Promoted post: The Best Muslim, Jewish and Christian Voices for Bringing Peace in Israel and Palestine

Source: Washington Post

By Anthony Faiola, 

Stefano Pitrelli and 

Louisa Loveluck

November 30, 2023 at 4:27 a.m. EST

As bombs fell and tanks penetrated deep into Gaza in late October, Israeli President Isaac Herzog held a fraught phone call with Pope Francis. The Israeli head of state was describing his nation’s horror over the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 when the pope issued a blunt rejoinder.

It is “forbidden to respond to terror with terror,” Francis said, according to a senior Israeli official familiar with the call, which has not been previously reported.

Herzog protested, repeating the position that the Israeli government was doing what was needed in Gaza to defend its own people. The pope continued, saying those responsible should indeed be held accountable, but not civilians.

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That private call would inform Israeli interpretations of Francis’s polemic statement, at his Nov. 22 general audience in St. Peter’s Square, that the conflict had “gone beyond war. This is terrorism.” Taken with the diplomatic exchange — deemed so “bad” by the Israelis that they did not make it public — the implication seemed clear: The pope was calling their campaign in Gaza an act of terrorism.

“How else could it be interpreted?” said the senior official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

The Vatican declined to clarify whether the pope was publicly or privately describing Israeli actions in Gaza as “terrorism.” But in a statement to The Washington Post, it acknowledged a call between the pope and Herzog. “The phone call, like others in the same days, takes place in the context of the Holy Father’s efforts aimed at containing the gravity and scope of the conflict situation in the Holy Land,” the statement read.

A spokesman in the Israeli president’s office declined an opportunity to comment, saying, “We are not inclined to make reference to private conversations.”

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