Jake Donnelly@RedWhiteBlueJew
"Jews and Israel Need to Recognize We’re Essentially Alone”
Yesterday was wild. Not because of anything Israel or Jews did, but because of something Catholics and the larger anti-Israel world revealed.
In one sentence: Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa wanted preferential treatment on Palm Sunday and instead received equal treatment. That’s it. That was the story.
All religious sites in Jerusalem without adequate shelters faced restrictions due to active Iranian ballistic missile threats.
Iranian missile fragments hit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself—on rooftops in the compound—just weeks ago. Narrow Old City streets mean no quick rescue in a mass-casualty strike.
So: Kotel empty (Jews haven’t been able to pray there in weeks), Al-Aqsa restricted (Muslims haven’t been able to pray there in weeks), and Holy Sepulchre blocked for large gatherings. The big Palm Sunday procession was already canceled by the Patriarchate itself days earlier.
Pizzaballa and a small group tried a private entry. They were turned back politely according to the Cardinal himself. Netanyahu clarified it was out of “special concern for his safety,” with no malicious intent, and quickly reversed to grant full access for Holy Week.
Catholics are now getting preferential treatment. Apparently Catholics complaining gets more juice in the Jewish state.
Yet the Cardinal felt aggrieved. So he and his PR team unleashed a wildly divisive and misleading statement calling it a “grave precedent” that “disregards the sensibilities of billions” and a “grossly disproportionate measure.” That language lit the match and went viral before the Iran context or equal-treatment facts could land.
And here's the intentional misleading part:
This is the same Cardinal who complied with full church closures in Jerusalem for all functions during the entire COVID year. Private or public, it was fine then under health pretexts. But temporary wartime security now—with real rockets hitting the church compound—is suddenly an outrage?
An outrage that deserves a statement he KNEW would case a firestorm? Is that Christlike? I'm Jewish, but that feel very forgiving. I don't see a single cheek turned there.
He knew he was asking for special treatment. His later walk-back (“misunderstanding,” prayed calmly elsewhere) came after the damage was done.
One of the first accounts I saw promoting the context-free statement on X was the Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan—their White House Correspondent, way out of her lane, reposting it with zero context and journalistic ethics. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence she’s a devout Catholic. She chose to report it as a Catholic, not as a journalist who knows the full context.
Then the pile-on started. Practically the entire Daily Wire roster (past and present)—Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, Jeremy Boering, and the grifters they brought in—joined in. They all failed yesterday’s test (Ben Shapiro and Andrew Klavan didn't seem to be online).
They weren’t alone. Ambassador Mike Huckabee—a great friend to Israel—didn’t learn from his Taybeh tumble last July, where he rushed to call alleged settler incidents “terror” needing harsh consequences before facts settled that it had NOTHING to do with them. Ted Cruz threw gasoline on the fire too. “Stalwart friends of Israel” sending verbal catapults at the Kotel.
This is what it’s like for Jews and Israel: The world blames you for something someone else (the Cardinal) did and forces an apology, which Israel gave. The Cardinal couldn’t take one holy day of equal treatment, so he blamed the Jews.
Super retro Catholicism.
Israel gives Christians equal status, equal rights, and equal treatment… as it should.
Weird how Syria slaughtering Christians pales in comparison to equal treatment for Christians from Israel. Quite STRANGE how Il Papa seems more aggrieved by Israel lately…
Notice the juxtaposition: Christians have brawled for centuries inside their own holiest site, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—over every inch of control.
So much so MUSLIMS literally control the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
That Status Quo exists because Christians couldn’t govern it peacefully among themselves. But Heaven forbid a Jewish police officer treats the Cardinal the same way he treats a Rabbi or Imam under real Iranian threats that hit the church itself.
Suddenly Catholics, evangelicals, and parts of the right unite like nothing else. Their reflexive Jew-hatred—or at least this anti-Israel pile-on—is the only glue that brings them together. It felt VERY retro yesterday.
Jews around the world: Do you see it now? How many Catholics, Christians, or others brought water to the fire and corrected the Cardinal? And how many brought kerosene instead? Also, not to miss an opportunity, Muslims were conspicuously silent about their own restrictions. Nobody blamed the man who started it all.
While the perception is that Jews are weak, they couldn’t last a single day experiencing life as a Jew.
Yesterday proved it:
No one launched a war of annihilation against Christians on Easter like Israel faced on Yom Kippur 1973. They haven’t watched Christians massacred on Christmas with the world cheering and justifying it like Jews experienced on Simchat Torah 2023.
Equal treatment is enough to trigger the tantrum.
Jews were left to fend for themselves. But guess what?
*Jocko voice* GOOD.
It’s not that we’re alone. That would be fine. Preferable, even. It’s that yesterday clarified how many are so actively against us—waiting for any excuse, cheering like ghouls when the match gets lit and applied to the bonfire of Jew-hatred.
Here’s the thing about the New Jew: We see it clearly now, and we say “Good!”
Don’t hide your hate. Bring it into the open. The ones we’re not sure of have always been the most dangerous. Thanks to yesterday, the fog is gone.
Now we know.
That’s what we’ll be talking about at our Seders this week. You think Israel and Jews are a problem now? Just wait until we start agreeing with one another… and acting like it.
Happy Passover—because our Seders won’t be a Last Supper anytime soon.
Next year in Jerusalem!
