Terrorism must be condemned in the most absolute terms. Speaking at the October 11th 2023, Wednesday General Audience, Pope Francis said “Terrorism and extremism do not help to reach a solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, but fuel hatred, violence, and revenge, causing suffering to both sides.” Indeed, terrorism and extremism, including the idea of forcibly relocating entire civilian populations, are ideologies that show complete contempt for human life and can never be justified.

For this reason, the CCJS condemns President Trump's recent declaration to forcibly transfer Palestinians from Gaza. The President also said the Palestinians would have no right to return to the territory. 

The current crisis and rising antisemitism must not cloud our moral vision. As Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman of the Shalom Hartman Institute has said, “The idea of a mass transfer of the Palestinian people living in Gaza is not merely against international law. It is a moral abomination.”

According to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church (CSDCC no. 504) forcibly transferring a civilian population from their homes and land is “always unacceptable.” 

The dignity of the human person is the foundation of society and so any dehumanizing language calling for the forcible transfer of entire populations strikes at the heart of all societies. 

As St. Pope John Paul II said in 1987, we must forge solutions that lead to a just peace for both the Jewish people who live in the State of Israel and the Palestinian people: “For the Jewish people who live in the State of Israel and who preserve in that land such precious testimonies to their history and their faith, we must ask for the desired security and the due tranquility that is the prerogative of every nation and condition of life and of progress for every society. What has been said about the right to a homeland also applies to the Palestinian people, so many of whom remain homeless and refugees. While all concerned must honestly reflect on the past – Muslims no less than Jews and Christians – it is time to forge those solutions which will lead to a just, complete and lasting peace in that area. For this peace I earnestly pray.”

The CCJS was founded on the teachings of Nostra Aetate, which declared that the Catholic Church “decries...displays of anti-Semitism directed against Jews at any time and by anyone," and indeed that the Church "reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion." As the CCJS stated in its July 23rd, 2022 Statement on the Neo-Nazi Demonstrators in Tampa, antisemitic and extremist ideas divide our human family and fuel violence. 

As Nostra Aetate teaches, since all human persons are created in the image of God, “No foundation…remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned."

“Today we are aware of the need to find a new consensus on humanitarian principles and to reinforce their foundation to prevent the recurrence of atrocities and abuse (CSDCC no. 505).” The CCJS therefore calls upon all people, especially religious and political leaders, to speak out against antisemitism and other forms of hatred and prejudice against any persons, as well as calls for forcibly relocating entire civilian populations, and to reject all such language unequivocally.