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Graffiti in Jish, reading: "Only goys [non-Jews] should be driven away from our land." April 3, 2014 Photo by Eli Ashkenazi
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Update May 27, 2014

Three settler youths charged with hate crimes in Arab Galilee town

Yitzhar youths indicted for puncturing tires on 44 Arab-owned cars and writing anti-Arab graffiti.

By Eli Ashkenazi for Haaretz

Three yeshiva students from Yitzhar were charged Monday with committing a hate crime in the Galilee village of Jish, also known as Gush Halav.

The three, ages 16 and 17, are charged with vandalizing cars and damaging land out of racist motivations. One of the youths is also charged with attacking a policeman under aggravated circumstances. The indictment was submitted to the Nazareth District Youth Court, with a request that the three be held until the end of legal proceedings.

According to the charge sheet, last month, following the destruction of three unauthorized structures in Yitzhar, the three allegedly set out to damage the property of Arab citizens and to spray racist slogans. Early one morning, the three came to Jish and allegedly punctured the tires of 44 vehicles and spray-painted them. The damage caused was estimated at 114,658 shekels ($32,850). In addition, the accused allegedly sprayed, “We only evacuate non-Jews from our land,” on a home.

The indictment notes that these acts join a long list of random damage to Muslim and Christian property and religious buildings in Israel and the West Bank in recent years, often in response to actions taken by state authorities and aimed at Arab victims. The indictment also said that beyond the gravity of the alleged acts and the danger the three had put themselves in, the alleged violations are liable to cause unrest and resentment among the country’s Arab minority and cause serious damage to the State of Israel and its image in the international arena.
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by Chris Carlson - 1 of International Middle East Media Center Editorial Group, April 3, 2014

Suspected Jewish vandals, on Thursday, slashed the tires of over 40 cars and sprayed racist graffiti in a predominantly Christian town, in the Galilee area of northern Israel, according to Israeli media sources.

The perpetrators sprayed "Only goyim should be evacuated from our land" on a wall in the village of Jish, a Maronite majority village of some 3,000 residents.

The attackers also slashed the tires of 40 cars, Ma'an News Agency has reported.

Israeli police have opened an investigation into the incident, and labeled the incident a suspected "price tag" attack.

On Tuesday, vandals sprayed anti-Christian graffiti on the walls of a convent west of Jerusalem and damaged vehicles parked nearby.

Slogans including "Mary is a cow", "price tag" and "America (is) Nazi Germany" were sprayed in Hebrew on the walls of the Roman Catholic sanctuary.

Last July, two suspects were arrested in connection with the 2012 torching of the door of a Trappist monastery in Latrun, about six miles from the scene of the convent attack.

In the 2012 attack, the arsonists scrawled "Jesus is a monkey" on a nearby wall in an incident that shocked the religious and political establishment.