MANILA (LiCAS News): Pablo Virgilio Cardinal David of Kalookan, the Philippines, urged Jewish communities in Israel and across the world to take a stand against the ongoing violence in Gaza, saying they alone have the moral authority to demand change.
In a reflection posted on his social media account, the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines questioned the framing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as inherently complex.
“It only seems so to those who are unwilling to call a spade a spade,” he wrote. “When injustice is cloaked in the language of security, and collective punishment is rationalised as defense, the world must not remain silent under the pretense of complexity.”
Cardinal David, who is also vice chairperson of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, said that the responsibility to stop the war lies not with global powers but with the Jewish people themselves.
“The only ones who can stop this are the Jewish people themselves—both in Israel and throughout the diaspora—those who know, from the depth of their historical experience, what it means to suffer violence born of hatred and xenophobia,” he wrote.
When injustice is cloaked in the language of security, and collective punishment is rationalised as defense, the world must not remain silent under the pretense of complexity.
Cardinal David
“Only they can rise and say, ‘Not in our name.’ Only they can demand that their state no longer build its future on foundations of vengeance, fear, and resentment. A secure and just nation cannot be founded on the ruins of another people’s humanity,” the cardinal added.
Cardinal David reflected on the irony of a people who endured the horrors of the Holocaust now being led by leaders “blind to the irony of their own actions.”
The cardinal wrote, “A people who have known unspeakable suffering throughout history—whose memory of the Holocaust still cries out from the ashes—should now be led by ideologues blind to the irony of their own actions.” He wondered, “By what moral calculus do they not see that their unrelenting aggression gives fuel to the very anti-Semitism that once threatened to annihilate them?”
He emphasised that no government or international body could bring lasting resolution without internal reckoning. “All these may posture and intervene, but they cannot change the heart of a nation,” he said.
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The only ones who can stop this are the Jewish people themselves—both in Israel and throughout the diaspora—those who know, from the depth of their historical experience, what it means to suffer violence born of hatred and xenophobia
Cardinal David
Citing Psalm 95, Cardinal David quoted a passage in Hebrew and English in which God rebukes a generation whose hearts had turned away.
“These are not the words of a hater,” he wrote. “These are the words of a God whose love is wounded by the rebellion of his own people.”
He said in closing.
“May the people of Israel listen—not to their hardline leaders, not to their military strategists, but to the still small voice of conscience. May they act—not just for peace, but for mercy and justice, which is the only path that leads to true rest.”
On June 21, US president, Donald Trump, authorised bomb strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, using 13,607 kilogramme GBU-57 bunker-buster ordnance without seeking congressional approval.
The escalation followed Israel’s unprovoked military assault on Iran, which triggered a wider conflict involving regional powers.
“Let diplomacy silence the weapons!” Pope Leo XIV said during his June 22 Angelus, Vatican News reported. “Let nations shape their future with works of peace, not through violence and bloody conflicts!”
Pope Leo said, “War does not solve problems. On the contrary, it amplifies them and causes deep wounds in the history of peoples—wounds that take generations to heal. No military victory can ever compensate for a mother’s pain, a child’s fear, or a stolen future.”
