk of using the word “genocide'' too easily is that “using it in inappropriate situations diminishes the seriousness of the actual genocide.'' Genocide is something else,” she said.
“The Armenian genocide was a genocide. The one million children who were burned in the ovens of Auschwitz were a genocide, along with the other five million Jews who were also burned in concentration camps,” she said. declared.
