The Revival of Holy War

Not too long ago, I had a conversation with a Catholic friend over the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fighting in Gaza and its bombing in Lebanon—the IDF had not yet invaded the latter. While we both agreed that Israel, like any other sovereign nation-state, must defend itself against its aggressor, he vehemently sustained that the ongoing slaughter and displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are justified—he had previously told me that the IDF should evacuate (i.e., exterminate) all Palestinians from greater Israel. He argued that just as God had sanctioned the holy wars in the Old Testament, the Jewish State is compelled to do likewise. 

Those ultra-orthodox Jews or Zionists, like many among Catholic neo-conservative and Christian fundamentalist circles who believe that Israel is fighting a holy war in the Middle East, refer to the doctrine of the milchemet mitzvah (obligatory war), which is based on the Mishnah, part of the oral traditions of the Talmud. 

Many of them point to the conquest of Canaan by Joshua and the Israelites when they carried out the divine command to eradicate the non-Jewish tribes that inhabited the land in order to prevent their sinful ways from spreading:

So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded. And Joshua defeated them from Ka′desh-bar′nea to Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, as far as Gibeon. (Joshua 10:40-41)

The Talmud justifies violent vengeance from the fact that in the biblical accounts such aforementioned nations were first given an opportunity to repent and accept upon themselves the Seven Noahide Laws—a moral code all descendants of Noah (i.e., the entire human race) are required to observe.

There is a similarity to the milchemet mitzvah in Islam in as much as the Koran exhorts the individual Muslim to engage in or initiate a holy war (jihad) against non-Muslims because Allah commands it. Muslims who do not join the fight are called “hypocrites” and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter: 

Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knows, and ye know not. (Sura 2:216)

The Muslim’s religious and universal mission, as explained by the fourteenth-century historian Ibn Khaldūn, is “the obligation [to convert] everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” According to the jurist Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058–1111), considered by some Islamic historians the single most influential Muslim after their prophet Muhammad: “Everyone must go on jihad at least once a year…one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children.” 

A distinction, however, must be made between a holy war and a religious war. The former is understood to be ordained by God Himself, while the latter is ordered by a representative of God. In other words, all holy wars are religious wars, but not all religious wars are holy wars. A case in point: the Holy Crusades.

The crusades were a collective response to the ongoing conquest that began with the taking of the Holy Land (Jerusalem) and other Christian territories by Muslims under the Caliph Umar in 638. Arab Muslims also went so far as to raid Rome in 846, plundering the outskirts of the Eternal City and sacking the Basilicas of (the old) St. Peter and St. Paul Outside the Walls. The goal of the crusades was to retake the Holy Land and ensure that Christianity could continue to be practiced without any type of Islamic imposition.

Some of them were unjust, however, such as the Fourth Crusade (1204), when the Venetian crusaders diverted from Jerusalem to sack Constantinople. Not only did Pope Innocent III condemn and excommunicate the Venetians who carried out the raid, but the crusades were not doctrinal in the literal sense, as the milchemet mitzvah is to Talmudic Judaism or as jihad is to Islam.

All things being equal, the holy wars in the Jewish Scriptures cannot be equated to the allegorical statements spoken by our Savior found in the New Testament that on the surface level appear to be violent, such as: “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away” (Matthew 5:29). Here, the Lord was stating that we must do our best to avoid anything that may lead us into the occasion of sin, or sin itself.

The concept of holy war in the Jewish Scriptures is controversial, to say the least, because they are irreconcilable with the Gospel teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was touched upon by Pope Francis when he spoke about the psalms in his General Audience on June 19, 2024: 

Not all Psalms—and not every part of every Psalm—can be repeated and assimilated by Christians, and even less by modern man. At times they reflect a historical context and a religious mentality that are no longer ours.

This does not mean, as the Holy Father pointed out, that the books in the Old Testament are not divinely inspired. Yet, like the Mosaic law that called for the stoning of women caught in adultery—something our Lord did away with when He forgave the adulteress woman (John 8:7)—not everything contained in the Old Testament is of divine inspiration. This is why we have a Church magisterium to help us understand that certain biblical accounts can only be read in historical or allegorical context. Until then, applying the letter of the law of Scripture, vis-à-vis holy war, will continue.