Vatican Rebuffs Meloni, Backs Macron in Endorsing Palestinian State
Antisemitism peaks in Italy as cardinal compares Israel to Nazis, blames "fundamentalism"
When Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earlier this week blasted France’s decision to recognize Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly as “counterproductive,” the Catholic Church’s second-highest authority responded by calling for the Vatican to follow in France’s footsteps.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s statement to reporters on July 28 is being seen as an attack on Meloni and an endorsement of French President Emmanuel Macron’s support for Palestine. It comes amid rising antisemitism in traditionally Catholic Italy.
“We’ve already recognized [the State of Palestine] … for us it’s the solution,” said Parolin, the brains behind the Vatican’s secret deal with the Chinese Communist Party, in response to Macron’s July 24 announcement that France will officially recognize the State of Palestine in September.
Top Vatican officials like Cardinal Augusto Paolo Lojudice, judge of the Vatican City Court of Cassation, are also whipping up anti-Israel sentiment. In a July 21 interview with Italian daily La Stampa, Lojudice accused Israel of “killing children in food lines.”
Vatican observers say that Lojudice, who worked closely with Pope Leo XIV for several years, is so close to the new pontiff that he is acting as a proxy and saying what the pope cannot. According to Vatican insiders, Parolin also is acting as Leo’s mouthpiece.
Meloni’s Government Refuses to Bow to French Pressure
Meloni told La Repubblica in an interview on July 26 that France’s decision to approve a Palestinian state was rash. “If something doesn’t exist” and “is recognized on paper,” she said, “the problem risks appearing solved when it isn’t.
“While I am very much in favor of the State of Palestine, I am not in favor of its recognition prior to a process for its constitution,” Meloni said.
Forty former Italian ambassadors hit back in a letter, asking Meloni to “suspend all relations and cooperation” with Israel’s defense and recognize the state of Palestine immediately.
Top officials in Meloni’s cabinet rallied to her support.Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini warned that recognizing the Palestinian state at this time would be a “gift to Hamas” and “to Islamic terrorists.”
“The sooner the hostages are released, the sooner what is recognized worldwide as a terrorist organization will be dissolved,” Salvini said. “It’s as if we had reasoned with the Red Brigades back then, that’s what it’s all about. I don’t give gifts to Islamic terrorists.”
Foreign minister Antonio Tajani agreed. “Italy is in favor of the two-peoples-two-states solution, but the recognition of the new Palestinian state must take place at the same time as their recognition of the state of Israel,” he asserted. “We are interested in peace, not in the victory of one side over the other.”
Cardinal Calls Netanyahu “Tyrant”
While Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly attacked Israel’s incursion into Gaza, Lojudice said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “not stopping because he is a tyrant pursuing a dark and bloodthirsty plan for power.”
The cardinal accused Israel of “evil without logic” in Gaza, blaming President Donald Trump and a literalist reading of the Hebrew Bible. “Aside from Donald Trump, who is only interested in selling weapons, no one accepts his self-legitimization anymore,” he remarked.
Lujodice continued:
In Jerusalem, I heard fundamentalist fringes using Scripture as a shield to trample on human rights. In reality, there’s no longer any way to attempt an explanation. Does the fundamentalist reading of the Bible call for the total destruction of the enemy? A mystery, because it speaks of destroying evil, not exterminating children.
When you distort the Old Testament, you make it say what you want. Not all Jews do this. In Israel, fundamentalist sectors are now in control, combining fundamentalism with far-right policies in a mad pursuit of absolute power.
The prelate went on to compare the Israelis to Nazis, saying: “Because of foolish choices, they commit the same atrocities perpetrated against them.”
Survey Reveals Peak in Italian Antisemitism
Meanwhile, the Osservatorio Antisemitismo reported on July 26 that 36% of Italians polled by YouTrend believe Jews “control the world” and 47% hold that Israel’s behavior is comparable to that of Nazi Germany.
Nearly two out of three Italians believe that Israel is orchestrating a genocide in Gaza and has reacted completely disproportionately to the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, by targeting all innocent civilians. Approximately 30% of Italians maintain that establishing a Jewish state was a mistake that must be overcome.
While 64% of Italians say Israel is oppressing the Palestinian people, 36% of those interviewed believe that Jews influence finance and the media worldwide, and 17% hold Jews responsible for almost all current and past conflicts in the world. Only 20% believe the above statements are antisemitic.
The Vatican was one of the last countries to officially recognize the State of Israel, doing so in . in 1993; Israel was founded in 1948. Formal diplomatic relations were established in January 1994 with the opening of a Vatican nunciature in Israel and an Israeli embassy in Rome.
In contrast, the Holy See was one of the first states in Europe to recognize the character of “statehood” for what, as a result of the 1993 Oslo Accords, had been defined as the Palestinian National Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas.
The “Global Agreement” between the Holy See and the State of Palestine was signed on June 26, 2015, entailing the Vatican’s recognition of the State of Palestine.
In his book Vatican Policy on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, political scientist Andrej Kreutz notes that “the Holy See has been inextricably involved in the Palestinian conflict in a way that may be called systemic and that seems to be a permanent feature of the Vatican’s religious and secular policy.”
Dr. Jules Gomes (BA, BD, MTh, PhD) has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.