In his annual address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See on Friday, January 9, Pope Leo XIV declared that Palestinians have the right to live peacefully in their “own land”—language that directly endorses the creation of a Palestinian state on land that belongs to the Jewish people. The US-born pontiff, who assumed his position only months ago, used the diplomatic gathering to lament what he called rising violence against Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while conspicuously failing to condemn Hamas terrorism or acknowledge the group’s use of civilians as human shields.

The Vatican has positioned itself as a moral arbiter in the conflict, but the pattern that has emerged since the war began reveals an institution that consistently whitewashes terrorist crimes while holding Israel to impossible standards.

Pope Leo XIV’s reference to Palestinians living in “their own land” in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria directly contradicts the biblical affirmation that the land of Israel was promised to the Jews as an eternal covenant. No amount of diplomatic language can transform what belongs to the Jewish people into “Palestinian land.” The Vatican’s endorsement of the two-state solution is not a call for peace—it is a theological rejection of Jewish sovereignty over the biblical heartland.

Pope Leo XIV’s January 9 address is not an isolated incident. It fits into a broader pattern of Vatican statements since October 7 that minimize Hamas atrocities while amplifying alleged Israeli misconduct. Consider the record:

In October 2024, when a temporary ceasefire was announced, the Vatican issued statements expressing concern for the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza without once mentioning that Hamas started the war by massacring 1,200 Israelis, kidnapping hundreds, and firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. The Vatican treated the conflict as though it materialized from nowhere, erasing the context of jihadist aggression.

Throughout the war, Vatican officials have condemned Israeli strikes on “hospitals, energy infrastructure, homes and places essential to daily life” while ignoring the fact that Hamas deliberately embeds its military operations in these locations precisely to generate civilian casualties. The Pope’s condemnation of “any form of involvement of civilians in military operations” sounds even-handed until one realizes it is only ever applied to Israel, never to the terrorists who use their own population as shields.

The language of Pope Leo XIV’s speech reveals the moral inversion at work. He spoke of defending “the principle of the inviolability of human dignity and the sanctity of life” while calling for a Palestinian state in land where Jewish children are murdered for being Jewish. He lamented the erosion of international norms against using force to violate borders, apparently forgetting that it was Hamas terrorists who breached Israel’s border on October 7 to commit mass rape and slaughter.

Pope Leo XIV stated that “the two-state solution remains the institutional perspective for meeting the legitimate aspirations of both peoples.” Based on the decades-long failed experiment with the “land for peace” formula, first enshrined in the Oslo Accords of the 1990s. Its left-wing, typically secular/anti-religious advocates presented Oslo as a historic breakthrough. The Two-State Solution would create an unprecedented militarized Arab state inside Israel’s borders, ethnically cleansed of Jews, with its capital in an exclusively Muslim Jerusalem. This would require a return to the ceasefire lines drawn up after the defensive 1967 Six-Day War that are considered to be indefensible against an Arab threat. 

This position is not only historically ignorant—it is spiritually bankrupt. There is no such thing as a “Palestinian people” with historical claims to the Land of Israel that supersede Jewish claims. The concept itself is a 20th-century political invention designed to delegitimize Jewish sovereignty.

The so-called two-state solution has failed because it is based on a lie: that dividing the land will bring peace. Every time Israel has ceded territory—from Gaza to parts of Judea and Samaria—the result has been not peace but increased terrorism. The Vatican’s continued advocacy for this failed paradigm shows either willful blindness or active hostility to Jewish security.

Pope Leo XIV claimed his moral framework prioritizes “the protection of the principle of the inviolability of human dignity” over “any mere national interest.” Yet when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on October 7, they violated every principle of human dignity imaginable. They burned families alive, decapitated babies, raped women to death, and paraded naked corpses through the streets of Gaza to cheering crowds. The Vatican’s failure to call this what it is—genocidal jihadist barbarism—represents a moral failure of historic proportions.

What is most revealing about Pope Leo XIV’s address is not what he said but what he refused to say. In over 3,000 words covering conflicts around the world, the Pope did not mention Hamas by name. He did not call for the release of hostages still held in Gaza tunnels. He did not acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization committed to Israel’s destruction. He did not condemn the October 7 massacre.

This omission is not an oversight. It is a choice. The Vatican under Pope Leo XIV has decided that condemning Israel for defending itself is more important than condemning the jihadists who started the war. This moral calculus is not only unjust—it is obscene.

The pope also failed to mention the ongoing popular demonstrations by the people of Iran against the Islamist regime, which have continued into a third week. The protests have been met by mass arrests, live gunfire, and a sweeping internet blackout.