KEY POINTS:
The actions of an extremist Catholic priest in desecrating the Wellington memorial to Nobel Prize winner Yitzhak Rabin undo any good that a thousand others protesting against Israel might have hoped
to achieve.
Father Gerard Burns daubed a drop of his own blood mixed with red paint across the Rabin memorial, inspired perhaps by an equally misguided Auckland cleric who poured his own blood on the carpet of the US consulate at the beginning of the Iraq war. At least in that repulsive act the first priest was, in the twisted logic of his protest, at the right place.
For Father Burns to desecrate the Rabin memorial is not only in breach of any civilised standard of protest but utterly wrongheaded in terms of his target. Rabin, a former Israeli general-turned-two-time-Prime-Minister, was perhaps the greatest hope for peace between Jews and Palestinians in a generation. He was assassinated by an ultra-conservative Jew because he was too accommodating to the Palestinians in seeking a lasting peace. He died after a rally for peace, with the words of Shir LaShalom, or Song for Peace, found bloodied in his pocket. He had been honoured, with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres, by the Nobel judges. The memorial in central Wellington marks that commitment to peace.
The sins (as Father Burns might see them) of his successors in the Israeli Government cannot be visited upon Rabin. The Friends of Israel group rightly calls for the Catholic Church to discipline the priest and apologise to Jews in New Zealand, for whom desecration of their monument causes deep offence. The vandalism has received worldwide attention, the kind of attention that shames Catholics of goodwill and undermines their own public stands for justice and peace. The organisers of the Wellington march opposing Israel's heavy-handed military action in the Gaza strip should also demand an apology from Father Burns. They must know that their message against the killings of civilians, including children, is diverted and made hollow by a calculated insult to Jews everywhere.
Father Burns no doubt views the hurt and harm caused by his desecration as out of proportion with the tragedy in Gaza. In lives lost, that is correct. No one died, as the saying goes, because of his stunt with paint. Yet something dies when whole communities are insulted, deliberately, by an act so heavy with the symbolism and fear of their past. Should Catholic monuments, for example a memorial to the revered Bishop Pompallier who brought the Church to New Zealand, be attacked because of some stance taken by the Vatican, similar outrage would ensue.
Meanwhile in Gaza, Israel's solution to the Hamas terrorist problem becomes ever more tragic. Yesterday's news that Israeli mortar shells struck a school ground, killing at least 30 people, including children, brings the conflict to a new low point. The international community ratchets up its words of objection, the French and Egyptian presidents proposing a ceasefire and talks. In Wellington, our new Government struggles to find words to articulate the nation's horror at a war gone wrong. The Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, yesterday spoke out strongly against the attack on the school, a UN facility, and declared New Zealand deeply worried by the mounting humanitarian crisis. Crucially, at last, he said this was "as a result of the continuing Israeli ground offensive." National is now calling for both sides to immediately cease attacks. Mr McCully did not say it, but there can be no doubt now that the Israeli war in Gaza is a disproportionate response to Hamas' years of terrorism through, mostly futile, rocket attacks.
Extreme responses seldom get things in proportion. And, sadly, Father Burns' drop of blood mocks the deaths of those for whom he claims to speak.
