When Jesus Christ, in His infinite wisdom, said that no prophet is accepted in his home town, He could not have put it any better. On one occasion, Jesus Christ, much lauded all over the land in which He travelled, preached, and performed miracles, had visited Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and spoke in the synagogue there.

However, notwithstanding the power and wisdom of His words, and the reputation that had preceded Him, the congregation’s reaction was that He was just the son of Joseph, a humble carpenter that they all knew.

The moral of this story is that many people, maybe through a misplaced sense of envy or due to latent self-dissatisfaction, simply cannot accept the success and achievements of someone from their own corner of the woods.

The way in which the Labour Party, and its leader, Robert Abela, epitomise this situation to a T is a case in point. They have repeatedly tried to place one of their own ‘heroes’ in a position of international status and failed miserably. The only thing they managed was Joseph Muscat’s well-deserved title of ‘2019 Person of the Year for Corruption’.

Therefore, they simply cannot stomach the sterling reputation that such noteworthy Nationalist statesmen have achieved in recent history – Eddie Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi.

The latest example of a resounding success in the international political sphere is, undoubtedly, Roberta Metsola.

It comes as no great surprise then that the Labour Party machine has always been poised and ready to launch vicious attacks on any crack, however tiny and, possibly, only perceived, they identify in her standing.

Labour has incessantly bombarded Metsola in the context of the unfolding Middle East tragedy following October 7 when Hamas terrorists carried out inhuman attacks, deliberately targeting civilians in Israel, killing over 1,400 people in less than a day.

However much we can debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which no one player is 100% right or 100% wrong, those heinous acts can never be condoned but are to be roundly and universally condemned.

That is what Metsola did, expressing sympathy with the Israeli people for what they had just suffered. By no stretch of the imagination can this be construed as having been a green light for Israel’s retaliatory actions, which is how her words and actions were unfortunately and maliciously twisted.

Is Robert Abela worried about his waning support and feeling dwarfed by Roberta Metsola’s stature?- Eddie Aquilina

Her statements about the tragic and unnecessary loss of civilian life in the Gaza Strip, which had not yet started when she was there, were conveniently ignored as was her insistence on a two-state solution, the same position expounded by the United Nations for the past 75 years and recently by Pope Francis.

Prime Minister Robert Abela conveniently ignored the fact that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also visited Israel with Metsola. After all, von der Leyen is not from Malta, so there were no cheap points to score in also criticising her.

I will not here enter into the merits of the long-standing and ongoing conflict. It is too complex for any one opinion piece but, as a Maltese citizen proud of the achievements and successes of my compatriots, I do take offence at this deliberate, jealousy-rooted effort to undermine Metsola, who has made such a good name for all of us.

Labour is being dishonest and is twisting the facts to brainwash people into mistakenly believing that Metsola is somehow responsible for the tragic deaths in Gaza, simply because she empathised with a people that had just lost 1,400 innocent civilians to terrorism.

Why is all this? Is Abela worried about his waning support and feeling dwarfed by this young woman’s stature? Does he and his party faithful fear that the Maltese see in her the antidote to the poison with which he and his ilk have destroyed all decency in our country?

On the same occasion which I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Jesus also asked the Nazarenes whether they would expect of Him to “Do here in your home town what we have heard that you did in Capernaum”.

Is that what scares them so much about Metsola – that the Maltese are increasingly expecting of her that she will do, here in her home country, what she has shown she is capable of doing in the world that exists beyond the limitations of our shores?