With street violence against Arabs and the number of ‘price tag’ attacks, often involving Israeli youngsters, on the rise, PM Benjamin Netanyahu has been forced to decry “racism against Israeli Arabs and acts of hooliganism against Palestinians.”
The latest vandalism attack saw offenders spray-painting their
message on the walls of a Jerusalem church and damaging two cars
parked nearby overnight.
On Friday the Dormition Abbey outside the Old City’s Zion Gate in
Jerusalem also reported the spraying of offensive graffiti in
Hebrew and the destruction of the church property, The Jerusalem
Post reported. Radical Jewish settler sympathizers are suspected
to be behind the assault. The perpetrators wrote “the
Christians are apes” and “the Christians are slaves”
on two cars parked outside the abbey in Beit Ilu Ramllah.
According to Israeli media, there has been a growing number of
‘price tag’ attacks in the country in recent months.
In May, five vehicles parked on one of the main streets in East
Jerusalem were vandalized in another price tag attack, allegedly
by Jewish extremists.
Price-tag attacks are the acts of violence and vandalism against
Palestinians and Israeli security forces by radical Israeli
settlers to exact a ‘price’ from both parties for any actions
believed to be taken against their settlements.
In a showcase, Tel Aviv street cleaner Hassan Usruf was badly
beaten up three months ago.
“One of them said to me ‘Hi Arab’, I said, ‘Why do you say
that? What’s the difference - Arab, Jewish?’ Then another guy
came up to me and said ‘You want a country, Arab?’” Hassan
Usruf recalled. The next thing he remembered was being hit on the
head with a bottle.
“Everything went black. I fell to the ground. They started
kicking me and hitting me. My lawyer told me that when they were
held by the police, they heard the kids competing among
themselves who hit me the most,” Usruf told RT.
The latest development provoked the prime minister to slam the
violence.
“I wish to condemn two phenomena that we have witnessed
recently: Racism against Israeli Arabs and acts of hooliganism
against Palestinians, without any provocation or
justification," Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday
promising to “act with all legal means at our disposal to stop
them."
‘Segregating’ amusement park draws public anger
Netanyahu also decried an act of segregation between Jewish and
Arab school children at the Superland amusement park.
On Thursday the amusement park near Tel Aviv said it would
reexamine its policy of renting out the one-stop entertainment
shop on separate days to Jewish and Arab schools after it
reportedly refused to open its doors to an Arab teacher who
wanted to take his class there on a school trip.
The park management explained in a statement, cited by Haaretz,
that in June many different schools wanted to conduct
end-of-school-year events at Superland with requests from Jewish
and Arab schools alike to conduct their events on separate days.
“Only yesterday, for example, two reservations were received
from Arab schools that had requested that the event would be for
Arab schools only, with no schools from the Jewish sector.
Similar requests have come from the Jewish sector,” the
management added.
“The Superland management is very sensitive to the desires and
feelings of all its patrons. As a result, during the next few
days we will reevaluate the decision to accommodate the schools’
requests to have separate days,” the statement informed.
But some organizations, like the Shomer Hatza'ir Youth Movement
that has become an educational and moral framework for thousands
of young people in Israeli society, both Jewish and Arab, said
they would not be going to Superland this summer after the
management’s embarrassing behavior.
“Racism is something criminal and sick that has to stop, and be
put at the top of public discourse in Israel,” the movement
explained in a statement. “If the Superland management
conducts a thorough investigation and deals with those
responsible for this embarrassing behavior, we will consider
resuming cooperation with it.”
Israeli youth ‘inspired by grown-ups’?
While many blame the core structure of Israeli society and
foreign policy for the gruesome situation, some also point out
the young perpetrators could merely be following an example set
by the older generation.
"They get the inspiration from the grown-ups. You don't show
any signs you want peace, to live side by side, to resolve the
conflict. So this stalemate causes tension, and all the wars and
all the incidents and clashes that we see in the occupied
territories and the general militant atmosphere creates a
conflict which leads to hatred and legitimacy for violence,"
member of the Knesset Esawi Frej told RT.
The director of Child and Adolescent Clinical Services told RT
that the youngsters behind the attacks probably suffer the
psychological effects of surviving terrorist acts.
“Those adolescents were exposed to terrorist attacks and
developed post-traumatic symptoms… they tend to exercise twice as
much risk-taking behaviors. Attacking innocent people just
because they are Arabs, with no provocation whatsoever. And
that’s very typical to people who feel in survival mode
state,” Ruth Pat-Horencyzyk, explained.