When it comes to Zionism and details concerning the establishment of the modern State of Israel, trustworthy resources and reliable information are not easily found. This, to be certain, is by design.
I will be the first to admit that – given the degree to which powerful diabolical forces have been successful in dictating narratives, rewriting history, and silencing those who dare to speak the truth on these matters – only somewhat recently have my own eyes been opened, my knowledge at present merely scratching the surface.
Even so, it is my hope that this article, although limited in scope, will prove helpful to readers who wish to attain, or further develop, an authentic Catholic perspective on the contemporary state of the Holy Land. [NOTE: Throughout, one will find numerous hyperlinks to valuable resources that offer a more in-depth treatment of the topic. Please consider making use of them.]
In my estimation, the need for an article such as this is urgent.
Not a day goes by that I don’t encounter commentary from Catholics on social media parroting the talking points of those who “please not God and are adversaries to all men” (cf. 1 Thess. 2:15), e.g., confirming Israel’s bogus claims to perpetual victimhood status; equating opposition to the IDF’s genocide operation in Gaza with uncritical support for terrorists, and worst of all, writing and speaking as if the Zionists are in sole possession of an eternally valid, divinely issued, fee-simple deed to the Holy Land.
With this in mind, we begin this examination of the historical record with a brief look at life in the Holy Land prior to the advent of Zionism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
At that time according to Middle East experts, anti-Zionist rabbis, and Arab commentators alike, Muslims, Christians, and Jews dwelled in the Holy Land in harmony with one another.
They were living there to serve God. So, there was the Muslim, the Christian, and the Jewish Community, all living together in the same courtyards, helping each other, babysitting each other’s children, without any impediment to peaceful coexistence. (Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta International, a Jewish organization that opposes Zionism)
In his review of Menachem Klein’s 2014 book, Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron, Israeli activist Noam Rotem writes of this time period:
This [Palestinian] identity, which took precedence over religion, was shared by Muslims, Jews, and Christians … Klein debunks the myth according to which the residents of the country before the advent Zionism or the Arab national movement lacked all identity. Instead, he describes a lively and vivacious community with its own traditions and customs, bringing testimonies from Jews, Muslims and foreigners as proof.
“Both Zionism and Arab nationalism came to Palestine from outside the country,” Rotem writes.
At this, we move on to the years immediately following the end of the so-called Great War.
In 1920, as the spoils from WWI were being divided, the League of Nations awarded Britain a Mandate to administer Palestine until such time as the territory, by then plagued with nationalist tensions imported from abroad, was stabilized.
In 1939, the double-dealing British government – which made conflicting promises to both Palestinian Arabs and Zionist Jews during WWI in order to elicit their support – produced a White Paper limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine, while also vowing to set up an independent Palestinian State. This despite the famous Balfour Declaration of 1917 that pledged British support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” [Listen to speech HERE to discover the impetus for the Balfour Declaration.]
Throughout much of the 1940s, Zionist paramilitary groups seeking to expedite the creation of this “national home” carried out acts of terrorism in Palestine. Among their more famous attacks was the 1946 bombing of British Mandate headquarters located in the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, which killed nearly one hundred persons, including Jews, and wounded many others.
Operating under such names as Irgun, Haganah, and Stern Gang, the aim of these groups was to undermine British rule while systematically driving terrified Palestinian Arabs from their homeland. It will no doubt come as a surprise to many readers that from among the ranks of these terrorists came such “respectable” Israeli “statesmen” as Menachem Begin, David Ben-Gurion, and Yitzhak Shamir. Let that sink in for a moment…
David A. Charters, Professor of Military History and Senior Fellow of the Milton F. Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society, writes:
Jewish terrorism in the 1940s was both tactically and strategically significant. At the tactical level, Jewish terrorists were able to frustrate British security forces and erode their ability to control Palestine. That played a significant role at the strategic level in persuading Britain to withdraw from Palestine, which, in turn, created the conditions that facilitated the founding of Israel, and the consequent creation of an Arab-Palestinian diaspora. (Charters, D. A. (2007), Jewish Terrorism and the Modern Middle East, Journal of Conflict Studies, 27)
Eight years after the British White Paper on Palestine was issued, the United Nations (successor to the League of Nations) proposed a partition agreement.
Professor Charters continues:
In November 1947, the strength of the Jewish nationalist struggle, demonstrated in part by its armed struggle in Palestine, persuaded the United Nations to vote to partition Palestine into separate, independent Jewish and Arab states. But the result was a war, from which Israel emerged as a viable state, while independent Palestine vanished under the competing onslaughts of Israeli, Egyptian, and Jordanian military forces, each seizing land that the others could not hold.
At this, according to Charters, “The Palestinian population, largely leaderless and ill-prepared for war, was driven out of what became Israeli territory by a combination of deliberate attacks.”
So much for Israeli claims to perpetual victimhood.
On April 29, 1948, the British Government, wearied by the pressures brought to bear by the Zionist terrorists, issued a bill that formally terminated the Palestinian Mandate and set the stage for its planned withdrawal from the region.
Let’s now bring a bit of Catholic perspective to the conversation.
On May 1, 1948, Pope Pius XII promulgated the Encyclical, Auspicia Quaedam, calling on the faithful to beg the intercession of Our Lady in solving “the problem of Palestine.”
Weighing heavily on the Pontiff’s mind were “the Holy Places of Palestine, which,” he wrote, “have long been disturbed.”
The Holy Father continued:
Indeed, if there exists any place that ought to be most dear to every cultured person, surely it is Palestine, where, from the dawn of antiquity, such great light of truth shone for all men, where the Word of God made flesh announced, through the angels’ choir, peace to all men; where, finally, Christ hanging on the Cross acquired salvation for all mankind, with arms outstretched as if He were inviting all nations to fraternal harmony; and where He consecrated His precept of charity with the shedding of His blood.
We desire, therefore, Venerable Brethren, that supplications be poured forth to the Most Holy Virgin for this request: that the situation in Palestine may at long last be settled justly and thereby concord and peace be also happily established.
As we now know, life in Palestine has been the antithesis of fraternal harmony, justice, and peace ever since. Let us be perfectly clear, however, that it is not the case that the Most Holy Virgin somehow failed us in the matter, but rather it is we who failed her.
Nearly two decades earlier, in 1929, the Blessed Virgin appeared to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, formally submitting, as promised, Our Lord’s request for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.
If not for this act of consecration by the Holy Father in union with the bishops, “Russia will spread its errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions of the Church,” she warned as far back as 1917.
Among those errors of Russia (as I argue HERE) is the scourge of Zionism.
In other words, one has every reason to believe that if Pope Pius XII (or Pope Pius XI before him) had but carried out the consecration of Russia as requested, the so-called “problem of Palestine” would never have been. As it is, Pius XII, as he recalled in Auspicia Quaedam, chose instead to consecrate the entire human race to her Immaculate Heart in 1942.
In 1948, in response to the violence in Palestine, rather than doing as Heaven requested, the Holy Father doubled down on that same general consecration of humanity, asking that “wherever the opportunity suggests itself, this consecration be made in the various dioceses as well as in each of the parishes and families.”
Apart from this consecration of humanity, though it fell short of what Our Lord requested, perhaps matters in the Holy Land would have been worse still. In any event, the rest is history.
Two weeks later, on May 14, 1948, the Zionists issued the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel [reviewed HERE]. The validity of the newly formed nation was quickly recognized by the United States, Russia (Soviet Union), Poland and several other nations, the Holy See not being among them. More on that momentarily.
On this latter note, it is evident that Pope Pius XII did not consider the withdrawal of Britain from the Palestinian Mandate, and the Zionist’s subsequent declaration of Statehood, to be the “just settlement” he had sought.
So, on October 24, 1948, more than five months after modern-day Israel declared itself into existence, Pope Pius XII issued yet another Encyclical “on prayers for peace in Palestine,” this one titled, In Multiplicibus Curis.
Once again, the Holy Father expressed his deep concern for the “sacred buildings and charitable places scattered throughout Palestine, and more especially within the Holy City.”
NB: The English translation of this text as published on the Vatican website is deficient. It indicates that the Holy Father was suggesting that peace may be realized in Palestine by “respecting the rights of acquired traditions, especially in the religious field,” an idea that seems to imply that the false religions (specifically Islam and Judaism so-called) have a right to religious liberty.
The typical Latin text upon which the vernacular translations are based, however, reveals that Pope Pius XII was encouraging “the customs accepted by the elders to be kept, especially as regards religion,” a proposition best understood as tolerance for the false religions and not as an assertion of anyone’s right to practice them.
The Holy Father stated that while the “apostolic duty” of his office places him “above the conflicts which agitate human society,” he suggested that the Holy Places would be best preserved if “Jerusalem and its outskirts” were afforded “an international character” as opposed to becoming the sovereign territory of either of the warring parties.
Most noteworthily, the Holy Father repeatedly speaks of Palestine throughout the text; he never mentions “Israel,” as if the declaration of 1948 made five months earlier was of absolutely no regard. In fact, one will not find any mention of the Jews, much less even a hint that the Zionists’ claim to the land by divine right has any validity whatsoever.
On April 15 of the following year, Good Friday, with the one-year anniversary of the 1948 Declaration on the Establishment of the State of Israel less than one month away, the Holy Father promulgated another Encyclical on Palestine, Redemptoris Nostri Cruciatus, reiterating many of the same concerns. Once again, we find that neither Israel, nor the Jews, nor the claims of the Zionists are acknowledged in the least.
While one might have preferred for Pius XII to plainly condemn the mere suggestion that contemporary Jews have a divine right to even one square inch of the Holy Land, the utter absence of support for their cause spoke volumes just the same.
Perhaps the shadow cast by WWII and the fact that the burgeoning Holocaust® industry was gathering steam at that time compelled the Holy Father to speak in softer terms than he may have otherwise. Whatever the case may be, those who held out hope that the Holy See, during the reign of Pius XII (ended 1958), would recognize the modern State of Israel (as did Italy in February 1949) would have been disappointed.
The same was true under John XXIII, despite the fact that certain Jews in our day delight in remembering Roncalli as a “a great friend of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel.” (See HERE)
As for Paul VI, although he visited Israel in 1964, and even met with its president and other government officials, the Holy See under his reign [alleged] still refrained from recognizing the State of Israel.
Then came the globetrotting Polish uber-mensch, John Paul II, who in 1983 became the first claimant to the papacy to visit a so-called Jewish place of worship since St. Peter himself. Ten years later, on December 30, 1993, a Fundamental Agreement Between the Holy See and the State of Israel was finally reached.
That text, a direct fruit of the Second Vatican Council, is (to no one’s surprise) irreconcilable with the mind of the Catholic Church. Lest anyone should doubt its roots in the novelties of the Council, the agreement acknowledges by name the influence of the conciliar text several times. For example:
The Holy See, recalling the Declaration on Religious Freedom of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, ‘Dignitatis Humanae’, affirms the Catholic Church’s commitment to uphold the human right to freedom of religion and conscience, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and in other international instruments to which it is a party.
As if citing the Council isn’t indication enough that the conciliar church’s agreement with Israel has not a traditional Catholic pedigree, it even claims recourse to the UDHR of the United Nations, a text that plainly denies the Sovereignty of Christ the King. (See HERE for details.)
The text continues:
The Holy See wishes to affirm as well the Catholic Church’s respect for other religions and their followers as solemnly stated by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, ‘Nostra aetate’.
Indeed, the very Preamble to the Agreement is lifted nearly verbatim from Nostra Aetate:
Aware of the unique nature of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, and of the historic process of reconciliation and growth in mutual understanding and friendship between Catholics and Jews…
What a contrast between this diplomatic drivel and the directness with which Pope St. Pius X addressed the so-called Father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, when he sought the Holy See’s support for his cause. [See HERE for more detail].
“We cannot give approval to this movement,” the Holy Father asserted. “The Jews have not recognized our Lord; therefore, we cannot recognize the Jewish people.”
What’s more, the Holy Father went on to make plain that the mission of the Church vis-à-vis the Jews as initially carried out on the day of Pentecost (see Acts 2) remains unchanged:
If you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we shall have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you.
The Holy Father even made it clear to Herzl that Judaism is no more since the New Covenant in Christ has rendered the Old obsolete (cf Hebrews 8:13):
The Jewish religion was the foundation of our own; but it was superseded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot concede it any further validity.
This, my friends, is a Catholic approach to self-identified Jews in general, and Zionism in particular: The “Synagogue of Satan, those who say they are Jews and are not” (see Apoc. 2:9, 3:9) have no legitimate claim to a divinely dispensed, everlasting deed to Palestine. Period.
Despite widespread support for Zionist claims among “Bible only” heretics (and even some Catholics), Sacred Scripture itself is unambiguous on the matter.
Speaking to Abraham, God said:
All the land which thou seest, I will give to thee, and to thy seed for ever. (Gen. 13:15)
See that, the heretics bleat!
Not so fast…
Do my precepts, and keep my judgments, and fulfil them: that you may dwell in the land without any fear. (Lev. 25:18)
All the commandments, that I command thee this day, take great care to observe: that you may live, and be multiplied, and going in may possess the land, for which the Lord swore to your fathers. (Deut. 8:1)
As the above verses (and many others) attest, possession of the land has always been contingent upon the faithfulness of the people. St. Augustine confirms: “The promise was conditional, and the Jews did not fulfill their part by obedience and fidelity.” (See Haydock Biblical Commentary, Gen. 13:15)
Because your fathers forsook me … and you also have done worse than your fathers … I will cast you forth out of this land, into a land which you know not. (cf., Jeremiah 16:11-13)
In the fullness of time, the People Israel forsook the Lord even to the point of killing His Son:
The Jews both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men. (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15)
With the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., the temporal exile of the Jews became permanent.
Yes, but God did say that He would give the Holy Land to Abraham’s seed forever!
Indeed.
For all are not Israelites that are of Israel. Neither are all they that are the seed of Abraham, children… That is to say, not they that are the children of the flesh are the children of God: but they that are the children of the promise are accounted for the seed. (Romans 9:6-8)
And if you be Christ’s, then are you the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise. (Gal 3:29)
The self-identified Jews of today can as yet inherit the promise made to Abraham, but there is only one way:
The Catholic Church, the Kingdom of Christ on earth, is the “new Jerusalem” (cf. Apocalypse 3, 21), and her sacred ministers have a solemn duty to call upon all peoples, Jews included, to enter her and to dwell within her through the waters of Baptism.
The conciliar church, by contrast, having sold out to the Jews at Vatican II, is nothing more than a subsidiary of the Synagogue of Satan. According to the Agreement that it entered into with Israel in 1993:
The State of Israel recognizes that the right of the Catholic Church to freedom of expression in the carrying out of its functions is exercised also through the Church’s own communications media; this right being exercised in harmony with the rights of the State in the field of communications media.
Pay close attention: The conciliar church readily agreed to harmonize – that is to subjugate – its activities to the interests of the “Jewish” State.
The Holy Roman Catholic Church submits in this manner to no nation, no ruler, no government.
Why not?
Because she was given a mission by the King of kings Himself, and thus she is “eminently independent and above all other societies on earth.” (cf. Pope Leo XIII, Officio Sanctissimo 13)
At this, although more could certainly be said, my hope is that readers will have found this treatment either personally useful or may perhaps find it worthy of forwarding to those whose view of the Jews and the modern State of Israel stands in need of refinement.
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