On Sept. 2, the day that the Vatican announced that Pope Leo would meet with Israeli president Isaac Herzog, Vatican Media published an editorial opposing “plans for a ‘new Middle East’ without the Palestinian people.”
The article, written by the editorial director of the Vatican’s various media operations—radio, the Vatican News website and video platforms, and the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano—is the most lengthy and detailed editorial published by the newspaper about Gaza and can rightly be read as a summary of the Holy See’s position on the situation in the Holy Land. Vatican Media content concerning diplomatically sensitive issues is often vetted and approved by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State before publication.
While the article falls short of being an “official statement” by the Vatican, that vetting does lend significant weight to the substance of the editorial. It argues that Israel’s response to the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, has proved “a disproportionate reaction, going well beyond any ethically acceptable limit.” The editorial adds that recent provocations in the West Bank suggest that the State of Israel has “other objectives” that go “far beyond the elimination of Hamas or the guarantee of security for the State of Israel.”
Understanding the timing
The editorial comes just days after—and addresses—Trump administration plans to “take over” Gaza for 10 years, transforming it into a high-tech resort area that the U.S. president previously described as “the Riviera of the Middle East.” The plan, which Mr. Trump advertised with a bizarre A.I.-generated video on social media, has apparently now gained legitimacy. The Washington Post on Aug. 31 published a report on a 38-page prospectus for the “Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation [GREAT] Trust,” which outlines a plan to relocate all two million people living in Gaza, at least temporarily, offering every Gazan who moves to another country $5,000 plus subsidies for four years of rent and one year of food.
Palestinians who refuse to leave the enclave, the plan says, would be temporarily housed in secure zones with what the proposal calls “life support” services provided.
The entire project, according to the prospectus, would be funded by public and private investment in “mega-projects,” like electric vehicle plants, data centers, resorts and high-rise apartment buildings.
The Post reports that the prospectus “was developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) now distributing food inside the enclave.” That effort has been strongly criticized as insufficient to meet the need. Reaching G.H.F. sites has proved mortally hazardous to Palestinians who have come under fire from the Israel Defense Forces. More than 2,300 Palestinians were killed at the sites.
The State Department declined to comment on the plan.
The Vatican News editorial points out that this is just the latest in a series of proposals for the future of Gaza that have been published, “first quietly and now ever more openly,” in which “there seems to be no place for the Palestinian people.”
In addition to responding to the publication of the proposal, it is significant that an official Vatican publication issued such a strong statement just days before the Israeli president made an official visit to the Vatican, and on the same day that the visit was simultaneously announced by Israel and the Holy See.
It was immediately clear that there would be a struggle between the two states to control the narrative of the meeting: The day the visit was announced, the Israeli president’s spokesperson said that President Herzog had been invited to the Vatican by Pope Leo XIV; the Holy See responded with a statement saying that it is not the practice of the Holy See to issue invitations to heads of state or government but to respond to requests for them.
A senior Vatican official told America Senior Vatican Correspondent Gerard O’Connell that in the case of Mr. Herzog, “an audience was granted.”
In this context, the editorial represents a public statement of the Holy See’s opposition to any plans to “impose on Palestinians a future decided for them” on the eve of a high-stakes visit by the Israeli president, a position that Vatican officials likely reiterated during their meeting with Mr. Herzog.
An ‘official’ statement?
Although the editorial was likely approved by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State (its equivalent of the U.S. State Department), its publication by a Vatican media outlet under the byline of the editorial director offers the Vatican’s diplomatic staff some distance from the statement. It also allows the Holy See’s position to be summarized in a less measured manner than it might be by its diplomatic officials.
For example, with a strategically added “(sic!),” the Vatican statement casts open doubt on whether the plan for the “GREAT” trust would really allow Palestinians to return to Gaza:
Naturally, it provides for what is tellingly called the “voluntary evacuation” of Palestinians, who—if they wish—may one day return (sic!). And for those who do not want to leave, “special zones” are being designed… It is a plan that speaks for itself. One might have thought it was a work of science fiction, the plot of a fantasy film. Instead, it is—so it seems—sadly real.
Likewise, it calls plans to redevelop Palestinian territory without input from Palestinians “nothing but further proof of arrogance and blindness.”
The editorial’s author, Andrea Tornielli, told America in an interview today: “I tried to present the full position of the Holy See about the Gaza crisis.”
The full position
The editorial reiterates many of the Holy See’s frequently stated criteria for ending the Israel-Hamas war and achieving peace and justice in the region. Fully consistent with the statements of Pope Francis, Pope Leo XIV and Cardinal Parolin, the editorial condemns Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack and calls for the immediate release of hostages. It also echoes Cardinal Parolin and Pope Leo’s recently strengthened appeals for an end to the “collective punishment” of Palestinians, respect for international humanitarian law and a commitment not to deport Palestinians from Gaza.
The article reaffirms the Holy See’s longstanding position on the need for a two-state solution in the Holy Land, which the Vatican stated it stressed in meetings with President Herzog this week, despite growing doubt in the region that such a plan would be feasible. The editorial highlighted the Holy See’s decision to recognize a Palestinian State in 2015, when it established diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority.
The editorial also repeats, in strong terms, Cardinal Parolin’s criticism of Israel’s actions as disproportionate, comments that were criticized by Israel at the time.
Where the editorial steps beyond Cardinal Parolin and the popes’ statements is in its overt criticisms of or recommendations for certain proposals and plans. Usually, the Vatican doesn’t get this granular in its public statements.
Mr. Tornielli particularly criticizes “talk of annexing Area C,” a large, Israeli-controlled portion of the West Bank that is currently off-limits or heavily restricted to Palestinians despite its being Palestinian territory. Likewise he mentioned a new project that has been approved in the E1 area of the West Bank, which, he points out, “practically splits that territory in two;” both proponents and critics of Israeli construction in the E1 area have said it would threaten the possibility of having one contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank area, cutting off Palestinian East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
Likewise, while Vatican diplomatic leaders have stressed the importance of Palestinians having a say in plans for the occupied territories, they had previously stopped short of calling out specific plans like Mr. Trump’s “Riviera” comments.
The editorial also takes a new step in proposing the creation of safe zones under international protection across Gaza, which is slightly more concrete than previous Vatican proposals for protected humanitarian corridors.
It seems fair to assume that these proposals are also embraced by the Holy See’s diplomatic arm, given that they passed muster to be published in Vatican News. At the same time, their publication, not by the Secretariat of State but by the editorial director of Vatican Media, gives them some plausible deniability should the proposals prove counterproductive to diplomacy.
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