Israel in Gaza: a just cause, an unjust campaign

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 07, 2025

Responding today to Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s latest criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the Israeli embassy to the Vatican complained that the cardinal “focuses on criticizing Israel while overlooking Hamas’ continued refusal to release hostages or stop the violence.” That complaint should sound familiar; it has become the standard response to any question about Israel’s war tactics.

In this case, the Israeli complaint is demonstrably inaccurate and unfair. In the interview from which Cardinal Parolin’s critical remarks were taken—an interview that was posted on the Vatican News site, and thus readily available to the Israeli embassy—the Vatican Secretary of State certainly did not overlook the culpability of Hamas. On the contrary, he opened with a forthright condemnation of the “inhuman and indefensible” Hamas terror attack of two years ago. “It was a shameful and, I repeat, inhuman massacre,” he said. Cardinal Parolin continued:

The Holy See immediately expressed its total and firm condemnation, calling for the immediate release of the hostages and showing closeness to the families affected by the terrorist attack.

Nor did Cardinal Parolin stop there, with a repetition of the Vatican’s oft-expressed demand for the release of the Israeli hostages. He continued: “I am deeply struck and saddened by the images of these people held prisoner in tunnels, starved. We cannot and must not forget them.” He said that officials at the Vatican are not only praying daily for the hostages, but also offering “our full availability” to do anything that would hasten their release and safe return home.

All this, again, came before the Vatican Secretary of State said anything critical about the Israeli military campaign. So the Israel embassy’s complaint really cannot be regarded as a good-faith argument. It is, instead, an effort to deflect attention from the substance of the cardinal’s criticism. And that rhetorical trick—the bid to focus attention on the perfidy of Hamas, so as to discourage questions about Israeli tactics—ought to be recognized for what it is.

The Hamas assault on Israel that occurred two years ago today was appalling, loathsome, inhuman, immoral, reprehensible. Israel had, and has, every right and duty to respond, and respond vigorously: to secure the release of the hostages, to punish the attackers, and to ensure the safety of their citizens against any such attacks in the future. Cardinal Parolin acknowledged as much when he did eventually turn his attention to the excesses of the Israeli response. He began his critique by saying: “Those who are attacked have a right to defend themselves….”

Israel had a just cause for military action against Hamas. But a just cause does not by itself guarantee a just war. Cardinal Parolin continued the sentence by saying “but even legitimate defense must respect the principle of proportionality.”

On my Substack these days I am hosting a “seminar” on the just-war tradition. As I explained in one post a few weeks ago, the Catholic tradition of just-war thinking has two vital strands: the ius ad bellum arguments, which weigh the justice of a nation’s cause for going to war; and the ius in bello arguments, which assess the morality of the nation’s conduct during wartime.

(Here I might insert that the Vatican’s contribution to the debate on Israel’s action in Gaza is somewhat compromised by the fact that Pope Francis claimed the just-war tradition is no longer relevant in the 21st-century world. Actually Cardinal Parolin’s remarks today demonstrate how relevant the just-war tradition continues to be.)

Yes, Israel had cause to go to war against Hamas. But that cause does not justify a brutal military campaign that has produced over 60,000 casualties, left much of Gaza a smoking ruin, and now promises to evict the entire population from its homes. Cardinal Parolin made the point:

Unfortunately, the resulting war has brought about disastrous and inhuman consequences… I am struck and deeply afflicted by the daily death toll in Palestine—dozens, sometimes hundreds, every day—so many children whose only fault seems to be having been born there. We risk becoming desensitized to this carnage! People killed while trying to find a piece of bread, buried under the rubble of their homes, bombed in hospitals, in tent camps, displaced and forced to move from one end of that narrow, overcrowded territory to another… It is unacceptable and unjustifiable to reduce human beings to mere “collateral damage.”

By the way, Pope Leo quickly endorsed Cardinal Parolin’s analysis, and shrugged off the criticism from the Israeli embassy, saying that “the cardinal very clearly expressed the Holy See’s position on this matter.”

American Catholics should also take note of the fact that as the cardinal decried the bloody excesses of the Israeli campaign, he also lamented that “the countries truly capable of exerting influence have so far failed to act to stop the ongoing massacre.” There is little doubt that he had the US in mind. As Israel’s primary supporter, our nation bears at least partial responsibility for the killing in Gaza.

Can all that killing be morally justified? Maybe there is an argument to be made, to explain why it is necessary to kill tens of thousands of non-combatants, and methodically drive hundreds of thousands from their homes. But that argument is not made by dodging the facts, and insisting that the focus of discussion must be exclusively on the fate of the hostages and the inhumanity of Hamas. We know that Israel has a just cause to fight; now let’s focus on how the war is being fought.