This weekend, we discussed Pope Francis’ comments about Ukraine demonstrating “the courage of the white flag” and negotiating with Russia to end the war. At the time, I predicted that Ukrainian President Zelensky would be unimpressed with the remarks and reject them. That response took almost no time at all, though Ukraine trotted out some other officials to deliver the message. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister took to social media and delivered a stemwinder about the battle between good and evil. He also brought up a point that I made, noting the Vatican’s history from the first half of the 20th century and its response to Nazi atrocities. In short, he said that the only flag they planned on flying was the yellow and blue banner of Ukraine. (Fox News)
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in his post that the strongest one is the one who stands on the side of good while in the fight between good and evil, instead of attempting to put both sides on the same footing with negotiations.
“When it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican’s strategy from the first half of the twentieth century. I urge you to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives,” Kuleba said. “Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.”
The foreign minister thanked the pope for constant prayers for peace, adding that he hopes the pontiff will make an “apostolic visit” to Ukraine in support of its people, both Christian and non-Christian.
Other officials pushed back as well. Poland’s foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, advised the Pope to instead encourage Russia to withdraw from Ukraine immediately and bring about peace without the need for negotiations. Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church piled on, saying that Ukrainians may be exhausted, but nobody is considering surrendering.
In response, the Vatican sounded as if the Pope was walking back his comments a bit and attempting to clarify them. A Vatican spokesperson said that the Pontiff was proposing “a stop to hostilities and a truce achieved with the courage of negotiations.” The Pope wasn’t suggesting an “all-out surrender,” he said.
Could this really have been a misunderstanding or a failure of translation? The white flag is almost universally known as the symbol of surrender in warfare. It’s an admission of defeat. A call for a temporary ceasefire so that negotiations can take place is something very different. If that’s what the Pope was attempting to suggest, it wasn’t phrased very well. Or it’s possible that he wasn’t anticipating the backlash to come and is now trying to rephrase his position.
Ukraine isn’t the only country with no intentions of surrendering. We learned yesterday that Bibi Netanyahu did not respond favorably to Joe Biden’s comments about an Israeli incursion into the city of Rafah being a “red line” for him. Netanyahu responded by saying he was still going into Rafah and he had a “red line” of his own. That would be a failure to eliminate Hamas and leave Israel open to another terror attack like the one they suffered on October 7.
When asked on Sunday whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah, Netanyahu replied: “We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again.” The prime minister was referring to the murderous Hamas raid that killed more than 1,160 people in Israel and triggered the war.
Without naming them, Netanyahu claimed he had the tacit support of several Arab leaders for driving ahead with the onslaught against Hamas.
Netanyahu is still being polite to Joe Biden (as you would expect), but he’s also making it very clear that he’s not taking orders from the White House. I remain confident that Joe Biden would never come out and directly say that Israel should “surrender” to Hamas, but if Israel gives up on its mission to wipe out the terror group, it would be the equivalent of a surrender. Hamas is demanding that Israel immediately pull all IDF troops out of Gaza immediately. But intelligence sources suggest that they still have four battalions of fighters left, mostly clustered in the Rafah region and the tunnels below it. They’re going to have to be eliminated before we can put this behind us. Bibi knows this and Joe Biden needs to figure it out quickly.