Israel investigates anti-Arab graffiti in northern West Bank

Messages scrawled read "Jews wake up" and "Death to Arabs," as well as "Esh Kodesh revenge."

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Tag Mehir graffiti 370 (photo credit: Iyad Hadad, B'tselem)
Tag Mehir graffiti 370
(photo credit: Iyad Hadad, B'tselem)
Hate graffiti was discovered on the walls of an abandoned home near Ma’aleh Levona, in Samaria, on Thursday morning.
The scrawled messages read “Jews wake up” and “Death to Arabs,” as well as “Esh Kodesh revenge.” Security forces are investigating.
The incident was the latest in a rash of acts of vandalism that authorities suspect are part of the “price tag” campaign that West Bank settlers and their supporters have allegedly been waging.
Earlier this week, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that price-tag attacks constituted acts of terror.
The defense minister lashed out at hate crimes against Palestinians, hours after two cars were torched in a West Bank village and a day after a group of Jews were trapped while allegedly en route to vandalize another village.
“The unacceptable phenomenon called a ‘price tag’ attack is, in my eyes, a terrorist act in every sense of the word,” said Ya’alon. “We are acting and will act against its perpetrators with zero tolerance, and with a stern and determined hand to eradicate it.”
On Wednesday morning, a Palestinian restaurant owner in the village of Madama, near Nablus, was startled to find a number of Jewish vandals outside his business, according to the NGO Rabbis for Human Rights.
The man, who described the vandals as settlers, discerned that two cars had been torched and that there was graffiti on the wall in yellow paint, reading, “Revenge for Esh Kodesh,” and a Jewish star. The graffiti referenced the Esh Kodesh outpost, where on Tuesday morning the IDF had destroyed 200 olive trees that had been planted without authorization.
He unsuccessfully tried to stop the vandals from fleeing in their car, he reported, adding that they then tried to run him over. The interaction between them, he told Rabbis for Human Rights, happened very quickly, and he was not able to write down the license plate number.