The Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, caused a deep rupture in Western public opinion, polarizing the debate between supporters of Israel and advocates of the Palestinian cause. Yet the stakes go far beyond the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the historical tensions of the Middle East: what is emerging is a strategic confrontation between blocs of power.
On one side, the West and its fragile internal consensus; on the other, the Russo-Chinese axis, which includes Iran and, by extension, Palestine. The conflict thus becomes a mirror of the new global fault lines, where each camp reflects opposing visions of order, sovereignty, and civilization.
This is not the place to delve into the geopolitical significance of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which is, in truth, a regional expression of the broader Israeli–Iranian tension. In this article, and in one to follow soon, I will instead focus on the reasons—and the suitability—that might lead a Catholic to side with one of the two factions.
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In brief, one can say that the Catholic falls into an ideological trap when actively aligning with either side. The notion that geopolitical polarization necessarily demands a moral stance is the product of media and ideological pressure—it is not a moral imperative.
I will begin by analyzing the motivations that might lead a Catholic to actively support the Zionist cause.
Preliminary caveat: as a Catholic, I consider it essential to distinguish between individuals and the state apparatuses that claim to represent them. My analysis does not target either the Jewish or Arab peoples; but rather, it seeks to examine the ideological and political structures that fuel the conflict. I therefore express my deepest solidarity with all innocent victims—Jewish, Arab, Christian, and others—who have suffered violence, abuse, or instrumentalization, regardless of the motives behind such acts.
The critique presented here is directed at political and theological visions incompatible with Catholic doctrine—not at the dignity of individuals or their natural right to life and the pursuit of truth. Any reading that confuses this distinction between persons and ideological structures misrepresents the meaning of my words.
Zionism Is a Kind of Socialism
The first point of incompatibility between Catholicism and Zionism lies in the ideological genesis of the latter. Zionism emerged in the 19th century as a secular—nonreligious—political movement, which reinterpreted the broader current of socialism through an ethno-nationalist lens. By socialism, I mean that political doctrine which asserts the absolute primacy of the life of the State (as modernly conceived) over the life of the individual.
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Now, the Church’s social doctrine has explicitly condemned socialism in all its forms, beginning with Rerum Novarum (1891), and with even greater clarity in Quadragesimo Anno (1931), which affirms that socialism—even in its moderate expressions—is irreconcilable with Catholic principles. This condemnation was reiterated in Centesimus Annus (1991), albeit in a tone more theological than anthropological.
If Zionism is, as acknowledged by many of its own founders—most notably, Theodor Herzl—a subspecies of socialism, then it inherits an ideological structure already rejected by the pontifical magisterium.
At the Root of a Misunderstanding: Political or Religious Question?
To this must be added the fact that Zionism, by definition, is the movement that promotes the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel—or Palestine, as it was renamed by the Romans (meaning “Land of the Philistines,” as a deliberate affront to the Jews who repeatedly rebelled against imperial rule)—with the aim of establishing a Jewish state. Thus, alongside its socialist and statist dimension, Zionism also carries a religious component. These are, therefore, the two elements that must be taken into account.
The centuries-old aspiration of the Jews to return to Canaan, the Land promised by God to Abraham and his descendants, was so deeply rooted in the Jewish people that even the apostles, at the moment of Christ’s Ascension, asked the Divine Master: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).
It must again be stated that the Jewish people, like any other, are certainly free to build their own civil community according to their preferences, and Catholics are under no obligation to prevent them from doing so. However, it is unclear why a Catholic should therefore feel compelled—or even entitled—to promote or support such a project.
As Pope St. Pius X precisely responded during his private audience with Theodor Herzl: “We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but neither can we support it” (The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, pp. 1601-1605). According to Herzl, the holy sites of the Holy Land—shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims—would not be affected by the Zionist request. In his appeal to the pope, Herzl explicitly invoked the ancient Roman law principle res sacrae extra commercium (“sacred things are not subject to commerce”).
Here a problem arises, since the State of Israel is also defined by Zionists as a “Jewish state.” The term Jewish is ambiguous: it refers both to ethnicity (whose boundaries have become increasingly blurred over the centuries due to the Diaspora and the resulting intermingling with host populations) and to religion. So what exactly is meant by “Jewish” in reference to the State of Israel? Is it an ethnic designation, a religious one, or both?
If the reference is to religion, then one denies what was upheld by Herzl and the early Zionists. If it is ethnicity, then one contradicts the position of the current Israeli government under Netanyahu and the Right of the Likud Party. In fact, the vision of the present government inherits the so-called “Revisionist Zionism” of Vladimir Jabotinsky, which holds that the religious and ethnic dimensions of Jewish identity are inseparable—a view that is, in truth, consistent with the post-Pharisaic version of Judaism as professed for the past two thousand years.
Therefore, while one may understand the natural and legitimate desire of the Israeli Right for security and homeland, the revisionist vision is fundamentally theocratic-nationalist—meaning it tends to present and sacralize the nation itself as a kind of collective Messiah.
This leads to a deeper theological problem: the Catholic believes that the Messiah promised to Israel and to humanity since the time of Adam has already come and revealed Himself in Jesus of Nazareth. It is precisely this confusion—between divine promise and political project—that underlies the fundamental Catholic error in actively supporting Zionism, which remains intrinsically incompatible, in all its forms, with Catholic doctrine.
The True Good of All People Is Christ
We have thus seen that, for a Catholic, it is senseless to actively support the existence of an ideology that is, in its essence, both socialist and messianic. One might object, however—as is often the case—that the Catholic must support Israel in all its causes because it is the only means of ensuring the safety of the Jewish people and preventing the resurgence of anti-Semitism, whether in the West or elsewhere. In other words, the existence of Israel would be necessary for the good of the Jewish people. Therefore, if not for ideological reasons, Israel should be supported for reasons of expediency.
However, even this line of reasoning proves fallacious—both theologically and logically. From a theological standpoint, the Catholic knows that the true good of all does not lie in the existence of this or that state but in conversion to Christ. Peace among nations will not be achieved through concordats, compromises, or political agreements but through the establishment of the social Kingship of Jesus Christ, which entails a reform of morals beginning at the personal level. Harmony among individuals is a consequence of that transformation.
International bodies may at best “enforce” peace among nations through displays of power and threats, but like all forms of coercion, such peace is destined to collapse sooner or later. It is like a wild horse: if bound and threatened long enough, it will eventually break its ropes and bolt in fury. What is needed instead is to tame and soften it through discipline and recognition of its master. So it is with the heart of nations—if not turned toward the one Lord God, the institutions of this world are of little worth.
There is no reason why a Catholic should not—or must not—hope for the greatest good for the Jewish people, which is conversion to Christ. This does not mean imposing the Catholic Faith on anyone. And if, throughout the history of the Church, there have been instances where someone attempted to force baptism upon a Jew, this does not imply that such actions were permitted by the Church.
The First Vatican Council teaches that faith is an act of free assent to the truth revealed by God. Because it is free, it cannot be imposed. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that baptism, when imposed against the will of the subject, is invalid (cf. Summa Theologiae III, q. 68, a. 7 and 10; in the latter, the question is specifically raised whether “the children of Jews ought to be baptized even against the will of their parents”).
A Catholic worthy of the name will always strive for all peoples to know and acknowledge eternal salvation in Christ; and he will always support the spread of churches and priests to every corner of the world. Mindful of what St. Paul, himself a Pharisee converted to Christ, wrote: “there is no longer Jew or Greek” in Christ the Lord. Thus, if for the Jew religion is also an ethnic matter, for the Catholic it is not.
Is Zionism necessary for the good of the Jewish people?
From a logical standpoint, the idea that the State of Israel—understood specifically as a Jewish state and not merely as a state—is indispensable for the true good of the Jewish people reveals itself, upon rigorous analysis, to be a fallacy of unwarranted concession: it accepts as valid an ideological premise of the opposing position without refuting it. As a result, the entire argumentative framework of Zionism loses coherence and collapses.
Let me clarify. Starting in the 19th century, anti-Semitic ideologues claimed that the Jew—unlike any other people—is by nature incapable of living alongside other nations. When the Zionist asserts that the Jew, in order to live free from anti-Semitism and to defend against it, must necessarily reside in an exclusively Jewish state, he is implicitly accepting the anti-Semitic premise. But since that premise is false, the Zionist thesis is likewise false.
Certainly, the Zionist adopts the anti-Semitic premise, albeit from a different starting point: the anti-Semite begins with an ontological assumption (“the Jew by nature cannot coexist”), while the Zionist begins with a historical-sociological one (“other peoples do not allow Jews to live in peace”). The fact remains that a state—even if ethnically homogeneous (which is practically impossible, all the more so in today’s globalized world)—cannot heal the spiritual wounds of the human heart nor eliminate sin, which is the root of injustice and hatred.
Even if the Jewish state is granted as a contingent necessity, it cannot be regarded as the fulfillment of true peace for the Jew. For authentic peace is not founded on borders but on a heart reconciled with Truth and with other peoples in charity.
Anita Shapira, one of Israel’s most prominent historians and scholars of Zionist thought, stated that—compared to other Jewish responses to anti-Semitism (liberal humanism, Bundism, Reform Judaism)—“the uniqueness of Zionism lies in having accepted the basic antisemitic assumption that Jews constituted a foreign body within the national fabric of European peoples—a body that could never assimilate” (“Anti-Semitism and Zionism,” Modern Judaism, XV, 3, 1995, p. 218).
In short, it remains unclear why the Jewish people should be considered the only nation incapable of coexisting with others, whether in Europe or abroad.
Israel and the Alternative Model of Lebanon
Judaism is a complex phenomenon, with internal currents often in conflict with one another. Zionism, too, is multifaceted: Zionists more aligned with socialist ideas differ from revisionist Zionists, who view Jewish religion as the primary marker of Israeli identity—even though there are revisionist Zionists who are not religious, just as there are ultra-Orthodox Jews who condemn Zionism altogether. In short, we are dealing with a highly variegated reality.
In light of what has been said so far, one may still ask whether the two-state solution is truly effective for peace in the Middle East. The Holy Land—especially Jerusalem, and most particularly the Temple Mount—holds an eschatological significance for both Jews and Muslims. This alone suggests that the two-state solution will always be unworkable, at least in the long term.
As I wrote in another piece, there is an urgent need to radically rethink the concept of coexistence among peoples. The 19th-century notion that every ethnic or religious group must have its own separate state—one for the Jews, one for the Arabs, one for the Russians, and so on—produces irreconcilable divisions. This is because, first, every state will inevitably contain significant ethnic minorities; second, the modern state, by its very nature, tends to be expansive; and third, individuals and peoples inevitably interact with and blend into one another.
It is necessary to rediscover and adapt historical models of coexistence that have already proven their effectiveness, such as that of the multinational empires—consider the Austro-Hungarian Empire—where peoples, religions, and cultures coexisted within the same territory and political order without relinquishing their own identity or the possibility of critiquing others.
In those contexts, pluralism did not mean relativism but mutual recognition: each community preserved its own tradition while living in a shared space governed by a juridical and cultural equilibrium, which also included the right to critique. In those contexts, citizenship was not based solely on territory but, above all, on the person, the community, the language, and the religion—in a word, on culture.
The State of Israel already possesses, truth be told, potential elements that could foster such plurality; but for it to function fully, political extremisms that instrumentalize religion must be set aside. Perhaps one should look to the nearby small state of Lebanon as a possible alternative political model.
Unlike the Zionist ideal of ethno-religious homogeneity, Lebanon has represented, at least in its original form, a political model based on regulated confessional coexistence, not on fusion nor separation. In the National Pact of 1943 and later in the Taif Accords, Lebanon formally recognized religious identity as a constitutive element of citizenship yet subordinated it to a higher principle of cooperation. It is certainly not a perfect model, but it might offer a solution more suited to the needs of these peoples.
The Lebanese formula, born of a long tradition of coexistence among Maronites, Sunnis, Shiites, and Druze, does not dissolve identities: it preserves them within a civil pact of mutual respect. In this sense, Lebanon was, in the 20th century, a small image of what the Holy Land could become—not a mosaic of two or even more opposing states but a spiritual and civic organism where communities live together, each faithful to its own tradition, under a common law that even allows room for juridical pluralism.
Conclusion
A Catholic cannot reduce the promise made by God to Israel—a promise fulfilled in Christ and in the Church—to a political or national project. Israel according to the flesh is a figure not an end; a sign not a fulfillment. To support an ideology that confuses the divine promise with a territorial claim is to obscure the supernatural meaning of the history of salvation and, ultimately, to betray faith in the one Redeemer of the world.
The Catholic loves Israel not because he shares its state-building project but because he recognizes its original vocation—now fully realized only in the Catholic Church, the new People of God. (See Josef Hergenroether, Storia Universale della Chiesa. Vol. 1. La Chiesa nascente, pp. 68–69, to explore further the transition from the Old to the New Covenant.) Only in Christ do the Jewish people, and every other people, find their true homeland and their peace. The Holy Land will recover harmony only when it is recognized—by Jews, Arabs, and Christians—not as a political prize or exclusive possession but as the place where God became Man for all.
And as long as peoples seek security in borders rather than in the pierced Heart of the Savior, they will continue to raise walls where they ought to erect altars.
