Anti-Zionist vandals desecrated the war memorial at Ammunition Hill in
Jerusalem, just a day before Remembrance Day begins.
The vandals spray
painted “Zionism is the original sin,” “Zionists are wretched,” and “Günter
Grass was right” on the entrance to the museum.
Grass is a German writer
who composed a poem earlier this month calling Israel a serious threat to global
peace and security.
The Interior Ministry subsequently declared the poet
persona non grata.
The vandals also tried to burn the large flag that
flies atop Ammunition Hill, but they were unsuccessful.
Jerusalem Mayor
Nir Barkat slammed the attacks and immediately sent the anti-graffiti teams from
the municipality to clean the site.
Police opened an investigation, but
Jerusalem deputy police spokeswoman Shlomit Bajshi said police had no leads on
the perpetrators.
Ammunition Hill director Katri Maoz said the graffiti
he found most offensive was the damage to a memorial for soldiers who died in
the line of duty and were children of soldiers who fought at the site in the Six
Day War.
The vandals blacked out a verse from the Torah inscribed on the
memorial – “The children will remember the covenant of their
fathers.”
Maoz said he thought the site was targeted because it is a
wellknown location that attracts many different sectors of the
population.
“Always before Remembrance Day it’s a sensitive and difficult
time,” said Maoz.
“During this time the nation actually finds a way to
unite and leave the disagreements behind, and someone is trying to destroy
this.”
MK Uri Ariel (National Union), the head of the Jerusalem lobby,
condemned the attack’s timing right before Remembrance Day and accused the
perpetrators of “lacking any Jewish sensitivity.”
The attack comes three
days after extremists defaced three monuments to Israeli terror victims and
fallen members of the security services in the Jordan Valley.
Anti-Israel
slogans in Hebrew were found spray painted in black, including the words “the
fallen were killed for their treason” on a stone wall bearing the names of
hundreds of soldiers that were killed since 1967.
Meanwhile, the
government’s answer to the vandalism was to schedule a cabinet meeting there on
Jerusalem Day on May 20, and to put forward a NIS 20 million plan to preserve
and upgrade the site.
“We will not let those who want to destroy and
damage the site – in memory of the fighters and heroic story of the Six Day War
– get what they want,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said.
“We owe a
great debt both to our fighters and to commemorate their memories. The legacy of
the heroism of the IDF soldiers will continue, and we will work to rehabilitate
and upgrade the site.”
Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser, who went to the site
to assess the damages, said this plan would come to the cabinet on Jerusalem Day
for its approval.
Hauser also called on IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny
Gantz to go ahead with plans to exhibit arms from the Paratroop Brigade at the
site starting on Independence Day. The display was scuttled because of budgetary
reasons.
“We need to send a message to the vandals that we will not let
them harm Ammunition Hill,” Hauser said. “We will develop this site because it
tells the story of the battle for Jerusalem, which was liberated and united.”