Anti-Christian graffiti was daubed on the Church of the Dormition, one of Jerusalem’s leading pilgrimage sites, early on Friday, an AFP correspondent reported.
Police said they suspected Jewish religious extremists of spraying the Hebrew-language insults at the site, where tradition says the Virgin Mary died.
“The attack, suspected to be nationalistically motivated, was discovered on the wall of the Dormition Church in the Old City, and the tyres of cars nearby were slashed,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
The words “price tag” and “Christians are apes” were scrawled in Hebrew on the walls of the church, Rosenfeld said, adding police were investigating the incident.
An AFP correspondent said “Jesus is a monkey” was also written on the door to the adjacent cemetery, part of the church complex.
“Price tag” is a euphemism for revenge hate crimes by Israeli extremists, which normally target Palestinians and Arabs.
Initially carried out in retaliation for state moves to dismantle unauthorised settler outposts, they have become increasingly unrelated to any specific government measures.
The attacks tend to involve the vandalism or destruction of Palestinian property and have included multiple arson attacks on cars, mosques and olive trees.
Perpetrators are rarely caught.
At first, the attacks were predominantly in the West Bank, but they have expanded over time to include sites inside Israel, and a number of Christian sites have been targeted.
In December, vandals sprayed anti-Christian graffiti on Jerusalem’s Monastery of the Cross and at an Armenian cemetery, in an apparent price tag attack by Jewish extremists.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem condemned the Friday attack, which it called “a despicable attempt to undermine the coexistence between different faiths.”
Bishop William Shomali added in a statement it was “absolutely necessary to end these acts of vandalism by the means of better educating the youth, especially in schools.”
Pictures released by the Latin Patriarchate showed that the words “Havat Maon” and “slave generation” were also scrawled on cars and a door at the Dormition complex.
“Havat Maon” is the name of a settlement outpost in the southern West Bank, and “slave generation” an apparent play on the name of Dormition, which in Hebrew sounds like “generation from Zion.”
On Wednesday, suspected Jewish extremists carried out a string of attacks on Palestinian cars in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, apparently linked to the stabbing to death of settler Eviatar Borovsky by a Palestinian in April.
Earlier this month, vandals desecrated graves and damaged property in a West Bank village.
Following Borovsky’s killing, settlers went on the rampage, stoning Palestinian vehicles in the northern West Bank, including a school bus carrying children.
They also smashed windows of a mosque and set fire to Palestinian farmland.
AFP
via nigerianeye
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