Pope Leo’s First Christmas Message: On International Relations

That severe, systematic inflictions of suffering on whole peoples were going on in the world even on Christmas Day in 2025 did not require a papal announcement for people the world over to be informed of those atrocities. Russia’s military incursion in Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza had been going on with international impunity for years. The suffering in Yemen and Sudan was less well-known, but substantial nonetheless. Speaking out against the sordid state-aggressors on the first Christmas of his pontificate, the pope provided an alternative basis for international relations that is so antithetical to military invasion and genocide that the message could seem utopian and thus practically of no use whatsoever. Because “might makes right” had made such unimpeded “progress” even in becoming the default and status-quo, the principle of humble compassion to the humanity to one’s detractors and even outright enemies could seem like a fairy tale. 

Nevertheless, even though the principle was so utterly eclipsed in practice on the world’s stage at the time, a person can have faith that even enunciating the alternative has value. At the very least, making it explicit shows powerful people such as Russia’s Putin and Israel’s Netanyahu in an especially dark light. Ironically, were either of those men to come to terms with themselves and change their ways, the principle would call the rest of us to forgive them. Even absent such a change-of-heart, or a dawning of heart in those two men, the principle mandates that the rest of us respond in humane compassion even to those two men on an interpersonal level should either of them need help. Such is the depth of power of the principle that it can be reckoned as inculcating what can be called divine nature even if the principle is not anthropomorphized in human form; the principle has validity, and thus value, in itself. So even if it seems utterly unrealistic for it to become the default in international relations (and even interpersonal relations), there is value in the pope’s inclusion of the principle in his first Christmas message.

In his Christmas Day homily, Pope Leo “remembered the people of Gaza, ‘exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold’ and the fragility of ‘defenseless populations, tried by so many wars,’ and of ‘young people forced to take up arms, who on the front lines feel the senselessness of what is asked of them, and the falsehoods that fill the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths.’”[1] The infliction of genocide, and even such suffering as to qualify as a holocaust, on a defenseless civilian population that had been subjugated for many decades, render Israel’s Netanyahu government and its supports equivalent to the Nazis in Europe almost a century earlier. The very language used by the pope, as in “the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths” could definitely be applied to Hitler and Netanyahu.

The sheer depravity of such powerful men who have allowed their respective hatreds to manifest in atrocities without any internal restraint is antipodal to a person who “would truly enter into the suffering of others and stand in solidarity with the weak and the oppressed.”[2] It is paradoxical that such outwardly powerful, militaristic government officials are actually so weak internally, whereas people who are willing to defer “before the humanity of others”—even and especially detractors and even enemies—may have no worldly force yet are very strong internally.[3] 

Therefore, it is of value for anyone, especially a pope with a microphone, to set the stubborn savagery of men like Putin and Netanyahu relative to a principle that, if internalized and acted on by enough people, would change the world even though the likelihood of such a drastic, fundamental change is only possible rather than probable. Being possible is itself astonishing, given the fixity of human nature. Worldwide, peoples and their respective government officials in 2023 failed to retain the lesson that had presumably been learned when the Nazi holocaust was exposed in 1945. Standing by rather than going in to rid Gaza of the Israelis and even Ukraine of the Russian army can be reckoned as instantiating the banality of evil, which is two degrees of separation from the principle of humble compassion for the humanity of others, especially one’s enemies. The world, and humanity itself—our species—can thus be condemned for standing by instead of stopping at least the holocaustic genocide that had been going on for years as of Christmas, 2025.

---

1. Silvia Stellacci and Colleen Barry, “Pope Leo XIV Urges the Faithful on Christmas to Shed Indifference in the Face of Suffering,” APnews.com, December 25, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Sikh Ethics on Netanyahu

Israeli state officials met on August 7, 2025 to debate Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plan to expand the presence of the IDF, Israel’s military, to include all of the territory in Gaza, which had been under Israeli occupation anyway for many decades. With Gaza already under Israeli occupation, characterizing Netanyahu’s plan as being “to conquer all or parts of Gaza not yet under Israeli control” is strange.[1] Similarly, mischaracterizing the E.U. as a bloc even though that union has the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial is odd. The media’s artful way of reporting is without doubt superficial relative to Netanyahu’s unvirtuous decisions and their respective consequences to which the labels of genocide and holocaust have justifiably been applied around the world. Behind the relevant vice lies an extreme egocentricity that the ethical theory of Sikhism describes quite well, even to the level of ontology or metaphysics.

Netanyahu’s office released a statement claiming that the prime minister’s plan to station armed Israeli troops throughout the occupied territory is a way to “further achieve Israel’s goals in Gaza.”[2] Excluded was any compassion or even thought for the well-being of the residents of Gaza, as if no such responsibilities are entailed in being an occupier. I contend that the vice of wrath lies behind the egocentricity of the statement, and that this vice in turn is predicated on the supposition that anyone opposing one’s self-interest or that of one’s side is merely an object and thus can be used to further one’s own aims. This duality flies in the face of a metaphysic of Oneness, wherein everyone is connected rather than separate. This is none other than the Sikh theory of the five vices being sourced in haumai.

That Netanyahu’s wrath is egocentric can be gleaned even from how he treated opposition within the IDF as being easily expendable, as if the Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir were merely a puppet for the prime minister to toss away the moment Zamir showed pushed back publicly on Netanyahu’s plan. Zamir suggested “that the plan would endanger the lives of the [Israeli] hostages and further stretch Israel’s military.”[3] “That prompted Netanyahu to say in a post on X that if [Zamir] objected to the plans, he could resign.”[4] Ouch! Zamir stated that the IDF would “continue to express our positions without fear, in a substantive, independent, and professional manner,” and puppets, which are mere objects, do not behave as such. In other words, Netanyahu’s hasty reaction evinces or points back to an egocentric perspective in which other people are objects rather than other human beings, whom, Kant wrote, should, as rational beings, be treated as ends in themselves rather than merely as means. This applies even to the starving, emaciated 2 million humans still alive in Gaza, whom the Israelis are puppeteering to fight like dogs over scant food-drops.

Kant’s ethic against treating other rational beings as mere objects is also in the Sikh religious ethic, which is useful here in describing Netanyahu’s mentality and what it implies metaphysically. The Sikh ethic actually focuses on five vices, each of which is sourced in haumai. “Fundamentally,” according to Keshav Singh, “haumai is a kind of false conception of oneself as singularly important, and correspondingly, a false conception of the world as revolving around oneself, as a world of objects there for one’s use.[5] At its extreme, haumai is “a kind of ethical solipsism: an inability to conceive of anyone or anything but oneself as an ethical subject.”[6] In other words, Haumai “is a kind of false conception of oneself as singularly important, and correspondingly, a false conception of the world as revolving around oneself, as a world of objects there for one’s use. Vice, then, comes down to the failure to recognize the importance of others. The corresponding picture of virtue is that virtue consists in a recognition of the importance of others.”[7] Whereas virtue is related to the “recognition of an ultimate reality on which all are One,”[8] haumai, and thus each of the five vices that are sourced in it, involve the illusion (maia) of separateness wherein only oneself (or one’s group) counts as significant.

Sikhism makes the leap from ethics and ontology/metaphysics to theology in viewing the One as divinity and not just as real. “The Divine, in Sikhism, is conceived of as absolute and all-encompassing, and is often referred to as literally (the) One. . . . the Divine as a kind of all-encompassing unity.”[9] A unity that grounds everything, rather than everything being divine (i.e., pantheism), is not reality per se, but pertains to what is ultimately real. It is important, I submit, to distinguish ontology and metaphysics from the sui generis, or unique, domain of theology. In Sikhism, “enlightenment consists in experiencing ultimate reality, thereby merging with the Divine,” whereas “haumai creates a duality between self and other, cutting one off from ultimate reality and preventing enlightenment.”[10]

So if it seems like in going to such an extreme as committing a genocide and even a holocaust, Netanyahu and his cadre have lost touch with reality, Sikhist ethics would say yes because viewing and treating people as objects is inconsistent with the Oneness whose unity makes duality wherein only oneself is significant (and a human being) an illusion. In this regard, Sikhism is in line with Shakara’s non-dualist Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism wherein the soul of every people is in essence Brahman, which is infinite being.

It only remains for us to identify the specific Sikh vice that pertains to Netanyahu, for once known, it can be related back to raumai, which is predicated on the metaphysical illusion (or delusion) of duality between oneself and everyone else. That vice that is most salient in the dogmatic mentality and actions of Israel’s prime minister and his cadre of high officials is krodh, which, as appetitive wrath, is “a kind of vengeful, consuming anger” that is not righteous anger at injustice.[11] In the Sikh scripture, SGGS, is written, “O wrath, you are the root of strife; compassion never rises up in you.”[12] This definitely applies to the Israeli troops going ultimately from orders from Netanyahu. Instead, of any mercy and compassion, krodh is a“vengeful appetite that controls people like puppets.”[13] This can be seen even in how Netanyahu lashed out at Zamir when he resisted being merely a puppet. As for Netanyahu’s underlying motivation, meaning being even more motivating that his desire to make the Palestinians in Gaza suffer and even die, it is worth observing that krodh “manifests haumai” in that “the wrathful person wants to hurt others to improve his own status or make himself feel better. In this way, he views others as mere objects, and considers only the importance of his own inward-facing desires.”[14] 

Singh’s comment that self-interest is one way of understanding haumai is in my view too generous; selfishness, wherein benefits are intentionally excluded from other people (unless, as a byproduct, oneself benefits) is more apt. But even selfishness does not account for using other people as objects absent any compassion or mercy. Maimonides’ point that the Abrahamic deity, or “God,” can judge a mentality so bad in terms of sin that God removes even the possibility of such a person asking God for forgiveness. Hence Yahweh hardens Pharaoh’s heart in the Book of Exodus. So too, it seems, that deity has hardened Netanyahu’s heart. Divine wrath can be understood to be a reaction to krodh sourced in haumai and evinced so horrifically as by government officials persecuting a genocide or holocaust on millions of other human beings.

---

1. Gavin Blackburn, “Israel’s Security Cabinet Debates Expanding Gaza Operation Despite Opposition,” Euronews.com, August 7, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Keshav Singh, “Vice and Virtue in Sikh Ethics,” The Monist, Vol. 104 (2021): 319-36, p. 320.
6. Ibid, p. 321.
7. Ibid, p. 319.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., p. 321.
10. Ibid., p. 322.
11. Ibid., p. 326.
12. Ibid., p. 326 (1358 in SGGS).
13. Ibid. p. 326.
14. Ibid., p. 326.

Maimonides on Netanyahu

On August 5, 2025, Israel’s prime minister, Ben Netanyahu and his cabinet were considering conquering all of Gaza as cease-fire talks came to naught. According to the Associated Press, he “hinted at wider military action in devastated Gaza . . . even as former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs called for an end of to the nearly 22-month war.”[1] Roughly thirty years earlier, Netanyahu had admitted in an interview that Israel destroys countries (or peoples) it doesn’t like very slowly. The slow process of starvation amid Israeli troops and American mercenaries enjoying shooting Gazans at designated food-distribution sites through at least the summer of 2025 instantiates Netanyahu’s perhaps careless admission of cruelty befitting a man out for vengeance. Never mind the scriptural passage, Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord; Netanyahu and his cabinet, and even the president of Israel felt entitled to take that task upon themselves, such that even just death would be too good for Palestinians, rather than having faith in their deity, whose vengeance would presumably be narrowly and properly directed to the Hamas attackers and kidnappers rather than to innocent people, including small children who could not possibly be considered to have been culpable two months shy of two years earlier in 2023. The religious depth of the betrayal of Yahweh by Netanyahu and his cabinet can be gleamed by recalling passages from Maimonides.

In The Eight Chapters, the medieval Jewish scholar writes, “If you consider most of the commandments in this way, you will find that all of them discipline the powers of the soul.”[2] Such disciplining is necessary for a person to keep the mean (i.e., feelings and actions that are fitting and proper, rather than too little or too much) and thus be virtuous in Aristotle’s sense of virtue. “For example,” Maimonides continues, “they [i.e., most of the commandments] eliminate revenge and vengeance by His saying: You shall not take revenge nor bear a grudge, You shall surely release it, and You shall surely help to lift them up, etc.; these aim at weakening the power of rage and irascibility.”[3] A person who ignores or dismisses these divine commands and violates them “does not know that he goes all the way to one extreme, completely leaving the mean,”[4] by which Maimonides means Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean as pertains to the moral virtues.

Given that the ongoing, gradual decimation of Gaza’s infrastructure and of the residents themselves by the Israeli government for more than a year and a half by the late summer of 2025, it is evident that the vice (i.e., extreme) of hateful vengeance had become a habituated pattern for those officials in charge of the Israeli government, and especially in the military. Allowing oneself to continue in a bad (i.e., not virtuous) habit is antipodal to Maimonides’ advice: “the perfect man needs to inspect his moral habits continually, weigh his actions, and reflect upon the state of his soul every single day. Whenever he sees his soul inclining toward one of the extremes, he should rush to cure it and not let the evil state become established by the repetition of a bad action.”[5] A person having intentionally or unwittingly developed such a sordid habit “should attend to the defective moral habit in himself and continually seek to cure it, for a [human being] inevitably has defects.”[6] Even though “Solomon said absolutely: There is no man who is just upon the earth, who does only good and does not sin,”[7] by no means does this justify going to the other extreme and remaining there, such that a habit of vice can establish deep groves in the road such that turning around becomes virtually impossible, given the human penchant for stubbornness and intractability.  For I submit that by the summer of 2025, Netanyahu and his cabinet officials had reached such a point that only external force could be capable of pushing those men back from the extreme in the sense of Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean.

Moreover, it is so easy for humans to will to stay the course in what is an immoral extreme that Yahweh issues divine commands concerning particular actions, such as to forbid daytime sex so to keep lust in moderation rather than going to an extreme. Maimonides views such laws as being oriented to Aristotle’s philosophy on virtue, and thus risks reducing theology to ethics. This risk may be worth it, given the stubborn presumptuousness of Netanyahu in the presumably righteous determination to exterminate a subjugated people in Israel’s Gaza territory in a habituated extreme case of vengeance. Nietzsche points out that positing Yahweh as both omnibenevolent and vengeful is self-contradictory and thus discredits that concept of God. Even given Netanyahu’s extreme vengeance as routinized as a genocide and even holocaust, the divine command not to be vengeful does not need the additional scriptural text, Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. To leave a vacuum without a credible concept of a deity puts too much weight on human subjectivity to fill the gap—hence Sartre claimed that human choices are so weighty and Husserl treated subjectivity as the only possible basis for a philosophy. In other words, that the Nazi Holocaust and the Gaza Holocaust have both followed the Age of Reason and Nietzsche’s claim that God is dead leaves us with the vital question of what is left upon which a moral and, moreover, existential philosophy can be built. In short, even without positing vengeance as pertaining to Yahweh, Maimonides’ reading of the Torah and the Talmud in line with Aristotle’s moral philosophy (without conflating the two or reducing one to the other) is enough to base the claim that Netanyahu and his cabinet members have become extremists both in terms of their religion and an established theory of virtue. It is upon this basis that the Gaza Holocaust rests.

---

1. Julia Frankel and Wafaa Shurafa, “Netanyahu Hints at Expanded War in Gaza but Former Israeli Military and Spy Chiefs Object,” The Associated Press, August 5, 2025.

2. Maimonides. Ethical Writings of Maimonides, ed. Raymond L. Weiss and Charles E. Butterworth (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1975), p. 72.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., p. 73.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.