ROME, MARCH 28, 2011 -
When politics is at a standstill, the "languages" of violence and
mistrust enter the conversation, according to the Franciscan custos of the Holy
Land.
Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa shared this reflection with Vatican Radio, in
response to the new increase in tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
A terrorist bombing March 23 at a bus stop in Jerusalem killed one person and
wounded more than 50 others; such an event has not occurred in Jerusalem since
2008, when a Palestinian extremist entered a rabbinical school and killed eight
students.
The Israeli air force launched attacks against three sites in the
Gaza Strip the next day, as at least 11 rockets were fired into Southern
Israel.
"I hope that it's not a going back and a reopening of a strategy of
terror, as we saw in recent years," Father Pizzaballa said. "I hope
it will remain an isolated incident. Nevertheless, it's true that there has
been a sort of deterioration, first of all in political relations and then,
consequently, in everything else."
The Franciscan characterized political leaders as seemingly
"paralyzed."
"From my point of view, they are afraid, or at least, they
don't have the strength to take big decisions, because courage is necessary on
both sides, and this creates a climate of ever greater mistrust, with
reciprocal accusations, which then creates a situation, I'm not saying of
barbarization, but of deterioration," he said.
Speaking of the situation in Gaza, the priest noted how the increased violence
is "something which, unfortunately, we have already seen in the past and
which seems to be acute again at this moment."
"Let's hope it is a parenthesis and not, in fact, a going back,"
Father Pizzaballa stated.
In regard to the question of the Gaza Strip and of the settlements
of colonists in the West Bank, Father Pizzaballa suggested that this "is
the decisive question, which the political authorities, on both sides but above
all Israel, must take in hand sooner or later. Perhaps the conditions don't
exist; I don't know, I do not wish to enter into refine political questions."
Spiral
Meanwhile the apostolic nuncio in Israel, Archbishop Antonio Franco, lamented
the "innocent victims of situations that can certainly be resolved and
that call for a commitment for their solution, but which certainly are not
resolved with violence and the death of innocents."
He told a weekly program produced by the Custody that such events are
admonitions and calls. "My prayer goes first of all to the victims, but it
also goes to the Lord, that he will illumine, so that there won't be a new
spiral of violence, which leads also to more serious tragedies and
sufferings," the nuncio added.
Archbishop Franco said yielding to discouragement is useless. Rather "the
reality imposes a commitment and it imposes it according to the responsibility
of each one."
"Situations of injustice, of tension, of difficulty cannot last for
long," he said, "because every now and then there is one who thinks
of giving a signal, a message, using mistaken methods."
To find solutions, the nuncio added, "what is needed is the good will of
all parts that are implicated and one needs the effort and the commitment of
all. And the one that is directly involved is the international
community."
