june bugs

 

"Hamas have thanked Simon Harris for recognising Palestine," chirped Aunty Teresa.

Her sister Aunty Anne, an enthusiastic participant in pro Palestinian marches, eyed me warily and then said with some determination: "Oh that's yesterdays news."

I thought she was cutting me some slack and I accepted it gratefully.

But I was thinking: What a proud day for teen prodigy Prime Minister Simon Harris and for Ireland, receiving the thanks of the October Seventh eye gougers and torture murderers,

Later that proud day I found myself with Padre Baines,

He made coffee and enquired: "What do you make of the situation in the Middle East?"

I told him: "I start with theology when I'm talking to you. The Israelis are in the holy land because God wants them there. The reason the devil hates them so much throughout history is that God has used them to make himself known to humanity."

"In what sense?" wondered the priest.

"In the sense intended by Jesus when he said: "Salvation comes from the Jews."

"Where did Jesus say that?"

"To the woman at the well as described by the Gospel witness John in chapter four of his gospel."

"They're committing war crimes," rejoined the Padre. "40,000 people killed."

"Olay. Firstly I would counsel you to remember the warnings of Saint Paul. Has God changed his mind about his choice of the Jews? Out of the question. Do not be arrogant towards the Jews. For they are a cultivated olive. If some of them refusing Jesus meant I came to you with the good news, what will their acceptance mean? I tell you nothing less than life from the dead. If God has been hard on the Jews who are a cultivated olive, how much harder will he be on you who are a wild olive grafted on to their promises if you despise his holy people."

"Did Saint Paul really say that? Where did you get your quotations?"

"The Letter to the Romans."

"Some holy people," and he reiterated: "Forty thousand deaths."

"Well," I said, "I don't want to quibble. Any deaths would offend me. But your figures are from Hamas. I suppose they'd lie just for the sake of it. Make up a figure, double it, and double it again.  That's how they work. Do you remember you told me the Israelis had machine gunned their own people from helicopters at the pop concert? That was debunked by France 24 an anti Israeli channel. Do you remember Hamas claiming the Israelis blew up five hundred people at a hospital? That was debunked when tape emerged of the Palestinian bombers themselves saying: "That bomb was one of our own." The real figure from the Palestinians own bomb was fifty dead. But I think I would have trouble justifying any of the deaths and injuries that occur in war. A consideration of the fire bombing of Dresden or the raids on Cologne leaves me floundering. But I still don't say the Brits and the Americans should have let the Nazis win. Or that they should have let the Russian communists win the Cold War."

"There's still an awful lot of  innocent people suffering in Gaza," said the Padre.

"Not quite up to Sudanese levels though is it?" I repliqued. "Five million dead in Sudan over a half century of my lifttime. And the killing has never stopped for the full fifty years. Another four million dead in the Congo in the last twenty years. Why on earth is Gaza even on our TV screens with these African spree killings still going on? Not to mention the Azerbaijani Muslims expulsion of a hundred thousand Armenians from Nagorno Karabakh. Or Putin's smash and grab on Ukraine."

"James, Gaza is a prison. No one can leave. That's why it's so different."

"Padre, we had a coffee morning in Kilcullen in aid of Gaza last week. Organised by the usual clapped out lefty handwringers from Amnesty International circa 1985. The same eejits who were championing the Sandinista communist dictatorship in Nicaragua when I was a teenager. Hilariously the same Sandinista communist dictator Danilo Ortega De Saavedra whom they advocated in the 1980s is still ruling Nicaragua today. It's been a while since the handwringers of 1985 said anything about Nicaragua good, bad or indifferent. I suppose they stopped caring once they'd successfully installed a murderous atheistic Marxian dictatorship. And this week those same wearisome Kilcullen handwringsers were joined at their coffee morning by one very recently arrived Palestinian refugee from Gaza whining about how terrible the Israelis are. He'd purportedly left the Gaza Strip after Gaza attacked Israel last October. So it's not a prison in any real sense. People are going in and out and moving to Ireland at will. And he's here in Kilcullen already. Isn't that great for Ireland? That the drug dealing child abusing people trafficking IRA mafia has such efficient immigration rat lines directly from here to the Gaza strip? Marvellous. What could possibly go wrong? Incidentally do you think the five million dead Sudanese were not in a prison in a truer sense than the Gazans? I mean the Sudanese didn't invade or eye gouge or rape or toture murder their neighbours or indeed anybody. Do you think they just hung around for fifty years while their Islamist government murdered them because Sudan is such an easy place to leave?"

"A lot of Irish people don't agree with you. Our government has recognised Palestine."

"For me that raises the question of who governs Ireland. Our government is absolutely terrified of the Muslim immigrant population who are currently erecting organised tent cities for illegal immigrants in Dublin to test what the State will tolerate.. Teenage Prime Minister Simon Harris is feeding the crocodile hoping it will eat him last,.You may be sure he's quite aware that earlier this year British Justice Minister Mike Freer resigned after death threats from  pro Palestinian Muslim terrorists. Simon Harris doesn't have the stomach for that sort of thing. And a lot of Irish people do agree with me. You saw the public phone in vote for Israel in the Eurovision song contest. The only country we gave higher marks to was Croatia."

It was a ripe conversation with frankness on both sides.

Most advocates for the Palestinians are unable to accept any opposition to their views but Padre Baines is different,

He can take it as well as dish it out.

"Have I changed your mind on anything?" I asked him after two hours.

"No," he said.

And that very night back at the old chateau, by an odd coincidence there was a phone call from another retired priest.

"James," said Father Fortescue, for it was he, "I really must have an answer. Are you still supporting Israel? I want a yes or no."

"Now Martin," I said, "I have never described myself to you as supporting Israel. The last time you phoned you didn't listen long enough to hear my opinions. You hung up, do you remember?"

"Just tell me where you stand. Are you Pro Palestine like me or Pro Israel."

"I do not describe myself in those terms."

"Give me a plain yes or no to a plain question."

"Father you can't ask the question and answer it as well. I'd love to talk to you about these things over coffee. But there has to be a willingness to listen on both sides."

"I am asking you James for a simple answer. Are you Pro Israel or Pro Palestine? Give me a straight answer."

"You know in the Old Testament Jacob wrestles an angel at night not knowing he's an angel. The angel says to him in the morning: 'You will be called Israel beccause you have contended with the divine and with humanity, and you have prevailed." And when Joshua met an angel outside the walls of Jericho he asked the angel: 'Are you for us or for our enemies.?' The angel replied: "Neither." He didn't give a pigeon hole answer. It was impossible to say whose side he was on. He then identified himself thusly to Joshua: 'I am the captain of God's army.'"

"James what are you talking about?"

"I am teaching you the Catholic faith which you do not know."

When he had gone I went outside with the dogs, invoked the protection of the Blessed Mother and climbed a ladder to begin clearing weeds and dirt from the roof gutters.

I invoked the BVM gentle readers because as many of you know, I am a bit of a klutz and there are few men more likely than me to fall off a ladder once I climb one.

The sun kissed the garden as me n the doggies worked.

There was a blissful stillness over the heartland of County Kildare.

Roses were blooming along with a fine profusion of that white flower we call Snow In Summer and which my neurotic Aunty Teresa insists must not be called Summer Snow.

The scent of lilac was everywhere.

I paused from my exertions atop the ladder.

A little breeze dusked through the lengthening evening shadows  in the garden of my father.

From afar it seemed I could hear ever so faintly the guns of August.