A couple of weeks back, I placed a commentary in the Pastor’s Bulletin Insert that caused a minor stir among parishioners. Based on evidence from Internet news reports, I argued that the Israeli indiscriminate attacks on Gazan civilians in response to the Hamas terrorist attacks violate the Fifth Commandment. I referenced the immorality of the indiscriminate killings in Hiroshima, Dresden, and even Vietnam. Some questioned my portrayal of the historical facts and my motives.
The first casualty of every war, as the saying goes, is truth. High school history books necessarily are abbreviated and somewhat cartoonish. It is far more instructive to listen to historical debates. But wars—and our opinions of wars — occur in real time, and we need to develop views in the moment. I think I have sufficient evidence to form an opinion. But I realize that the evidence that persuades me does not convince many Catholics.
What troubles me more is that Catholics can see the same evidence and rationalize murder with that awful slogan, “No moral equivalence!” As Catholics, we do not condone Viet Cong brutality when we acknowledge that the My Lai massacre is horrifying. We need not approve of Hamas terrorism when we abhor indiscriminate attacks on Gazans. We need not condone slavery when we deplore Sherman’s infamous Civil War march from Atlanta to the sea.
We can understand murderous revenge (which is increasingly glorified by Hollywood scriptwriters). But we must not condone it. The difference between just killing—whether in personal self-defense or national self-defense in war—and murderous acts like terrorism and genocide is as stark as the difference between heaven and hell.
Priests come and go. Many of my favorite and influential priests have long passed into obscurity. When I think of them, Winston Churchill’s witticism comes to mind: “He is a modest man with much to be modest about.” Except for the likes of, say, Fulton Sheen, the quip applies to most priests. Most priests come to sense the marginal value (in human terms) of their Sunday sermons.
I delight in every form of ethnicity. Along with writers such as Thomas Sowell, I notice ethnic (or, rather, tribal) traits, both positive and negative. I grew up on American and Jewish humor and enjoy ethnic humor in all its benign forms. I oppose expressions of tribal hatred and murder, regardless of ethnicity. So please cross alleged anti-Semitism off the motivational list because it confuses the issue. But maybe that’s the point of the smear.
A Pharisee is an elitist who takes the moral high ground and deigns to judge those dirty little people who do not measure up to his high standards. I realize I am capable of murderous revenge had I suffered the injustices we read about. As a young conservative man, I also favored nuking Japan to win the war. I was wrong. So I do not think I am a Pharisee, at least in this regard.
Some suggest it is easy for me to oppose mass murder. It is. And we are getting closer to my primary motivation. My opposition to the Israeli indiscriminate attacks on Gaza poses no threat to my reputation. Even those who strongly disagree with me in this parish are too nice to be nasty. I pay little or no penalty for my moral posturing, if that was my intention.
But here is my compulsion. I read the Gospels, and Church teaching informs me. The Commandments include, “Thou shalt not murder.” The Church teaches just war principles. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council teach that indiscriminate attacks on population centers are crimes against God and man. Like most Baby Boomers with dads in World War II, I favored the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because they were necessary to win the war.
However, my training as a Catholic priest called those American dogmas into question. I applied Church teaching to the assembled evidence, and Catholic logic prevailed.
My pay doesn’t depend on my political positions. I am not beholden to the military establishment, big business, or those who fund my political campaigns. My stock portfolio will not suffer. I will not lose radio listeners or TV viewers because I violate corporate advertising policies by criticizing Israel. I have no personal or financial risk in the application of the Fifth Commandment to the facts as I see them.
I will suffer no worldly penalty for opposing American funding of indiscriminate Israeli attacks on the Gazan population. It makes little difference whether I publicly oppose those terrible actions or if I remain silent. But based on the principles and facts, my conscience demands that I speak even if I know I will have little or no influence on anybody. But my silence will cost me my soul, and I’m afraid. So my core motivation in criticizing the military tactics of Israel (and the United States at Hiroshima) is cowardice: I fear the pains of hell.
On my Day of Judgment, as I stand before the good Lord, He will ask questions tailor-made for me. He will declare that He preserved me from all kinds of retribution in authentically proclaiming the Gospel. He will say my proclamation cost me nothing in blood or treasure. He will ask if I was faithful. Fear of God’s punishment may make me a coward, but cowardice in defense of salvation is no vice.
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword… Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” (Mt. 10:34-39)
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Fr. Pokorsky, I do not disagree that the slaughter of so many Gazan innocents is a horror.
But I do disagree with your attribution of responsibility for that horror.
The fact is, Hamas continues to employ civilian populations — including the most vulnerable among them — to shield their fighters and their materiel.
Schools, hospitals, residential complexes — even places of worship — are honeycombed with spaces that shelter the Hamas terror operation.
The Israelis do everything they can to avoid indiscriminately killing innocent civilians. But Hamas does everything they can to maximize the killing of innocents so as to gain a propaganda advantage.
I fear that you have fallen into their trap, Fr. Pokorsky.
Thank you brineyman.
There’s so much misinformation and propaganda in the news that I don’t blame Father or anyone else for getting it wrong.
Ever since October 7th we’ve been bombarded with false narratives and fake news.
One is left to wonder if the cornucopia of pronouncements of the spectrum of Catholic clergy are the manifestation of naivete, cognitive disfunction or bold hubris grounded in soft Marxism.
Hamas did not start this war without being perfectly aware of what would follow. You start a war; you endure its consequences. The terrorists have no regard for the lives of those who elected them to their positions any more than they have for the lives of Jews or Christians. There is an orange jumpsuit for anyone who does not submit to their barbarism.
This pastor had best bring his admonitions to the Islamic terrorists who would have his head.
Exactly James. Hamas uses their civilian population as a source of humanitarian aid to steal from, as cannon fodder, & as human shields. Every civilian death rewards Hamas & enables media sympathy & legitimacy for the scam they’re running.
Hamas & Hezbollah act as mercenaries for Iran. They could care less about suffering in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority is little better. Mahmoud Abbas wrote his doctoral thesis on the secret relationship between Nazism and Zionism. One month before Oct. 7th Abbas gave a speech claiming Adolf Hitler ordered the mass murder of Jews because of their role as moneylenders.
When you have people so indoctrinated & steeped in anti Semitic myths & narratives it’s going to be a real challenge to integrate them back into Israel But I believe there’s always hope.
Hamas has even executed “revenge killing” of their own people returning from Israeli aid stations distributing food, water, and medical supplies. The reality of “indiscriminate mercy” by the Israelis better inform Father’s abuse of vocabulary to support his ignoring of that which counters what he prefers to believe.
I agree that Father might be informed by better sources but I don’t want to assume what he prefers to believe. He’s our brother in Christ. We can all get bad information at times.
I think it’s important to be honest with the very troubled history we’ve had with anti-Semitism. We can’t read anyone’s heart but we do know that terrible things have occurred in the recent past & we need to be vigilant that history doesn’t repeat itself.
Brineyman, You summarize well the counter arguments. One could add that the Palestinian population freely elected Hamas, in a seemingly free election, though knowing well what its methods and ultimate goals (the destruction of a non-Muslim country in a land once conquered by Islam—a land which, by the way, had become mostly Christian by the seventh century A.D., before the Muslim conquest of the land during that century and beyond) are. BTW the Japanese would not have surrendered even after H and Nagasaki had not the Emperor intervened. The Japanese soldiers were formidable warriors who adhered to the honorable Bushido code of the Samurai. As the Encyclopedia Britannica online (please always avoid using Wikipedia, which is biased and not scholarly) explains, by the nineteenth century the code had become “the basis for the ethical training of the whole society, with the Emperor replacing the feudal lord.” Losing honor in this code includes Seppuku. Even after the Emperor intervened to surrender, there was an attempt at a coup by some officers to prevent the end, even after H and Nagasaki. It is very difficult for a Westerner and especially a Christian, not to mention a priest today (not one in the Middle Ages; cf. Giovanni da Capistrano; see link below) to grasp this. In the case of Hamas et al, the martyr religious teachings inform the warrior’s actions and prevent surrender except as a means to regroup and renew the fight at a more favorable time. Again, all this very difficult to assimilate by a Western and especially a Christian, not to mention a Catholic priest. See historian R. Ibrahim on the history of the religious teaching of Taqiyya:
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2024/03/22/irans-word-is-worthless-islam-permits-strategic-lying/
for Giovanni da Capistrano see
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2025/07/22/belgrade-1456-how-christian-peasants-saved-europe-from-islam/?jetpack_skip_subscription_popup
Belgrade 1456 How Christian Peasants Saved Europe from Islam
But how many Israelis die of starvation? How many have no heat in winter or air conditioning in summer? How many are without employment or go without education? How many are unable to travel freely from their homeland? How many? How many?
How many hours of NPR programming do you listen to? How many? 🙄
They’re closing shop, I’ve read.
Israeli Arabs , both Christian and Muslim, enjoy the same rights as Israeli Jews. Some serve in the IDF by choice, not by conscription. They attend school, most finish high-school and can attend universities.
Their Gaazan Arab cousins have been held hostage by Hamas as perpetual refugees and human shields in a pirate state. The best outcome for everyone would be for Israel to take back Judea and Samaria, reunite the folks in Gaza with their own people and gain back freedom and a decent standard of life.
Very disappointing. This seems to assume that Israel is attacking Gaza indiscriminately, which is false. Israel has not conducted itself flawlessly in this war, but to compare the scale of devastation to that of Hiroshima et al is risible.
Fr. Pokorsky has also criticized Western support for Ukraine. Interesting, and ironic.
Father, I admire your courage in explicating your moral stand regarding the Israeli bombing of Gaza. But, your position is incomplete; you cannot stop with your moral opposition. Here’s the situation: You are the leader of Israeli government. Muslim terrorists enter your country. They rape Israeli women, they slit the throats of children and take hundreds of hostages into Gaza. Now, as Prime Minister you are required to respond. Please detail for us, Father, what exactly you would do. Give us your program that will secure the release of your people from being held hostage. Give us your plan that will effectively deal with the perpetrators of these evil acts. Spell out for us what exactly you will do as the head of the Israeli government to insure that this will never happen again and your citizens will be protected. Assuming a moral position only goes so far when you’re operating in the real world. We’ll give you plenty of time to outline for us the course of action you would take as if you were the Israeli Prime Minister.
Excellent rejoinder!
Diogenes; I believe the Church teaches something about proportionate reaction to aggression. Few would argue that Israel has a right to revenge the wrong done, but it seems that they have gone way overboard. It sure looks like a case of genocide and the international community seems to agree. It’s ironic that the very people who were on the receiving end a short time ago are now the ones committing the same crimes. Truly we mortals don’t learn from history. ps. I not referring to the Jews as a religious faith group, but rather as an ethnic group of specific Jewish people who are running a secular the government of Israel (Many of the most conservative Jews do not recognize Israel as being a Jewish state and many of them support the rights of the Palestinian people).
James Connor, thank you for your considered thoughts. That said, I propose to you the same scenario as I did to Fr. P i.e. you are the Prime Minister of Israel. Now take us through the steps you’d have taken these past almost two years that would achieve the goals one would expect of Israel’s government. Be as specific as you can. (“I dont know” is NOT an acceptable answer.)
Proportionally fewer Americans died at Pearl Harbor than did Israelis on Oct. 7. Did the US overreact to that?
Father,
I respect your effective expression of your opinion. I just don’t agree with it.
Regarding the WW II use of atomic weapons, the alternative of a land invasion of Japan with continued conventional bombing would have resulted in catastrophic US casualties and Japanese deaths that would have been exponentially greater than the number of those who perished at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
At that time, there were many U.S. citizens in political and religious circles that opposed the use of atomic weapons. They all, I believe, share one common characteristic. None of them had fought against fanatical Japanese resistance in places like the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Regarding Gaza, Israel has no doubt caused the kind of very unfortunate collateral casualties that come inevitably with the conduct of war. ( The DDay invasion resulted in 15,000 French civilians losing their lives). But Hamas started this war and has enslaved the people of Gaza for a long time. I believe Israel deserves continued support in its effort to end the Hamas reign of terror and evil.
Lastly, for what it’s worth, I believe Sherman’s campaign in Georgia and thereafter in the Carolinas was absolutely just and helped Lincoln win a second term that, until Sherman’s successful campaign, he was convinced he would lose to George McClellan, who would have allowed slavery to continue.
Again, I respect your opinion and your learned articulation of it. I just can’t agree with it from a balanced moral perspective.
God bless.
I agree with all the comments identifying flaws in Father’s argument on Israel, but, as some who has worked professionally in nuclear physics, I contend the atomic bombing of Japan was unnecessary.
There were alternatives to a land invasion. For starters, Japanese emissaries could have been brought to the original bomb test. It’s been a sustained myth that scientists thought it might be a dud. Short of some technician cutting an electrical cable in error, they were a hundred percent certain it would work.
Additionally, there are scholarly arguments that a naval blockade of the entire nation, given the massive size of allied navies near the end, could have accomplished a Japanese surrender over time. Japan was already disposed to surrender, except for the stipulation of preserving the Emperor, which was eventually conceded. The Japanese navy and air force was decimated and could no longer counter a blockade.
Impatience for the war to be over was the real deciding factor. The Nagasaki bomb was dropped within a timeframe after Hiroshima that did not even allow a governmental response to this new civilization destroying reality.
Too bad you were not there in the heat of the battle to let known your experienced expertise. As a member of the nuclear community, my knowledge of the opinions of the nuclear community at the time is somewhat different (personal knowledge.) Hindsight is a golden asset.
Part of the “heat of the battle” is that the Nagasaki bomb was moved up a few days by the field office on Tinian Island, because there appeared to be a break in the weather. Nagasaki was still the alternative target. Because of the accelerated schedule, the leaflet warnings arrived the day after the bombing, and the death count was 80,000 rather than an estimated 20,000 if the residents had gone underground. Meanwhile, Truman found out about the second bombing only after it happened.
There something relevant about the silo-structure of bureaucracy, and the insight of one Honore do Balzac who observed: “Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.”
Perhaps we delude ourselves by thinking that there was really a coherent “decision,” rather than only a momentum (originally set in motion to contain the German nuclear program–Germany which had surrendered in May). Momentum with no one who might effectively hop off the conveyor belt and say, “no.”
But, about the “nuclear community at the time” they did say “no(!)” in the Szilard Letter (July 1945) with multiple signatures and which, for some reason, never made it through channels to President Truman. Offering a sobering perspective, the scientific community (including some guy named Einstein) counseled that rather than ending an already winding-down war in the Pacific, actual use of the bombs would instead trigger a precarious nuclear arms race lasting well into the foreseeable future…
Hindsight?
So Father, you know the truth but other educated Catholics around you cant see it?? Yes, a pharisee indeed. Looking back at history when a war and an enemy poses no threat and attacking the country whose benighted soldiers died to preserve your freedom is the mark of a political liberal. A word i say with much distain. Did you SEE what Hamas did to those Jewish kids and innocent civilians?? The sheer barbarism?? The folks at Gaza reap what they have sewn. I am not interested in equivalency nor how many angels dance on the head of a pin. The only way to stop someone with irrational hatred who wants to kill you is to kill them first. I am distantly related to General Sherman. Had it not been for his total war strategy, its entirely possible that even MORE than a million Americans would have died in that war.
War is not a game. Its easy and disgustingly phoney to be a critic after the smell of blood and powder lies in the past and no longer poses a threat.
Lj: “disgustingly phoney … critic”. Really?
The last days of World War II in the Pacific offer an enormous field for human curiosity—about all the significant details that matter. Part of your challenge in applying a moral squint to all such events is that today there is little appetite today for real curiosity even about facts, as about the profound fact, and mystery (!), why the entire universe exists at all, rather than not.
In your case, and without pretending to upstage all of the significant facts in play, for starters you might kindle at least some curiosity about Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9, 1945) by citing the “Strategic Bombing Survey” (1946) which concluded:
“…certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”
There is actually no historic evidence to indicate that the Japenese were willing or ready to surrender. Modern historical scholarship disproves that assertion.
See my comment below for 11:10 AM.
For at least some of the mixed “modern historical scholarship,” see “The Yalta Conference: Problems in American Civilization,” D.C. Heath and Co., 1955 (12 varied articles).
The emperor system and all that; tough to penetrate.
Peter: Did Truman have this information? And did he really know what the full impact of the A bomb?
The Survey was not assembled until after the War. However, of the data available at the time he could have known much. A topic for accomplished historians of whom I am not. One piece of information apparently withheld from Truman was the Szilard Letter (July 1945) from the scientific community (including Einstein’s signature) arguing that rather than ending the war in the Pacific, actual use of the bomb would, instead, trigger a precarious nuclear arms race. The head of the Manhattan Project was sure that Stalin could not catch up for twenty years (he could be managed…). But, after seeing the actual devastation (no longer hypothetical), the Soviets ramped up and had the bomb in four years (1949).
And of the race, as they say, we were off the races! The policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)! Today with seven nuclear powers (Ukraine and Iran would have made nine), and a deterrent total fire power more than a million times (!) that of the one Hiroshima bomb (equivalent to a mere 15,000 tons of TNT).
“Was it wrong to drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan?”. A Catholic priest explains:
https://youtu.be/BmIBbcxseXM?si=xs0be7LPQRHCdPOr
Short answer, “Yes, unquestionably.” The Japanese killed 15 million people. The atomic bombings were necessary and just.
Your comment is internally contradictory.
Decades ago, as editor of The Catholic Answer, I replied to a question about the morality of the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the same reply as Fr Pokorsky. At the time, we had a circulation of approximately 64,000; in one month, I lost one thousand subscribers! I did not regret the loss then — or now!
As a Jewish convert to Catholicism I must say this situation
Has caused me much sorrow. My conversion caused difficulties with my family which over the last 30 years has improved.
My parents were strong zionists, my children are somewhat
Anti Zionist and me and my siblings are in the middle. Yet,
I being Catholic have a different vision of how peace will come to the region. Suffering is part of Jewish history which for me culminates in Jesus sacrifice. My only hope is that this period of history can bring us closer to the awareness that our hope our deep hope for peace and justice lie in the fullness of our history in His love.
Thank you, Jonathan.
Many people at the Nova festival, the kibbutzes that were attacked, and even hostages, have reported their brutal treatment at the hands of so-called civilians. Some hostages were housed with civilians who absolutely terrorized and tortured them. I wouldn’t be so quick to separate civilians from Hamas.
You use the word indiscriminate, well, indiscriminately. An attack may be as discriminate, as tightly targeted, as it is possible to be given the limits of technology, intelligence, conditions on the ground, and the behavior of the enemy, and still cause significant collateral damage. This is particularly true where the enemy deliberately hides behind civilians. Yet your whole argument seems to rest on this charge that Israel’s attacks are indiscriminate, a word you repeat frequently, but a charge you have said nothing to substantiate. To level such a charge without substantiating it seems at least indiscriminate.
Thank you, Father. It takes a lot of courage to oppose the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. This bombing campaign actually proves that the Israeli government does not truly care about the hostages. If it did, it would negotiate with Hamas to have them released and suspend all military activities during this negotiation period. The only possible motivation for Israel’s relentless slaughter of Gazan civilians is hatred and revenge which, sadly, the Jewish religion does not seem to oppose.
VAG, Do you believe the Jewish religion endorses hatred & revenge? I hope not.
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik says it does.
https://firstthings.com/the-virtue-of-hate/
Thank you for sharing that. You know the old saying “Two Jews, three opinions”? Jews are quite diverse in worship, observance, & interpretation of scripture.
What many Jews do endorse is not forgetting what rightfully should be hated. Hating people is a different thing. And survival is the best revenge.
AG;
Ref. your 8/17 @5:12 am – You have a point, BUT – if you keep your hat on, perhaps no one will notice.
(Thanks to Dear Abby from the Chicago Trib. in 1970)
I agree with you. Israel’s actions remind me of why we need Christ. Mercy. Love. Forgiveness. I was supportive of Israel initially but what they are doing now to the Gazans is vengeful. They stooped to the level of their enemy. Vengeance is mine says the Lord. It strikes me that both sides don’t profess a belief in Christ who radically introduced the idea of loving your enemy. While I certainly don’t think there is an easy answer, continuing this war in this fashion is going to perpetuate the hatred between people on both sides. There has to be another way, working with God and His Will. Invoking Our Lady, Queen of Peace, to cover the innocent with protection and convert hearts.
Father Jerry, you need not fear hell for your clear and gospel-inspired conclusion that Isreal atrocities are justified as a good end to be achieved by any even bad means.
The ongoing plight of Israeli hostages—tortured and starved by Hamas since their kidnapping—is profoundly concerning. The line between Hamas and the general population in Gaza appears blurred, particularly considering the reported celebrations that greeted the kidnappers upon their return with over two hundred hostages. This raises a difficult question: To what extent do the actions of Hamas represent the will of the Gazan people? I find myself grappling with how Israel can respond to a group whose singular, stated mission is the annihilation of the Israeli state.
To me, the ongoing war in Gaza is just that – a war. There are no civilians.
Sadly the civilians of Gaza have been indoctrinated and coerced by Hamas since early childhood. It’s hard to know where their hearts are after 20 years of living in a terrorist state. Speaking up against Hamas costs them their lives.
Great job Father. Thank you.
It ought to be entirely fair to ask if the Israeli response to what happened on October 7, 2023 has been disproportionate, and doing so in no way denies the evil that was done that day.
Father, you’re spot on. 💯%
You have formed your conscience, not on what the world says or public opinion or feelings and emotions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Catholic moral doctrine.
Would that we all do the same.
In principle I agree with Fr Pokorsky’s position that you can identify an agent’s evil inflicted on the innocent and likewise admit to similar evil inflicted against the said agent. As was the case of the British firebombing of Dresden as a retaliation for German bombing of Rotterdam and London. Two wrongs do not make a right [although in Vietnam there were occasions when enemy were entrenched in villages and our men had to call in fire to survive].
An example is Pokorsky’s belief that Israel violates the 5th commandment in its Gaza policy. Facts as reported on the ground, as alluded to by Cdl Pizzaballa the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem regarding indiscriminate killing by Israel’s military of civilians including Catholics, journalists. Jodie Ginsberg president of the Committee to Protect Journalists cites approx 128 journalists have been killed by the IDF since their invasion of Gaza. A statistic that far exceeds any other world conflict.
The reporting by journalists, aid workers, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in the area are in agreement of a forced starvation. Israel has a right to exist. It doesn’t have a right to destroy Arabs Muslim or Christian.
The American media is overwhelmingly pro-Israel. And Israel does not permit independent journalists to enter Gaza at will. There is indiscriminate killing of civilians, too many instances to be denied. Check out other news sources: bbc.co.uk or http://www.dw.com (for a German/European perspective and information.) True, Hamas launched a horrific attack on Oct. 7. But the war on Hamas has turned into a war on Palestinians, (half of Gaza residents are children, hardly combatants or terrorists). And Israeli settlers are attacking innocent Palestinians, including Christians, in the West Bank as well. Bombing rubble makes no sense, and Gaza has been reduced to rubble. Why does Mr. Netanyahu want to continue this war and this killing?
With respect, the BBC is not a trustworthy or biased source of news. They haven’t gained the nickname of “Broadcasting Before Confirming” for nothing.
“British Bashing Corporation”
That, too Mr. Leo. It’s a shame.
Israel has the right to defend itself, as Jews had that right during the Holocaust and its extension into the present day. The Jew hatred manifested before the Holocaust and now eighty years after is appalling.
Has the necessity of Israel’s existence ever been more apparent?
I think not. So much for “Never again.”
Hamas distributes its erroneous data as it will and the world is all ears. Islamic terrorists could end this at any moment. They don’t. In fact they starve their groundlings as well as their Jewish hostages — those they have not tortured and murdered.
All the while Israel is blamed for its legitimate self-defense
Bravo, Fr. Pokorsky. The evidence that Israel’s campaign in Gaza has been disproportionate is overwhelming. We don’t know for sure what the actual extent of the carnage is, in large part, because Israel has banned the press from the territory since the beginning of the war. The Gaza Health Ministry has put the number of dead at 63,000, which we’re told can’t be believed because Hamas lies. Israel hasn’t even bothered to count. As is typical, there has been considerably more open reporting on the war in the Israeli press, then has been in the American. US support for this butchery needs to end immediately.
You open with the phrase, “The first casualty of every war, as the saying goes, is truth.” It can also be a casualty in articles.
You use the phrase, “Indiscriminate attacks on Gaza” four times. Israel has dropped tens of thousands of leaflets telling Gazans to leave an area about to be attacked. They have used small “roof knocker” rockets to tell people to evacuate a building. They have permitted food to be provided to the Gaza population. What other country at war has allowed supplies to be delivered to the enemy population?
You are critical that “Catholics can see the same evidence and rationalize murder with that awful slogan, “No moral equivalence!” You then join Viet Gong brutality with the Mai Lai massacre. Brutality was the policy of the Viet Gong, and Mai Lai was not the United States policy, but an aberration by a lieutenant and his platoon. There was no moral equivalence, and I do not see that as an “awful slogan.”
I do not claim to be a Civil War historian, but I have read in that area. I do not deplore “Sherman’s infamous Civil War march from Atlanta to the sea” as you put it. He destroyed supplies that would have kept the Confederate armies in operation.
I do agree with you referencing, “the immorality of the indiscriminate killings in Hiroshima, Dresden.” This month we have had the anniversary of Hiroshima, with a number of articles and commentary letters on the articles, most unfortunately approving under the gerneral justification of the ends justify the means. I do disagree with your including Vietnam in that sentence. We have all seen photos of the devastation of our obliteration bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Tokyo, etc. Have you seen any such pictures of Hanoi, Haiphong – the largest cities in North Vietnam? I have not.
It sounds like someone has been listening to way too much NPR. Excusing Hamas and portraying the Palestinians as innocent victims is deeply sinful and profoundly Antisemitic. People were right to push back on your bulletin.
Dr. Jerry is simply applying the Catholic moral principle that the end does not justify the means.
There is no evidence that Israel is making indiscriminate attacks on civilians or that anybody is starving in Gaza.
Exactly Mr. Adelman. What we hear through most of the media is propaganda.
Thank you Father for your courage and vulnerability. To justify what Israel is doing to the Palestinians is sad and abhorrent. Listen to the American and British physicians who are returning from Gaza. Snipers killing civilians and stealing Rx can not be justified based on the Gospel. As a Catholic I worship in a synagogue most Shabbat. And I attend Catholic mass every Sunday. The Rabbi agrees with your assessment
Father P: Perhaps your next article might reflect on Islam being a thoroughly militaristic “religion.” You can begin with instructing your congregation on the use of the word “jihad” in said “religion.” In my book, all Muslims if they truly adhere to the Koran are terrorists. There are no distinctions between Hamas and any fervently practicing Muslims. The only Muslims who are men of peace are those who have converted to Christianity and are likely members of Father P’s parish.
Because evil is real and powerfully engaged, there will ALWAYS be an agenda where innocent people are killed. The only question is whether we respond in pursuit of peace and safety or acquiesce to evil’s agenda of war and chaos.
Father Pokorsky mistakes human errors and fallibility with national policy. We can surely lament the loss of innocent life but to lump Israel’s response to Hamas’ atrocity. In all wars the emotions and reactions of the engaged warriors can sometimes lead to excessive and unnecessary force. But to equate the POLICY of Hamas to the errors of Israel is not just. Regarding the use of atomic weapons agains Japan in WW2 one should read the histories of the fighting on Peleliu, Tarawa, Saipan, Okinawa and other battle fields to understand that the Japanese military leadership wanted to fight to the death for all of Japan’s citizens. When Hirohito recorded his surrender message for broadcast over the radio reactionary Japanese officers tried to find and destroy the recordings. The use of the atomic weapons was regrettable, but ironically they saved thousands, if not millions, of lives.
I find myself brought to wonder what provocation there might have been to bring Israeli soldiers to shooot Gazan civiians.
About the war in the Pacific, maybe we can generalize that history sometimes is less a series of linear actions by folks who pride themselves in making the “tough decisions” than it is a Gordian Knot whereby all the other options earlier are ignored or eliminated.
Four points:
FIRST, long before the bomb drop (August 1945), at the Yalta Conference (February 1945) President Roosevelt received from General McArthur a “forty-page message outlining an unofficial Japanese peace overture which amounted to unconditional surrender” (was this the conduit through the Vatican, or though Moscow, or something else?) Not publicly known until August 19 when reported in the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald. The only sticking point was a future role for the emperor, which was easily granted shortly after the war ended.
SECOND, but said Roosevelt, at Yalta: “Mac Arthur is our greatest general and our poorest politician.” One school of thought is that Roosevelt imagined the post-war world managed by the troika of himself, Churchill and Stalin. And that Stalin could be held in check by sole ownership of the bomb—it was believed that it would take twenty years for the Soviets to catch up, not just four (1949). Instead, and underestimating the weakness of Japan, Roosevelt induced Stalin to invade the Far East (begun August 8). And, many conclude that the bombs were used more to halt the Russian advance (leading to a later partition of Japan as in Eastern Europe) than to decimate into submission what was left of Japan. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: expendable chips on an always bigger poker table?
THIRD, and then there’s the variously interpreted meaning of “Unconditional Surrender,” an ambiguous American localism effective in mobilizing the public at the start of the war, but less useful in ending the war. McArthur, the religious press, and even the secular press urged Truman to clarify what the term meant and what it did not mean. The power of guns and, no less, words.
FOURTH, welcome to dissipation and chaos theory! And, yet, to the Catholic Social Teaching (CST) which centers on the “transcendent dignity of the human person”—this only because of the Incarnation of God into human history at a unique and concrete time and place. A seriously doctrinal thing, and as St. John Chrysostom says today, on the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Times (Liturgy of the Hours):”…learn how profitable sharp words may be and how useful serious doctrine. Such teaching holds in check and prevents dissipation; it leads to virtue and sharpens the mind’s eye.”
SUMMARY: The alternative to the Incarnation, as the great historian and theologian Henry Ford has said: “History is just one damn thing after another.”
Summarizing the terms of the overture, other than retention of the Emperor: (1) Complete surrender of all Japanese forces. (2) Surrender of all arms and munitions. (3) Occupation of the Japanese Homeland and island possessions by Allied troops under American direction. (4) Japanese relinquishment of Manchuria, Korea, and Formosa, as well as all territory seized during the war. (5) Regulation of Japanese industry to halt present and future production of implements of war. (6) Turning over of any Japanese the United States might designate as war criminals. (7) Immediate release of all prisoners of war and internees in Japan and areas under Japanese control (source: William Henry Chamberlain, “The Munich called Yalta,” in Richard F. Fenno, Jr., “The Yalta Conference,” Heath and Co., 1955).
The fly in the ointment might have been #4 and that at Yalta, President Roosevelt had foolishly/weakly promised Manchuria to Stalin, originally seized by Stalin in 1924 (and violating the earlier American pledge at Cairo that Manchuria should be restored to China). The Russian transfer of resources and equipment from Manchuria had something to do with the Communist takeover of all of China in 1949. Another consequence to think about. The beat goes on. About Yalta, according to former Ambassador William C. Bullitt, “no more unnecessary, disgraceful and potentially disastrous document has ever been signed by a President of the United States.”
Father, As the son of a Marine in the South Pacific being staged for the invasion of
Japan, I thank God every day for the clear-eyed courage of Harry S. Truman that allowed the birth of his 7 children, 23 grandchildren and his 12 great-grandchildren. The Emperor was in the grip of a blood-thirsty cabal of generals who had no qualms about sacrificing their entire population out of some misplaced sense of national honor. HST’s decision was the most humane decision but also the only decision that would have
convinced Hirohito to surrender. The fact that we had to drop the second bomb is proof. Certainly, atrocities occur in every war, whether by command decision or by the bloodlust and revenge-seeking of undisciplined troops. In those cases, where identified, they should be investigated and if valid, punished. However, the cause should not be questioned on that basis. An enemy on repeated record, by both word and action, as committed to a country’s extermination must be completely destroyed. Individual acts of war criminality by aggrieved fighters against true evil cannot be
measured against the destruction wrought by messianic invaders who refuse every effort to live in fair comity with their neighbors, be they Hamas or Vladimir Putin or the Nazis or the Japanese military of the Second World War. These demonic characters keep their own populations captive in a reign of terror and use them as fodder to prosecute their own crazed and illegitimate aims of conquest and racial purity. Their eradication is an act of not only heroism but also of freedom and mercy to all the people under the thumbs of these madmen. Wars are ugly, brutal and even bestial, but Original Sin ordains that they will continue to be started by bad people and must be ended by good people for the benefit of all humanity. The certain collateral damage of innocents losing their lives on both sides is terribly regrettable, but there also has to be a recognition that populations that enable madmen to start wars of unprovoked aggression bear much responsibility when their homelands are punished through the corresponding destruction. People always have a choice to oppose evil. When they don’t, whether out of fear or agreement, they can end up being used as human shields or being starved while humanitarian food aid is stolen by their leaders and sold on the black market for more weapons and to pad the bank accounts of their leaders.
I think it’s worth pointing out that the outcome people seem to be looking for in this forum, a ceasefire, is exactly what was in place on Oct. 6, 2023.
And who upset that apple cart?
You can’t negotiate with or appease terrorists. If Israel hasn’t learned that lesson now they never will.
My contention is that ALL Muslims are terrorists. Not all Muslims fire guns or plant IEDs but they ALL subscribe to a religion whose creed includes jihad, fatwas and who knows what else? Islam is NOT one of the “great” religions as the woke are inclined to proclaim. Their “religion” preaches hate and evil and is therefore evil. Let’s stop playing pretend.
There are Muslim inmates who asked if they could pray for my grandchild who has been unwell. I really appreciated that.
I don’t believe all who follow Islam are evil or terrorists. They are children of Abraham, too but by another mother.
I do think that many Muslims in the Holy Land have been indoctrinated since childhood to hate Jews & Israel. Which when you think about it is a kind of family tragedy.
But if they follow the Koran, mrscracker, they are subscribers of doing violence to others. Hardly a religion of peace. It’s nice that some imprisoned person offered kind thoughts for your grandchild but an atheist could do that as well. I don’t happen to believe allah is god so I’m not sure who these islamists would be praying to (certainly it’s not the God I pray to who is Trinitarian – Father, Son and Holy Spirit).
I believe we all pray to the God of Abraham but we have different understandings of Him.
Reagan said we don’t, right?
War, it’s just rationale, proportionate response, and the rights of all concerned are subject to myriad, often shifting variables, including reporting accuracy – is basically subject to Catholic standards of just war.
Consequently, who can claim with certitude that Fr Pokorsky’s allegation of the injustice of Israel’s Defence Force forcing 2.1 million starving Gazans, most of whom had nothing to do with Hamas, to live in a 10 m strip of constantly bombarded rubble is wrong?
Respectfully Father, I think if we know the sources of one’s information on this matter it would give us a better idea of whether the allegations are right or wrong.
Perhaps mrscracker. Although the footage of people and events inform us at least to an extent. Also, there are the world leaders, the Churches, Catholic personnel on the ground that give credence. There’s simply too much agreement to write it off as bogus.
Netanyahu has an excuse for every charge made against his policy and the actions of the IDF. He never accepts responsibility. That alone says a lot.
Some footage & photos have turned out to be bogus. As have some journalists.
It’s very difficult to sift through all the propaganda & social media to find the truth. I don’t blame anyone who has been misled that way but at some point we should look more carefully at the sources.
No one in Gaza can speak freely against Hamas-neither Muslims or Christians. There are lethal consequences for that.
Finally, with Hamas, we’re addressing an ethno-religious ideology with a wide spectrum of appeal, the Arab world, and by religious association the Muslim world. Historically, ideologies are not defeated by killing. Hamas, even if its membership is presumably limited to Gaza Palestinians, has appeal to all Palestinians and likely to the wider spectrum mentioned.
While there are similarities, there are also differences between non-Christian Islamic fideism and post-Christian ideologies. The eclectic Qur’an mimics parts of the Gospel and especially parts of the Torah, but in respecting the Torah and the “law of Moses,” it omits explicit mention of the prohibitive Commandments.
Then, instead, in this vacuum it absorbs parts of early Arabian culture (today’s margin for jihad resembles Japanese Bishido in modernizing Japan prior to WW II) such that (for some) violence against infidels is enabled and even required. Anomic personalities responsive to memes–and detached from any coherence of faith and reason–find divine authorization for terror: “Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you” (Q9:123), and “Make War on them until idolatry shall cease and Allah’s religion shall reign supreme” (Q 8:34, see also Q 2:187/191, 9:5, 47:4).
Whether it’s explanatory or not, to understand our times we might at least consider the Old Testament notion—Islamic and maybe Israeli, both?—that the sides are opposed in the 21st Century as were David and the Philistines a short three millennia ago, in about 1012 B.C. Does the recent and overlaid Western mentality of Westphalia (A.D. 1648) and the “modern” nation-state fail to grasp the existential angst that has found its way into this century? And, the apostolic challenge facing any who proclaim the “alarming” (Benedict’s term) and concrete Incarnation of Divinity into fallen human history—and, therefore, the “transcendent [!] dignity of each human person”?
St. Augustine has much to teach us about morally resisting evil in a fallen world, as in the just war theory, but he actually says almost nothing (e.g., The City of God) about any lasting terrestrial constructs nested somewhere between his mystical love of God and love of the World.
SUMMARY: A work in progress, but not merely progressive…
Thanks for your research and views. There’s always something more to learn.
Thinking we know the facts well enough to definitively conclude who is in the right and who is the wrong is more than a bit smug. The problem is we can no longer trust the press and what they present. They have lied to us so many times; it is impossible to be sure that we know enough to draw moral conclusions about that conflict. And when we dip our position in scripture quotes, it becomes dangerously arrogant and self-deceiving.
jpfhays: I agree. And to respond to Fr. Morello’s point above that these reports should be believed because we have Catholic Church personnel on the ground in Gaza reporting the “facts”, I contend that we are well beyond the point of believing anything that Church personnel say.
From my own experience with Arab Catholics they’re not unbiased. And if not, they’re legitimately afraid of reprisals from Hamas or other terrorists if they do speak up.
Protestant Israeli Christians tend to be a better source of info. about all this.
Those who put the focus on ‘innocent Gazans’ seem to never apply that concern in their commendation of Israel. We don’t hear about ‘innocent Israelis’ who live in a country surrounded by enemies and live daily with the threat of terrorism and war. And now they live with the knowledge that many in the world side with those same enemies who seek elimination. Yes we have the Gospel, but we also have the Psalms.
AMMAN — As experts and diplomats continue to search for the solution to the generations-long conflict in the region, one surprising study has concluded that problems in the Middle East should definitely be blamed on the 0.3% of it that isn’t an Islamic dictatorship.
Though opinions on the conflict have been divided over the decades, a consensus was reached that all of the problems flow from the minute portion of the region that isn’t ruled by bloodthirsty, murderous terrorists who want to conquer the entire world.
“It’s definitely all Israel’s fault,” said analyst Ibrahim Hamzi of the Institute for Blaming Jews in Jordan. “We have looked closely at all of the evidence accumulated over the last century and have come to the conclusion that none of the issues that arise in the Middle East can be blamed on the multiple Islamic dictatorships that have caused oppression, rape, murder, and terrorism around the world. Yes, the West lives in fear of Islamic extremists carrying out deadly attacks on heavily populated areas, but that’s not the problem. No, it’s Israel. Totally Israel.”
Aug 18, 2025 · BabylonBee.
Exactly, and well said.
I see you’ve taken your groundless attacks on Israel from the Catholic Culture site to this one. 1/Israel does not target civilians; surely you know this. 2/Hamas does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its casualty figures; surely you know this as well. 3/The number of civilians killed in the Gaza operation is actually low by the standards of urban warfare, as a ten-second Google search will reveal.
In any event, it isn’t anti-Semitic to criticize Israel. But when you hold her to standards that you ignore for others, it raises doubts.
Having once supported GWB-era wars, I’ve concluded there are just 2 paths in life: The path of Jesus and the radical way of the Gospels, and the path of war that’s so embedded in human history it’s invisible to most of us (big and small wars, tribal wars, genocides, slavery, serfs and lords of all stripes, neighbor v. neighbor). In showing us how to follow the path of Jesus and the Gospels, the saints seem otherworldly rather than human. Even 2 of the most democratic republics in history, America and G. Britain, have been plagued by wars. This is not a commentary on Gaza or Hiroshima but what history tells us loud and clear.
1. If Palestinians are starving, it is not Israel’s fault. Plenty of aid has been sent to Gaza, but Hamas is keeping it from the people. Hamas is responsible, not Israel.
2. The Palestinians voted for Hamas, and 90% supported the atrocities Hamas committed on October 7th. You cannot reasonably make the claim that the Palestinians have nothing to do with Hamas.
3. The Palestinians have vowed to destroy Israel, so realistically, they need to be contained for the safety of the Jewish people.
If anyone really thinks Israel with one of if not the best intelligence communities on the planet was not aware of October 7th and what they would gain by allowing it…Ive got some beach property on the moon to sell to you.
Father is spot on here.
The dishonesty of your would be land sale corresponds to your naiveté about Israeli willfulness towards the butchery of their own, not to mention their capabilities. Is Israeli intelligence capable of knowing what goes on inside your head?
I’ll trade you that lunar real estate for some Jewish space lasers funded by the Rothschilds.
🙂
A few comments: 1. The real issue is that Gazans hate Jews, they support Hamas even though Hamas uses them as shields. Trump is right in proposing to bull dose the area and make it a Riviera of the Mediterranean. Unless something like this done the killing will never stop. 2. Just as I state in comments on earlier articles like this. Near the end of WW2 US invaded Okinawa, besides the American lives lost, it is estimated that between 40,000 to 160,000 civilians live were lost due to their becoming combatants. The Japanese were going to do the same in preparations for their defense of the US invasion. The civilians as we call them would become combatants. The nuclear bomb drop on Japan is estimated to killing 160,000 people. These points are never cited by virtue signaling articles criticising Truman’s discession to drop the bomb. 3. Finally The pastor should focus more on the millions of babies butchered thru abortion. It is amazing hoe little attention this gets. As Catholics, where the doctrine is that abortion is murder, the response is essentially, “So What”
” A Congressman once told me that throughout his years on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, there wasn’t a single piece of legislation that passed without the approval of AIPAC, the Israeli lobby.
Talk of an effective Israeli lobby in the United States undoubtedly makes many American Catholic observers uncomfortable. The dependence of political and think tanks on AIPAC funding is immense.”
******
I saw this online from Fr. Pokorsky. The myth that Jews conspire to control finances, media, & govt. is a dangerous narrative. I’d like to know which member of congress shared that with Father & why?
mrscracker: If my memory serves me well, this kind of Jew-hating rhetoric can be traced back well in the High Middle Ages or even earlier. Jews are an easy target. One would never think that the murder of six million Jews happened less than 100 years ago. I guess if I were Jewish, I might be a bit prickly about Islamist barbarians entering my country in the dark, murdering my people, raping our women, slaughtering our children, taking hostages into an alien land, torturing our hostages and killing them all in the end. But, what the hell, I’d think, they’ve been persecuting Jews down through the ages, they’re used to it by now.
Thank you DR.
Maybe it was Thomas Massie. He has spoken extensively about AIPAC’s efforts to remove him from office. Is he an anti-Semite? The phenomena is goes back decades and is well documented. Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory.
Yes, he was my first guess, too Mr. Tony. Mr. Massie is one of the most vocal conspiracy followers but not the only one in Congress.
Thank you Father Pokorsky. Keep speaking out against this manifest evil. The suffering innocent boy of Gaza, aye, even in his death, will cry out against the state of Israel. His innocence and meekness
“Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.”
–Macbeth, I, sc. 7
A great turning has occurred. A real moral awakening against the actions of Israel.
Israel’s days are numbered:
“mene, tekel, u pharsin”
“mene, tekel, u pharsin”
Interpreted for Belshazzar by a Jew.
🙂
Yes, and now it is a message delivered to the Jewish state of Israel–and to any of its supporters who support its campaign of mass murder.
Well, I don’t think we should attempt to create alternate scripts for God, Mr. Albrecht. That script was intended for Belshazzar. We aren’t Daniels.
God’s Chosen People get the last Word.
And God’s “chosen people” is not carnal, apostate Israel, but those who worship God in spirit and truth–i.e. Christians.
In ancient times the “writing on the wall” was meant for the original Babylon.
Today it is meant for Apostate Israel, the carnal Jerusalem, the new Babylon.
“And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.”
Apoc., 18
Israel, our age’s whore of Babylon, is “drunk with the blood of the saints,” the innocent children routinely killed by IDF forces.
Recommend the excellent commentary on the Apocalypse presented in the Sensus Fidelium website.
Then recall also the words of our Lord.
“From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, who was slain between the altar and the temple: Yea I say to you, It shall be required of this generation.”–Luke 11
*”Behold, your house is left unto you desolate”*–Matthew 23
God is the avenger of innocent blood. He delays punishment in the hope that Israel will repent.
Truly, it does not look as though this will end well for Israel.
“I don’t know much about Hitler. Except that last thing, about the Jews. There has never been a country that put its heel down on the Jews that ever lived afterwards.”
Huey Long
Mr. Albrecht, you wrote that the writing on the wall aimed at King Baltasat is now aimed at the state of Israel. Why? Because you say so? Are you laboring under the misapprehension that a message from you is the same as a message from God? You really need to rein in your overweening pride.
*Baltasar
The quote from Daniel was added as an illustrative-scriptural flourish which you should be able to deal with, so as to focus on the main theologically certain point.
For the general principle remains: *a principle of judgment for all evil empires* whether we are speaking of the original Babylon, or of Israel, or even, perhaps, of the United States.
Mene–means number or measure. *The Just God sets a limit or measure to the flourishing of the wicked.*
The illusion that the wicked live under is the illusion of temporary worldly success. Israel acts under this illusion.
Tekel–“weighed”–“thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting”. Israel, like all nations/empires, is *being judged by God according to its conduct,* conduct lacking in Justice, Charity, and Mercy.
U pharsin. “divide”: your kingdom is divided. Empires are normally destroyed by being broken up and dispersed into nations or provinces. This may be the way in which Israel comes to an end.
There is also the following: no israelite/israeli realm has lasted more than 80 years.
Will this pattern continue?
For Israel is fast approaching that 80-year limit.
Israel’s days are numbered.
Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory.
Carl, as a (very) longtime reader of CWR, I ask what statements like these contribute to a conversation on a Catholic website.
They create context Mr. Rich.
I favor an open and robust debate, but if comments must be censored, why prioritize those critical of Israel and its lobby rather than those that deny, excuse or minimize that nation’s attacks on Christians and their churches?
Author D. M. Giangreco has a book “Truman and the Bomb: The Untold Story” published August 1, 2023. Amazon has a sample from the beginning of the book. The sample has a lot of interesting information. It includes a letter written by James Michener to a friend of the atmosphere of dread that preceded the anticipated land invasion of Japan and the relief when it was no longer necessary. James Michener knew what the reactions would be in the circles that he traveled in and made his friend promise to not release the letter until after his death. The sample had a lot of material that deals with the revisionist histories that developed after the war. The book has an appendix that deals with the revisionist histories “The Historiography of Hiroshima: The Rise and Fall of Revisionism.”
D.M. Giangreco has a book out called “Hell to Pay” covering the planned invasion of Japan. A great, if long, video, based on the “Hell to Pay” subject, is on the Military History Visualized YouTube Channel, “D.M. Giangreco on the Invasion of Japan, Lend Lease & much more” It has timestamps of the topics.
*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4uDfg38gyk
*
At around the 11:00 mark he said that after the war that the UN estimated that about 400,000 Asians were dying per month for every year the war went on. He said that the Pacific deaths were astounding in magnitude. That most histories of WWII are Eurocentric. At the 12:00 mark it was said that there were a little over 100,000 Milano deaths in the liberation of Manilla. followed by the losses in Okinawa and that a little over half of the Okinawan military were Okinawan conscripts. At the 29:00 mark it was said that the emperor had to send out personal envoys to deliver the surrender instructions to forces out in the field to insure compliance. At around the 50:00 mark he says that the internal Japanese estimates were for 20 million Japanese casualties. At the 1:40:00 mark he covers that the Japanese military wanted a land invasion bloodbath to stretch out the war. At the 1:50:00 mark he compares the Japanese leadership to the Middle East terrorists, that they treat their own populations like hostages. That they don’t really care what happens to their hostages, that they have wider desires and aims. That they could outlast us.
*
There were a large number of Japanese forces based off the Japanese homeland that had to be repatriated at the end of the war. From documentaries that I’ve seen the Japanese military had both the will and the armaments to have made a land invasion costly. There was an attempted military mutiny to stop the Japanese surrender. Some of the military committed suicide.
There is a video on YouTube about the bomb damage to both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “The Effects of the Bomb: Hiroshima Nagasaki”:
*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFalyguyRAU
*
At the 16:20 mark It has an interview with a priest where he talked about the explosion and the aftermath. He discussed a debate as to the use of the bomb. At the 27:30 mark it was stated that homes were scattered in factory areas where machinery in the homes was used to do piecework to support the war effort.
*
This agrees with an article titled “Daylight Precision Bombing” in the Air and Space Forces Magazine:
*
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1008daylight/
*
Where it said “Japanese industry, including cottage industries making military parts and equipment, was so integrated with populated areas that it was difficult to draw the line between them.”
Let’s not forget Hamas’ charming habit of shooting those who come to food stations. Proof? http://WWW.MEMRI.ORG, August 13, 2025, Special Dispatch #12128 – only one of MANY reports on this.
Why is Father Pokorsky spewing
Anti-Semitic Lies and Blood Libel Against Israel , his Anti-Israel Lies have been Refuted and Debunked Many Times. Will Father Pokorsky and least engage in conversations with us here ?
Father P probably does not want to waste his time dealing with the many Hasbara bots and trolls that frequent this site. Ultimately an exhausting and fruitless venture. He’s written a fine article. God reward him for it.
I wonder what Fr. Pokorsky’s critics would say to the Latin Patriarch and to the many Catholic and Orthodox clergy, religious, and Palestinian laity on the ground who also believe that the State of Israel’s response has been disproportionate and has helped create a horrendous humanitarian crisis. Their voices deserve to be heard.
Carthusian: Some of us would say to their faces that the credibility of their reliable testimony is seriously wanting. For the cause of this, review the most recent Church history going back 30-40 years.
Even when we respect people we can disagree with the sources of their information. Especially in this situation.
We only from who and what informs us.
DiogenesRedux: I’m sorry but that response makes no sense at all. You don’t trust Catholic and Orthodox bishops, priests, religious and laity in Israel and Palestine because of Church scandals from the 1980 onwards? BTW Cardinal Burke has just come out lauding Cardinal Pizzaballa’s witness and denouncing the treatment of PalestinIans. I guess he’s just another lib in on the conspiracy. Give me a break.
Carthusian: You’re free to rely on whomever you wish to inform your view about current events. Just don’t presume that your sources are authoritative for the rest of us.
Cardinal Burke is a lovely man but the best of us can be misinformed.
The Zionist state of Israel is not a legitimate nation-state but a colonial project, founded by Eastern European settlers mostly from Russia, Ukraine, and Poland who stole Palestinian land, expelled its indigenous people, and built an apartheid regime rooted in racist white Jewish supremacy. For 77 years now, to keep what they have stolen, this regime has carried out a slow, grinding genocide against the Palestinians both Muslims and Christians, cloaking its crimes in biblical justifications and Western backing. Those whom we have been erroneously taught to label as terrorists are, in fact, resistance fighters struggling to reclaim what was stolen from them.
No nation built on dispossession, racial domination, and war crimes can claim a “right to exist.” That’s not justice, it’s theft masquerading as statehood. Peace built on the silence of the oppressed is no peace at all.
Justice requires dismantling apartheid, ending the occupation, and holding perpetrators of genocide accountable. Catholics who know the truth and still defend this brutality betray the Fifth Commandment. Our faith does not bless revenge, nor does it sanctify slaughter, no matter the flag that waves above it. Truth must be spoken, especially when it costs something.
Deacon Dom, you should go back and read the Old Testament. It might give you a clear-headed view of the history of peoples. Oh, and by the way, islam with its false god allah didn’t come on the scene until the 7th c and immediately set out on their rapacious, violent, and obscene conquest of all neighboring lands that had been Christianized. You seem to have a perverse hatred of Israel and, can we say by inference, of Jews.
Deacon, the false witness you spew above is despicable. I pray you are not in truth a deacon of the Catholic Church.
Because the clear fact is, I’m afraid, your true faith is in the death cult of leftism.
Recall that on Oct. 7, 2023, the Israelis were peacefully conducting their lives, when Hamas fighters swooped down without warning and murdered more than a thousand innocent civilians — including women and children — and raped and kidnapped hundreds more.
It was inhuman.
Also, did you know that Gaza was occupied by the Israelis following the Six Days War in 1967?
Then, during the 1990’s, the Israelis left Gaza without negotiations or the expectation of concessions, hoping to demonstrate their desire for peace to the Palestinian people and their leaders.
The effort was known as ‘Land For Peace.’
Within mere months, the Palestinians started lobbing rockets indiscriminately from Gaza into Israel’s most populous cities.
Note once again, the Palestinians’ attacks were directed toward civilian targets, not the Israeli military.
I could go on — and on and on — but I won’t. Your vile absurdities don’t merit any more serious rebuttal than this.
May God forgive you for vomiting your anti-Semitic lies all over these comment sections.
What’s going to happen when NPR shuts down, DD? Where will you be able to get your progressive talking points to post here? Just curious. And there is no genocide, no apartheid, no occupation taking place in Gaza.
Goodness Deacon Dom. There has always been a presence of God’s Chosen People in the land He gave to them. The Diaspora who returned to their land in the 19th and 20th centuries were the same Chosen People who had been displaced , dispossessed, oppressed, and persecuted.
If you disagree with God and scripture about Israel I don’t know what to say. You will have to take that up with Him.
It’s disappointing to see skin colour brought into the conversation on a Christian site. There are Israelis of every ethnicity sharing equal rights- Arabs, Christians, and Jews. Jews came home from everywhere in the Diaspora: Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
mrscracker: you’re correct about some referring to skin color on these pages. I remember many years back when Israel took in some Ethiopian (I think) Jews because they were being marginalized. I recall pictures of these lost tribes and their skin was as dark as most Sub-Saharan Africans.
Yes, that’s true. And Israel has a large population of Sephardic & Mizrahi Jews from North Africa, the Middle East, & the former Ottoman Empire. Jews come in all different colours.
🙂