Vandals smashed historic headstones and cut a swastika into a lawn at a Jewish cemetery overnight, authorities said Friday. The attack came just hours after two Israeli men were imprisoned for passport fraud and named as spies by the New Zealand government. Wellington Botanic Gardens manager David Sole said the Jewish section of Bolton St. cemetery near the center of the New Zealand capital was a sea of broken marble and overturned tombstones when he visited Friday morning. "People are speculating the attack may have been sparked by the two Israeli men and the passport case," a council spokesman said.
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Jewish Council President David Zwartz said there was a direct connection between the case and "people here feel they can take it out on Jews. It seems to me that it's Israel-bashing one day, Jew-bashing the next day." Rabbi Antony Lipman said the desecration on the graves, some of them 100 years old, had shocked New Zealand's Jewish community. "We hope Wellington is not going the way of some other communities in the world, where this has unfortunately become a frequent occurrence," he said.
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Rabbi Lipman said he made no connection between the Israeli men sentenced to six months in prison in Auckland Thursday and the smashing of the headstones. "Only the criminals who have done this would know their own motive," he added.
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Prime Minister Helen Clark said it was "not an open and shut case" that the attack was linked to the spy case. "We condemn without reservation people desecrating graves, it is a horrible thing to do," she told National Radio. |