Page 10 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

Introduction
On October 5, 2023, just two days prior to the hell unleased on Israeli communities on October 7, I made a mental note to myself:
I should write something about how the Israeli- Palestinian conflict is being framed in Catholic social justice circles. It’s inadvertently drip-feeding anti- Israel, anti-Jewish sentiment into the Catholic psyche. If we keep going down this path, one day something terrible will occur: Catholics won’t ‘be there’ for the Jewish people when they most need Catholic support.
It wasn’t the first time my silent ruminations had registered this concern. It was yet another rendition of a growing uneasiness that the compassionate energies of good churchgoing people with a concern for Palestinians would one day reveal an ugly flip side: a hardness of heart towards Israelis and Jews. Instead of compassion extended for all, compassion would take sides. I had no idea that my niggling fear for an unseen, faraway future was about to play out, just two days later, as a present-day nightmare. As Jews and other Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas on October 7, voices of justice and compassion emanating from within the Catholic community were largely missing in action: at best, hesitant; at worst, completely silent.
I could understand that it might take Catholics a little while
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