Parshat Pinchas is remembered for an act of zeal. It should also be remembered for an act of deception.
After the crisis at Baal Peor, God commands Moses to strike Midian. The reason is revealing:
“For they harassed you through their deception…” (Numbers 25:18)
The Torah could have focused on the immorality or the idolatry. Instead, it draws attention to the strategy that made both possible: deception.
Every nation prepares for open threats. Armies train for invasion. Citizens recognize rebellion. A visible enemy can be confronted.
Deception follows a different path.
It works quietly. It conceals its destination. It persuades people to take one reasonable step after another until they arrive somewhere they never intended to go.
That was Midian’s strategy.
The process began with attraction. Attraction became relationships. Relationships became shared experiences. Shared experiences became participation. Participation became belonging. By the time many Israelites bowed before Baal Peor, their loyalties had already been reshaped.
The decisive battle had taken place long before anyone recognized it as a battle.
That is why the Torah emphasizes deception. Sexual seduction was the instrument. The objective was the covenant itself.
Samson and Delilah by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Every generation encounters this challenge.
Ideas, values, and habits rarely replace one another overnight. They gain influence gradually. Each accommodation feels insignificant on its own. Only over time does the cumulative effect become clear.
For Jews living in free societies, the challenge often comes through competing identities. Career, politics, entertainment, consumer culture, and the endless demands of the digital world all seek our time, attention, and allegiance. None requires abandoning Jewish life. Each simply asks that it occupy a little less space than it did yesterday.
The Torah’s answer is equally deliberate.
After the crisis ends, Parshat Pinchas turns immediately to building the future: counting the next generation, dividing the land, appointing Joshua, and establishing the rhythm of communal worship. The response to deception is not withdrawal from society. It is strengthening the institutions, practices, and commitments that preserve a people’s identity.
Military threats test a nation’s strength. Deception tests its memory.
One attacks from without. The other reshapes from within.
Parshat Pinchas reminds us that a people must guard against both with equal vigilance.
On June 27, 1976, Palestinian terrorists hijacked Air France Flight 139, a civilian airliner traveling from Tel Aviv to Paris. The operation by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine‘s external operations network diverted the aircraft to Entebbe, Uganda, where the hijackers, aided by Idi Amin’s regime, held more than one hundred civilians hostage while demanding the release of imprisoned terrorists.
Then came the moment that revealed the deeper nature of the conflict.
The hijackers separated Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish passengers from the rest of those on board. Many other passengers were eventually released. The Israelis and Jews remained in captivity.
Had nationality been the only issue, non-Israeli Jews would have been released alongside the other foreign passengers. Instead, Jewish identity itself became grounds for continued imprisonment. The selection demonstrated that the target extended beyond the State of Israel to the Jewish people themselves. Decades after the Holocaust, Jewish civilians once again found themselves sorted from their fellow passengers because they were Jews.
The crimes committed during the hijacking were numerous. Palestinian terrorists seized a civilian aircraft, held innocent men, women and children hostage, threatened mass murder to secure political concessions, and singled out Jews for continued captivity. Three hostages died during the Israeli rescue operation, and Dora Bloch, an elderly Jewish hostage who had been taken to a hospital in Kampala, was later murdered by Ugandan authorities.
Hostages saved from Palestinian terrorists in Entebbe Airport, Uganda, July 4, 1976
Palestinian terrorists and their sympathizers have often come for non-Israeli Jews. Synagogues and Jewish community centers were attacked in cities far removed from the Middle East battlefield. Rome. Athens. Istanbul. Hezbollah and Iran often acted in support of Palestinian Arabs, just as they have since October 7, 2023.
Palestinian Arab opened fire in the Great Synagogue in Rome, Italy October, 1982, killing a 2-year old and wounding 37
And the Palestinian Arabs don’t hide it. The 1988 Hamas Charter is not simply a terrorist manifesto, but a deeply antisemitic one. Palestinians voted Hamas to 56% of parliament with such screed and continue to vote for the group over Fatah in every poll.
Fifty years ago, on July 4, 1976, the Israeli Defense Forces saved over 100 Israeli and non-Israeli Jews who were held hostage by terrorists. The rescue operation only killed Ugandan soldiers and the terrorists themselves – no Ugandan nor Gazan civilian was harmed.
Libya: “Israel’s wanton aggression is a serious and grave crime against international law.”
Benin: “act of aggression committed by Israel against Uganda.”
Somalia: “Israel’s flagrant aggression against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Uganda.”
Cuba: “The action of Israel… unquestionably constitutes a flagrant violation of the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter.”
Mauritius: “act of aggression.”
Pakistan: “the Council should demand that compensation for the great loss of life and property caused by the Israeli action be paid to Uganda.”
Mauritania, sponsored the complaint on behalf of the African Group.
“the Western Powers have manifested a racist and fanatic solidarity with the white minority settlement in Palestine. For them, the Israeli aggression merely demonstrated a highly successful operation performed by the white man against the blacks of Africa and against the browns of the Arab lands -against the blacks and the browns of another and hostile world, that of the Arab-African community.” – Libya regarding Israeli rescue of 100+ hostages held by Palestinian Arabs in Uganda
The total populations of Uganda and the countries above is roughly 373 million. The Jewish population in all of these countries combined is under 5,000, 0.001%. They are unwelcome and unwanted.
Wheelchair-bound, 69-year old American Leon Klinghoffer, killed by Palestinian terrorists October 8, 1985
Palestinian Arabs and their supporters in the Global South are ingrained with a deeply hostile view of Jews and the Global North. The latest manifestation has been seen since the barbaric attacks of October 7, 2023, but can be seen just as clearly fifty years ago, when Israel rescued other Jewish hostages.
Words do more than describe reality. They shape it.
Few phrases demonstrate this better than questioning or supporting “Israel’s right to exist.”
At first glance, it sounds like a reasonable principle. Until one pauses to think about it. It is a question asked of no other nation. Countries are criticized for their policies or leaders. Their continued existence is not routinely presented as a subject for debate.
The issue is not whether Israel has a right to exist. The issue is whether people support destroying an existing country, specifically, destroying the only Jewish State.
While Holocaust Survivors are still alive to recount the horror of the genocide of one-third of world Jewry, people discuss the destruction of Jews in their homeland where nearly half of world Jewry resides.
It is an abomination.
And the irony is that the unresolved question of statehood is not Israel’s; it is Palestine’s.
Israel declared independence in 1948 and has been a member of the United Nations ever since. The Palestinians declared the State of Palestine in 1988, and while many countries have recognized that declaration, neither the United States nor Israel has done so. Further, Palestine is not a full member state of the United Nations. Palestine still fails to meet many of the basic criteria for statehood.
If there is a legitimate debate about a state’s existence, it concerns whether a Palestinian state should be established. After the October 7 massacre, the abduction of civilians, and the persistence of violent extremism and antisemitism within Palestinian society, many people argue that recognition of Palestinian statehood should depend on profound political and cultural change.
Instead, the narrative has been inverted. And weaponized. Rather than asking whether yet another Arab and Muslim state should be created under present circumstances, the debate is reframed as whether the one existing Jewish state has a “right to exist.”
The “right to exist” narrative should be placed squarely on Palestine, not Israel. And the current verdict is not positive.
Most people think UNRWA exists to care for Palestinian refugees until a Palestinian state is created.
Not so.
If that were its purpose, its schools, healthcare, and social services would have gradually been transferred to the Palestinian Authority as Palestinian self-government expanded these past many years, especially in the “West Bank” / East of the 1949 Armistice Lines.
UNRWA’s mission would shrink as Palestinian institutions grew stronger. Instead, UNRWA has remained a permanent parallel system that continues to grow every year.
Unlike every other refugee agency in the world, UNRWA passes refugee status across generations, creating an ever-growing population of registered refugees. That population’s political claim is not to a future Palestinian state, but to a claimed so-called “right of return” to towns in Israel.
That distinction is critical.
A “two-state solution” is based on two peoples exercising self-determination in two states. A mass movement of millions of Arabs who never lived in Israel into Israel would produce 1.5 states for Arabs and 0.5 states for Jews. Further, stripping Israel of its right to determine who gets to enter its country means it doesn’t have basic sovereignty.
While UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres claims that “UNRWA is a stabilizing force” it is precisely the opposite. As he urges the world to fund the immoral project, he lies that the agency is the force for “countering the hopelessness that can fuel insecurity.”
UNRWA has fed the lie that – and demands that it will continue to exist until – 6 million Arabs will move into Israel. Such mission is precisely opposite the goal of an Arab and Jewish state living in coexistence.
At its core, UNRWA is a political organization that negates Israel’s sovereignty, cloaked as a humanitarian organization. If the goal is truly a Palestinian state living alongside Israel, then UNRWA must be closed permanently as well as the discussion of a so-called “right of return” .
Why would a vigilante movie cause international controversy in 2026?
After all, Hollywood has been making vigilante films for more than half a century. Death Wish, Taxi Driver, The Equalizer, Taken, John Wick. Millions have watched ordinary people take justice into their own hands. Critics warned they would inspire copycats but by and large, they did not.
Because this film is not simply about revenge. It is set against one of the most divisive political questions of our time: immigration.
The story follows a man who concludes that his government has abandoned its most basic duty: to protect its own citizens. He begins targeting migrants whom he sees as responsible for violent crime while officials either refuse or fail to act. Critics argue the film risks legitimizing violence against immigrants. Supporters respond that it dramatizes the consequences of government paralysis rather than endorsing vigilantism.
Whether one agrees with either side, the film did not emerge in a vacuum.
Across Britain, years of revelations about organized child sexual exploitation gangs – most involving men of Pakistani heritage in towns such as Rotherham, Rochdale, and other communities – left many citizens convinced that authorities failed to protect vulnerable girls and, in some instances, were reluctant to confront offenders for fear of inflaming racial tensions. The scandals produced multiple official inquiries and enduring public anger over institutional failures. For many viewers, Citizen Vigilante taps into that frustration: the fear that government sees, knows, and still does not act, while the mainstream media diverts attention away from it.
That fear is not unique to Britain. In the United States, the conflict is different but follows a similar pattern.
Immigration enforcement is primarily a federal responsibility. Yet the Biden administration allowed a constant flow of illegal immigrants to enter the US – multiple times as many who arrived legally. It was a contributing factor of Donald Trump being elected in 2024.
In response to Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, liberal municipalities declared themselves “sanctuaries,” limiting cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Federal officials argue that dangerous offenders remain because local jurisdictions refuse to honor immigration detainers. Sanctuary jurisdictions answer that they are respecting constitutional limits on federal power and preserving trust between immigrant communities and local police.
The legal arguments belong in court but the psychological consequences live in society.
When one level of government says, “We must enforce the law,” and another responds, “We will not help you,” ordinary citizens no longer see a single sovereign speaking with one voice. They see governments arguing over who bears responsibility while serious problems remain unresolved.
That is ripe ground for the vigilante to enter, not because movies create him, but because confidence in public institutions has eroded.
Every stable democracy rests on one indispensable principle: the state holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Citizens may vote, petition, protest, organize, criticize, litigate, and campaign for new laws. They may not decide for themselves who should be detained, punished, expelled, or attacked. The moment private groups begin enforcing their own version of justice, the rule of law gives way to competing factions.
South Africa illustrates how quickly that line can blur. Recent anti-migrant demonstrations included many people calling for stricter enforcement of immigration law. But alongside lawful protest came reports of intimidation, assaults, and migrants fleeing violence. The movement did not remain solely a political demand. In some instances, private citizens began acting as if enforcement belonged to them.
People will seek alternatives if they begin to doubt that the government will protect them.
Consider New York’s Jewish community. Antisemitic incidents have reached historic levels in recent years. At the same time, some prominent political figures have used language that many Jews regard as deeply dehumanizing or have expressed intense hostility toward Zionism, which many Jews see as an integral part of their collective identity. When Jewish New Yorkers hear rhetoric describing Zionists as “monsters,” some inevitably ask a question that no democratic society should want its citizens to ask: If violence comes, will the government protect us with the same determination that it protects everyone else?
“He [Tarek Bazrouk] targeted these New Yorkers based on their religion and national origin. And he was undeterred by multiple arrests following these assaults, instead quickly returning to violently targeting Jews. The prosecution of this case and the sentence imposed make clear that New Yorkers will not tolerate hate-based violence and that this Office will aggressively prosecute those who perpetrate senseless crimes of hate.” – Jay Clayton, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; Christopher G. Raia, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) October 31, 2025. Released early on June 23, 2026 under NYC DSA Mayor Zohran Mamdani
The appeal of the vigilante has never really been about revenge. It has always been about confidence. People cheer the vigilante only after they conclude that the institutions designed to provide justice have failed.
That is why the debate over Citizen Vigilante is larger than one controversial film.
It is about whether citizens still believe that governments – federal, state, and local – are willing and able to carry out their most fundamental obligation: to enforce the law fairly, protect the innocent, and maintain a single, legitimate monopoly on force.
If that confidence disappears, the next vigilante will not step out of a movie theater. He will step out of a society that has stopped believing the state will do its job.
New York has embraced an important idea: identity deserves respect.
Its laws explicitly protect both gender identity and gender expression, recognizing that identity is not merely an internal characteristic but something people live and communicate publicly through appearance, speech, names, clothing, and behavior.
That principle is admirable but is it applied consistently?
The Jewish people also possess an identity that is both internal and external. Jews express that identity through religion, language, holidays, history, culture, family traditions, symbols, and connection to their ancestral homeland.
For many Jews, that expression includes Zionism.
Contrary to its frequent caricature, Zionism is not a political opinion. It rests on two historical facts and one political principle: Jews are a people; they originated in the Land of Israel; and therefore they are entitled to national self-determination and sovereignty in their ancestral homeland.
Like wearing a kippah, lighting Shabbat candles, speaking Hebrew, or displaying a Star of David, affirming the Jewish people’s right to their homeland is, for many Jews, a basic expression of Jewish identity.
Yet this expression is increasingly treated as unacceptable.
President Biden’s U.S. Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism at the State Department, told Jews to hide expressions of their Judaism on May 21, 2021
Across universities, workplaces, and public institutions, “Zionist” is often used to describe a political viewpoint and as a label for exclusion. Students are told Zionists are unwelcome. Employees are pressured to distance themselves from Zionism. Organizations adopt anti-Zionist litmus tests that, for many Jews, require repudiating a central expression of their identity.
New York City subway where anti-Israel protestors call for Zionists to get out
If society recognizes that identity includes both who a person is and how that person expresses that identity, why should that principle stop with gender?
No one should be expected to abandon a central expression of identity in order to participate in public life, attend a university, or feel welcome in a workplace.
“Zionists don’t deserve to live,” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” – Columbia University student Khymani James
This is not a request for special treatment. It is a request for consistency.
If identity deserves dignity, then every community’s identity deserves dignity. If expression deserves respect, then that principle should not end where Jewish identity begins.
The United Nations has a Pact for the Future. It looks ahead to artificial intelligence, digital governance, climate change, sustainable development, financing, debt and even discussions of global taxation. The underlying premise is that humanity faces challenges unlike those of previous generations and that international cooperation must evolve accordingly.
Yet there is one omission that is difficult to ignore. While the international community has developed increasingly sophisticated frameworks to protect biodiversity, endangered languages, cultural artifacts and World Heritage Sites, it has produced no comparable vision for preserving one of humanity’s oldest living inheritances: its religions.
We have become remarkably good at preserving the products of civilization. Archaeologists restore temples after earthquakes. UNESCO protects historic churches, synagogues and mosques. Museums conserve ancient manuscripts while linguists race to document disappearing languages before the last native speakers die. We understand instinctively that once these treasures are lost, they cannot truly be recreated. Yet we devote far less attention to the living communities that gave those monuments meaning. A restored monastery is no substitute for the monks who once prayed there. An ancient synagogue is just beautiful stone if the Jewish community that sustained it for centuries has vanished. Preserving the architecture while allowing the faith itself to disappear is to save the shell while losing the civilization.
This is no longer a hypothetical concern. In only a generation, ISIS nearly exterminated the Yazidis while devastating ancient Christian communities whose roots stretched back to the earliest centuries of Christianity. The Taliban’s return to power accelerated the disappearance of Afghanistan’s Hindu and Sikh communities and forced Christians even deeper underground. Across parts of Africa, jihadist movements have burned churches, murdered clergy and displaced entire Christian villages. Indigenous and tribal religions continue to fade through modernization, migration and demographic collapse, while Jewish communities that had flourished across much of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for two millennia have largely disappeared. These are different stories unfolding on different continents, but together they reveal the same pattern: humanity’s religious diversity is steadily shrinking.
There were once an estimated 250,000 Jews in Morocco. They are have almost all left since 1948
Recent years have demonstrated how fragile minority religious and ethnic groups can be. Christians have seen ancient churches destroyed or emptied by war. Pilgrimages have been disrupted by conflict in multiple regions. Jews continue to be barred from praying openly at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the holiest site in Judaism.
The legal foundations for religious liberty already exist. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the right to change one’s religion. Yet millions still live where that freedom exists only on paper. Apostasy remains punishable under law or through the application of religious law in several countries, while blasphemy laws continue to imprison people or expose them to severe punishment simply for changing or expressing their beliefs. At the same time, digital surveillance, online incitement and transnational extremist movements have created entirely new forms of religious persecution that the architects of the postwar human rights system could scarcely have imagined.
Radical Islamists call for killing converts from Islam
Perhaps the world needs a Pact for the Future of Religious Heritage – one that treats living religious communities with the same urgency that we reserve for endangered species, disappearing languages and historic monuments. Such a framework would protect sacred sites, preserve endangered faith traditions, defend freedom of conscience, encourage the repeal of laws criminalizing apostasy and blasphemy, establish rapid international responses to religious persecution, and affirm that followers of every religion should be able to freely, safely and openly worship at their sacred sites and undertake traditional pilgrimages.
Civilizations are remembered not only for the monuments they leave behind, but for the beliefs that inspired them and the communities that kept those beliefs alive. Humanity has learned to preserve forests, wildlife, manuscripts and archaeological treasures. The next step is to preserve something even older and even more fragile: the living faiths that have shaped civilizations for thousands of years.
A friend noticed I had attended the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem and asked if it was worthwhile.
I paused. “That’s actually a harder question than it sounds. I have too many thoughts for a text message.”
This article is my answer.
The event. Alex Traiman, CEO of JNS, and Richard Heideman, Chairman of the JNS International Policy Summit, assembled an impressive three-day program. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, the “Green Prince” Mosab Hassan Yousef and dozens of leading policymakers, legal experts and advocates discussed nearly every dimension of Israel’s current challenges.
Topics: The summit covered twelve main topics with a few breakaway panels for each so people could listen to various subjects. It covered everything from antisemitism and regional security to international law, Judea and Samaria, Israel’s democracy, Christian-Israel relations and the narrative war playing out across traditional and social media.
JNS panel discussion on Regional Security
What makes a conference worthwhile? Many conferences share the discussions online – as did JNS – so people often question the value of devoting so much time to listening to so many speakers. I usually attend conferences to become energized and to meet like-minded people. That has been my experience at Tikvah events in New York, for example. I will share that it was not my feeling at this JNS conference.
For one thing, the attendees here were much more engaged in politics professionally than at a Tikvah Leadership Conference. Most of the people at the Waldorf Astoria knew everyone on the panels, worked with them and could have joined any of the discussions. It felt like the crowd was full of understudies ready to assume an empty chair on stage, or ready to have working sessions in side rooms. It made talking to fellow attendees extremely interesting for anyone looking to fully engage in the various subject matters.
However, the vibe of the Jerusalem News Syndicate conference was much more right-wing than I had anticipated. I had thought of JNS as simply an alternative to AP and Reuters, providing an Israeli perspective on the news. While I expected it to be right-of-center, I was surprised at how many deeply right-wing people were both speakers and attendees.
Two Themes:Trump-Iran/Lebanon: The backdrop for the event must be set, as events in the Middle East move quickly.
At the time of the conference, June 21-23, it appeared that the Trump Administration was striking a deal with Iran that was viewed by the speakers as profoundly weak regarding Iran, and deeply flawed as it related to Israel’s war with Hezbollah. Speakers went out of their way to say how much they love Donald Trump and Israel could never ask for a better friend, so such a skilled negotiator obviously just needed to buy time through July 4 celebrations and the World Cup, and would then return to finishing the Iranian nuclear and ballistic threats. Speakers avoided smearing Vice President JD Vance in public, but the quiet discussions near the cookies in the hallway were that they would like to see Marco Rubio as the president after Trump.
The opinions were definitely hawkish: Israel needs to maintain a buffer in Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed and terrorist infrastructure is removed. The same format is required in Gaza for Hamas. Iran must continue to be attacked until a long-term favorable deal can be struck.
It was interesting to hear how the various speakers thought of the regimes and people in each theater: In Iran, the government is horrible and must be removed while the people are intelligent and wonderful allies-in-waiting. Hezbollah is a rogue Iranian proxy that must be expunged so Israel can develop a long-term peace with the legitimate government of Lebanon. However, the situation in Gaza had no rainbow at the end. While the determination to finish Hamas and disarm it was viewed as non-negotiable, the prognosis for peace with everyday Gazans was viewed as so distant in the future to not even warrant near-term discussions.
Antisemitism/ Narrative: The “eighth front” of the current war is sometimes referred to as the narrative war in the global media and social media by Netanyahu. I believe Israel’s deteriorating image around the world has fueled antisemitism, even if hostility toward Israel and hatred of Jews ultimately remain distinct phenomena.
Michal Cotler-Wunsh, CEO of the International Legal Forum, called “October 7 the Kristallnacht of our times” that will ultimately “come for all democracies.” Lori Lowenthal Marcus of the Deborah Project said that “teacher unions are like the Hamas tunnels in American education,” part of an insidious infrastructure that systemically vilifies Israel. David Brog of the Maccabee Task Force suggested bringing social media influencers to Israel to see the truth, and that those people will become strong advocates when they realize that they’ve been fed lies for years. Miss Israel, Melanie Shiraz suggested changing the entire dynamic: to engage in sports, cultural events and other places where people engage directly in a common arena. “Let them see Israel, not as an argument to be won but a beauty to be shared…. Not with better corrections but better invitations.”
Sara Friedman, CEO WJC Israel; Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Legal Director of the Deborah Project; David Brog, Executive Director of Macabee task Force, and Elan Carr, CEO Israeli-American Council
She received one of only a handful of standing ovations.
So, was the JNS International Policy Summit worthwhile?
Yes, but not for the reason I expected.
The speeches were informative, and many are available online for anyone willing to invest the time. What cannot be livestreamed are the conversations over lunch, the chance encounters in the hallway, and the immersion in an ecosystem of people who have dedicated their lives to defending Israel and Jews in ways most of us never see. Some fight in courtrooms. Others rewrite school textbooks, monitor the United Nations, expose campus antisemitism, advocate for terror victims, build alliances with Christians, or wage the daily battle for truth on social media.
Miss Israel, Melanie Shiraz, surprised the crowd with passionate advocacy for greater cultural exchanges and received a standing ovation
Like any gathering of passionate people, I did not agree with everyone. Some speakers left me inspired; others left me shaking my head. But perhaps that is part of the value of attending in person. A conference is not worthwhile because it confirms everything you already believe. It is worthwhile because it exposes you to the people, personalities, and competing ideas that shape a movement.
The summit reminded me that the defense of Israel and Jewish people around the world is no longer just the work of soldiers and diplomats. It is also carried by lawyers, educators, journalists, researchers, politicians, influencers, and ordinary citizens who understand that ideas, narratives, and public opinion have become battlefields of their own.
That, more than any individual panel, was the lasting lesson I brought home from Jerusalem.
For more than sixteen centuries, the Catholic Church has wrestled with one of humanity’s most difficult questions: When, if ever, is war morally justified?
St. Augustine laid the foundation by teaching that, “The purpose of all wars is peace.” War was never to be pursued for conquest, revenge, or hatred, but only to restore a just peace.
St. Thomas Aquinas refined that principle, writing that, “In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign… Secondly, a just cause… Thirdly… the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church later added that “The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration.” It identifies four additional requirements: the aggressor must inflict lasting, grave and certain damage; peaceful alternatives must have been exhausted; there must be a serious prospect of success; and the use of force must not create evils greater than those it seeks to eliminate.
These principles have recently been invoked by Catholics questioning Israel’s wars against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.
The first question is legitimate authority.
Israel is a sovereign state with an elected government entrusted with protecting its citizens. Hamas is a terrorist organization that seized control of Gaza by force. Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed militia that operates independently of the Lebanese government while maintaining its own army. Iran finances, arms, trains, and directs proxy organizations across the region while repeatedly calling for Israel’s destruction.
The Catholic tradition recognizes a government’s duty to defend those under its care. That responsibility belongs to Israel’s government. It does not belong to terrorist organizations.
The second question is just cause.
Israel did not manufacture this conflict. On October 7, Hamas crossed into Israel and deliberately massacred civilians, raped women, tortured families, burned people alive in their homes, and kidnapped more than 250 men, women, children, and elderly people. Hezbollah opened a northern front with sustained rocket attacks, while Iran’s regional proxy network joined the conflict.
Catholic teaching has long recognized that governments possess both the right and the obligation to defend innocent life against grave aggression.
The third question is right intention.
Israel has repeatedly stated that its objective is the dismantling of Hamas’s military capability, the removal of Hezbollah’s threat along its northern border, and the degradation of Iran’s ability to wage war through proxies. Those are military objectives directed toward restoring security.
Its enemies have declared something fundamentally different: that the Jewish state should be destroyed. One side seeks to eliminate a military threat. The other seeks to eliminate a nation.
The Catechism next asks whether war is truly the last resort.
Israel withdrew every soldier and civilian from Gaza in 2005. Instead of peace, Hamas transformed Gaza into an armed fortress, investing billions in rockets, tunnels, command centers, and military infrastructure embedded beneath civilian neighborhoods. Ceasefires repeatedly collapsed. Diplomatic initiatives failed to end the attacks. Every pause became an opportunity for Hamas and Hezbollah to rearm.
Hamas tunnels
Catholic teaching does not require a nation to absorb repeated massacres while endlessly hoping the next ceasefire will succeed where every previous one failed.
There must also be a reasonable chance of success.
Israel’s objectives have been difficult but attainable: dismantling terrorist command structures, destroying military infrastructure, rescuing hostages, degrading missile capabilities, and reducing Iran’s capacity to project violence through its proxies. Success doesn’t mean perfect peace. It means substantially reducing a continuing threat to innocent life.
Finally comes proportionality and discrimination.
These principles are often reduced to comparing casualty figures. That is not how Catholic teaching understands proportionality. The question is whether the military response is proportionate to removing the evil being confronted and whether civilians are intentionally protected.
Hamas deliberately embeds military assets beneath hospitals, schools, mosques, and residential neighborhoods. It stores weapons among civilians, fires rockets from civilian areas, steals humanitarian aid, and has long been accused of using civilians as shields. It refuses to let civilians enter the tunnels for shelter. Hezbollah has similarly embedded military infrastructure within Lebanese civilian communities.
Those realities fundamentally shape how Israel’s responsibilities must be judged.
The Catholic just war tradition was never intended to evaluate only one participant in a conflict. Every criterion applies equally to every combatant. A moral framework that scrutinizes Israel while ignoring Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran is no longer applying Catholic teaching consistently.
When the Church’s own criteria are applied carefully – legitimate authority, just cause, right intention, last resort, reasonable hope of success, proportionality, and discrimination – Israel’s campaign against Hamas and Iran’s proxy network presents a strong case for satisfying the classical requirements of a just war.
Parashat Balak contains one of the most unusual narratives in the Torah. For almost the entire portion, the Jewish people disappear from the story.
Throughout the Torah, we experience events through Moses, the Israelites, or God speaking directly to His people. This week is different. The Israelites continue their journey completely unaware of the drama unfolding around them. Instead, the Torah lifts us to the mountaintops of Moab, where King Balak and the prophet Balaam stand overlooking the Israelite camp below.
For the only time in the Torah, we see the Jewish people entirely through the eyes of outsiders.
That perspective is striking. The story told reminds us that long before anyone attempts to destroy a people, they first seek to define them.
Balak does not look upon Israel and see the descendants of Abraham returning to the land God promised their forefathers. He does not see a nation recently liberated from slavery or a people carrying a covenant that would shape the moral foundations of civilization. Looking down from the mountain, he sees only a threat. Once he reaches that conclusion, everything else follows naturally. A dangerous people deserve to be weakened. A dangerous people deserve to be cursed.
Before there is violence, there is narrative.
Balak understands that words have power. If Israel can be portrayed as an illegitimate menace, hostility becomes easier to justify. He therefore summons Balaam, believing that the right words can reshape reality itself.
But the Torah teaches exactly the opposite lesson.
Each time Balaam opens his mouth to curse Israel, God compels him to describe what he actually sees rather than what Balak wishes were true. The curses become blessings. The accusations become admiration. Instead of condemning Israel, Balaam proclaims, “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel.”
The battle in Parashat Balak is ultimately not over land or military strength. It is over definition. Who has the authority to describe the Jewish people? A fearful king looking down from a distant mountain, or the God who entered into covenant with them?
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s “Balaam’s Ass”, 1626
That ancient struggle continues today.
Many of the loudest voices speaking about the Jewish people insist on defining them for themselves. Jewish history is recast as though the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel were a modern political invention rather than the foundation of Jewish civilization. Jerusalem is detached from the people who have been praying toward it for thousands of years. The descendants of ancient Israel become foreign colonizers in the very land where their national story began.
“European Jewish Zionists claimed to be descendants of the ancient Palestinian Hebrews and to be merely “returning” to their ancient land.” – Columbia University professor Joseph Massad, July 2022
The same impulse appears in discussions of antisemitism. Increasingly, others claim the authority to determine what Jews should consider antisemitic while dismissing the experience of Jewish communities themselves. The people who are the object of hatred are told they cannot define the hatred directed against them.
The pattern is remarkably familiar.
Balak first decided the Israelites were a threat and concluded they deserved condemnation. The false identity justified the action.
The Torah overturns that process.
The only outsider whose words are remembered for eternity is the one whom God compels to abandon prejudice and speak truth. Balaam climbed the mountain intending to curse Israel, but he remained a prophet. He still recognized that there was a Judge above him. When God commanded him to bless, his own desires gave way to a higher truth.
Today’s loudest critics acknowledge no such authority beyond themselves. They do not seek God’s judgment but the approval of crowds, political movements, or academic fashions. Their words may echo through universities, international institutions, social media, and the halls of government, but they carry no weight in Heaven. They resonate only among fellow travelers who have already chosen contempt over truth.
Three thousand years ago, God refused to allow those who hated Israel to define Israel. That remains the enduring lesson of Parashat Balak. The Jewish people are not who their enemies say they are. They are who God says they are.
First One Through 