[Wednesday June 13] Arab Member of Israeli Knesset (MK) Jamal Zahalka of the National Democratic Assembly sent an urgent letter to Israel’s Minister of Internal Security, Yitzhak Aharonovich, demanding him to act on stopping the escalating “Price Tag” attacks carried out extremist Israeli youths.His latter came after a number of extremist settlers wrote racist graffiti on some graves at the Christian Greek Orthodox graveyard in Jaffa [on Wednesday at night].
The settlers wrote “Price Tag”, “Revenge”, and drew the Star of David on a number of graves, wrote more racist graffiti on a wall of a building inhabited by the head of the Orthodox Society in Jaffa, and even wrote graffiti on the wall of the home Khaled Kaboub, an Arab District Court Judge in Tel Aviv.
Zahalka said that the Israeli government and the Police are responsible for the escalating attacks, due to the lack of adequate and effective measures against those groups of extremists.
The Arab48 news website reported that more Price Tag graffiti was found on the walls of a number of Arab homes in Al-Jabaliyya neighborhood in Jaffa, while several tires of Arab cars have been slashed in the neighborhood.
In his letter to Aharonovich, Zahalka said, “Jaffa has been targeted by various similar attacks, as mosques and churches have been defaced, desecrated and attacked, since a number of extremist settlers moved into the neighborhood, while the Police is failing to act”.
“The indecisiveness, the lack of action by the Police, enabled representatives of those racist settlers to live in Jaffa, enabled the attacks against that Arab population, and holy sites”, the Arab MK added.
Member of the Jaffa City Council, National Democratic Assembly member, Sami Abu Shihada, stated that the situation is Jaffa “could explode at any given moment”, and accused the Police of failing to act against the extremist Price Tag groups.
“By failing to act, failing to apprehend those racists, and by failing to prosecute them, Israel is granting them a green light to continue their cruel and racist attacks”, Abu Shihada stated, “We demand the Police to act, seriously and decisively, to punish those fundamentalists”.
Abu Shihada added that a procession will be held on Saturday [June 22] at the Old Market in Al-Ajamy neighborhood, “to protest a decision made by the so-called Israel Land Authority for allowing the settlers to build in the heart of the Al-Ajamy neighborhood”.
Price Tag attacks are acts of violence carried out by extremist Israeli settlers against Arabs and Palestinians in different parts of the country.
Price Tag attacks have been carried out against Churches, Mosques, Islamic and Christian graveyards, Palestinian lands and orchards [including burning and uprooting dozens of trees and farmlands], Palestinian property, and in some cases targeted Israeli peace groups.
