New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully’s office vandalised
New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully’s North Shore office in Auckland vandalised with pro-Jewish graffiti early this week in response to New Zealand’s co-sponsoring of a UN anti-settlement resolution.
Graffiti Pic: Twitter
Over the past few years incidents and reports of antisemitic vandalism have become regular in New Zealand. However, on Wednesday the usual trend of antisemitic graffiti was reversed, when Mr McCully’s office was spray-painted with the words “traitor Jew hater McCully.”
President of the New Zealand Jewish Council Stephen Goodman says: “The New Zealand Jewish Council condemns the graffiti attack against Murray McCully.
“While many in our community disagree with some actions taken by the Minister, offensive acts such as this should have no place in our society and are unacceptable to all New Zealanders, particularly to the Jewish Community which has suffered from graffiti and other attacks in the past,” says Goodman.
Murray McCully
The graffiti is understood to be retaliation against New Zealand’s co-sponsoring of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlement as having “no legal validity” and as constituting “a flagrant violation under international law.”
New Zealand has faced controversy over McCully’s decision. The country has seen a united front with Jewish community members protesting alongside Christian supporters.
Foreign minister McCully says it is “regrettable” his electorate office was vandalized by people opposed to New Zealand’s sponsorship of a UN Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Obviously we have had a significant number of communications from people who are concerned about the issue.
But it is very difficult to get past the fact that it is long-standing New Zealand policy to support the two-state solution, to condemn incitement and violence and to call for a halt to the settlement process.
These are not New Zealand policies,” says McCully.
New Zealand is the only western country to sponsor the resolution and has been criticised by many staunch supporters of Israel.
Last week, Israel’s Government removed their ambassador Itzhak Gerberg from the Embassy of Israel in Wellington and barred New Zealand’s ambassador to Israel from entering the country.
The vandals are only a small number of clowns who cant accept the NZ government decision.