The arson attack on a mosque in Kfar Burka is a declaration of war, said
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh,
the official PA news agency WAFA reported Thursday.
Abu Radeineh called for international condemnation, and said that the Israeli government was accountable for such actions.
The mosque was set
alight Thursday morning in Kfar Burka in the Binyamin region of the West
Bank. Carpets and chairs in the mosque were damaged in the incident.
Graffiti on the mosque walls saying "Mitzpe Yitzhar" and "war" indicates that the attack was a "price tag" response to the
dismantling of two buildings
in the illegal Mitzpe Yitzhar outpost several hours earlier. Security
forces went into Kfar Burka to investigate the incident, however they
left after residents threw stones at them and protested their presence
in the village.
In
an additional incident Thursday morning the IDF arrested a suspect at
the Tapuah Junction for spray painting graffiti saying "Nazi" and "Price
Tag" on a concrete block near an IDF position. The far-right-wing
activist refused to identify himself.
Meanwhile,
President Shimon Peres and a delegation of settler leaders in Judea and
Samaria
that met Thursday, announced that there is no justification for
violence or incitement against soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces or
ordinary citizens regardless of race or religion. While disputes are
legitimate, they said, baseless hatred and violence are not.
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Arson, 'price tag' suspected at J'lem mosquePeres,
Yesha chairman Danny Dayan and Rabbi Elie Sadan agreed that
demonization of all the settlers of Judea and Samaria on the basis of
the brutal and criminal acts of a few is uncalled for. Regardless of
differences of opinion, they said, there must be mutual respect and
civilized dialogue.
All three made the point that the IDF is a
people's army, made up of different sectors of the population, and that
religiously observant soldiers are not different to secular soldiers in
terms of loyalty and trust.
Opposition leader
Tzipi Livni (Kadima) also released a statement Thursday, responding to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's
announcement Wednesday night of new measures to address recent
extreme right-wing escalations.
Netanyahu either doesn't understand, or doesn't
want to deal with extremist ideology, said Livni. Netanyahu
had stated that Jews rioting in the West Bank will now be tried in military
courts like Palestinians. However, he rejected
calls by ministers to class suspects as terrorists.
"There
is a struggle for Israel's image," Livni went on. "To this
struggle, an extreme right-wing coalition is teaming up with a number of
rabbis who want to impose a '
Halachic [Jewish law] state', and young people who are trying to impose their ideology on us, the Zionist majority."
She called for the "Zionist majority" to "stand on the other side of this
struggle.... [and] fight for the character and nature of Israel.
"This government... is laying fertile ground for these tumors. When
Netanyahu says that we are dealing with rioters and not ideological
crime, it indicates one of two things - either he doesn't understand
what is happening here, or he doesn't want to deal with this extremist
ideology because of his natural coalition partners," Livni asserted.
Yaakov Katz contributed to this report