When Did Supporting Israel Become a Sin?
At some point, apparently, supporting Israel became incompatible with being a good Catholic.
I must have missed the memo.
Because lately there seems to be this bizarre assumption that if I say I support Israel, defend its right to exist, condemn Hamas, or refuse to pretend antisemitism suddenly became morally acceptable because people learned to dress it up in the language of activism, then I have somehow betrayed my Catholic faith.
When, exactly, did that happen?
I am Catholic. I support Israel.
Those are not contradictory statements.
And supporting Israel does not mean I have pledged blind allegiance to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government, the IDF, or every military decision made in Gaza. That’s an intellectually lazy standard we apply almost nowhere else. Supporting America’s existence doesn’t mean endorsing every American president or every war America has fought.
A country and its people are not synonymous with every decision made by their government.
That distinction should not be difficult.
Catholicism certainly doesn’t require me to abandon it.
In fact, the modern Catholic Church has spent decades confronting the horrific consequences of Christian antisemitism and building a radically different relationship with the Jewish people. Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate was a watershed in Catholic-Jewish relations. The Holy See later established formal diplomatic relations with the State of Israel and explicitly committed itself to combating antisemitism and religious intolerance.
So no, my refusal to participate in the demonization of Israel does not make me less Catholic.
Neither does October 7 disappear because the war that followed has been horrific.
Hamas deliberately attacked civilians. Israelis were murdered and kidnapped. Families were destroyed. The Holy See condemned the attack as “inhuman” while recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself and simultaneously insisting that legitimate defense remains constrained by proportionality.
Apparently, however, holding all of those facts in your head at once has become a radical act.
I can believe Israel has a right to exist and Israelis have a right to live without being slaughtered.
I can believe Palestinians possess exactly the same human dignity.
I can condemn Hamas.
I can condemn antisemitism.
I can question Israeli military actions.
I can be horrified by dead Palestinian children.
I can demand protection for innocent civilians.
I can believe Palestinian Christians deserve our attention, protection, and prayers.
And somehow—brace yourselves—I can do all of those things simultaneously.
That isn’t hypocrisy.
That’s moral consistency.
Catholicism doesn’t ask us to divide the world into teams and then switch off our consciences once we’ve picked one.
The Catechism teaches that hatred of one’s neighbor is contrary to charity. Catholic teaching on war doesn’t provide governments with a blank check simply because their cause began with legitimate self-defense. Human beings don’t stop possessing dignity because they’re standing on the wrong side of a border.
That applies to Palestinians.
It also applies to Jews.
And that’s where some of the rhetoric surrounding Israel has become impossible for me to ignore.
Criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic. That needs to be said plainly. Israelis themselves criticize their government. Jews around the world criticize Israeli policy. Catholics can criticize settlements, military tactics, civilian casualties, Netanyahu, Gaza policy, or Zionism without automatically becoming antisemites.
But pretending antisemitism isn’t also flourishing inside parts of this movement is equally dishonest.
When criticism of a government’s policies becomes contempt for an entire people, we’ve crossed a line.
When Jews thousands of miles from Israel are expected to answer personally for decisions made by the Israeli government, we’ve crossed a line.
When Jewish students are treated as legitimate targets because of a war they don’t control, we’ve crossed a line.
And Catholics, of all people, should understand why that line matters.
Our history gives us no excuse for amnesia.
But perhaps this is the part I find most insane.
Somewhere along the way, supporting Israel became something that requires an apology, while rhetoric that excuses, minimizes, or romanticizes Islamist terrorism gets repackaged as edgy political commentary, activism, or “resistance.”
Hasan Piker can tell an enormous audience that Hamas is “a thousand times better” than Israel and stand by the statement. He can make extraordinarily inflammatory statements about Hezbollah and militancy and remain a major voice in American political media.
But I’m supposed to explain myself because I support Israel?
That’s where you’ve lost me.
And no, criticizing Islamist extremism does not mean condemning Muslims.
Islam is a religion practiced peacefully by millions of Americans. Muslims have been victims of hatred, discrimination, and violence in this country, and that deserves condemnation without qualification.
I’m talking about Islamist extremism.
I’m talking about Hamas, Hezbollah, and other movements that use ideology and religion to justify terrorism and violence against civilians. I’m talking about the strange cultural moment in which people who would never dream of making excuses for Christian nationalism or white supremacist terrorism suddenly discover an entire vocabulary of nuance when the extremists happen to share their enemies.
Apparently terrorism becomes “resistance” if you hate the right country.
No.
Murdering civilians is wrong when Israelis do it.
Murdering civilians is wrong when Palestinians do it.
Antisemitism is wrong when it comes from the right.
Antisemitism is still wrong when it comes wrapped in a keffiyeh and progressive vocabulary.
And Islamist extremism does not become morally sophisticated because an American political streamer explains it to millions of followers.
If Catholic morality means anything, surely it means our moral standards don’t change depending on whose blood is being spilled or which political tribe approves of the people spilling it.
That’s why I reject the premise that compassion for Palestinians requires hostility toward Israel.
I reject the premise that supporting Israel requires indifference toward Palestinian suffering.
And I especially reject the idea that someone else gets to measure the authenticity of my Catholicism according to whether my politics on Israel match theirs.
My faith requires me to recognize human dignity even when doing so is politically inconvenient.
Israeli dignity does not cancel Palestinian dignity.
Palestinian dignity does not cancel Israeli dignity.
Condemning Hamas doesn’t require celebrating civilian suffering.
Condemning civilian suffering doesn’t require pretending October 7 never happened.
And supporting Israel doesn’t make me a bad Catholic.
So I keep coming back to the question nobody seems particularly interested in answering:
When did supporting Israel become the greater moral offense than making excuses for people who openly want Israelis dead?
Maybe the problem isn’t that my positions are contradictory.
Maybe we’ve just gotten far too comfortable deciding which human beings we’re allowed to care about—and which forms of hatred we’re willing to excuse when they come from our own side.