Probe launched into alleged haredi rock-throwing at vehicles in capital's Romema neighborhood.
By JONATHAN BECKAcre burnt car 244.88(photo credit: AP)
Eight Jewish men were arrested and six Arab youths hospitalized overnight Saturday with light wounds following a street brawl at Jerusalem's Kikar Zion.
The fight broke out at 2:30 am Sunday between Arab youths and the yeshiva students, known as shababniks - the haredi equivalent of street hooligans.
What likely started as a private dispute among inebriated teenagers boiled over within minutes as youths ran from all around the square to watch and join the fight.
This reporter witnessed the first minutes of the brawl, the focal point of which was less than 10 meters away from the Border Police jeep and police car stationed near the square on the weekends.
An officer leaning against the police car with his back to the action was slow to respond and seemed to be calculating his next move as the dozens of youths flocking to the scene ran down Rehov Hillel right in front of him.
Several minutes later, a police van and two officers on horseback came rushing down the street to break up the fight.
In a separate incident in the capital Sunday morning, a group of Orthodox Jews pelted an Arab truck driver, employed by the Jerusalem Municipality, with rocks on Rehov Bar Ilan.
The driver was lightly wounded and was taken to the city's Hadassah-University Hospital at Ein Kerem for treatment.
Police arrested three suspects in connection with the attack.
The Hebrew media on Sunday linked the two incidents to the Acre riots, which started on Yom Kippur and went on for several days.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby denied any such connection.
This is a period when yeshiva students are on vacation, he said, and these kids were just bored and looking for trouble.
He rejected the notion that the incidents had been organized in any way and said that they were just acts of spontaneous violence by yeshiva students, some of whom take to the streets whenever there are no studies, binge-drink and often harass teenage girls or start fights.
Ben-Ruby dismissed the suggestion that the events of the last 24 hours in Jerusalem might constitute a "trickling down" of the Acre violence to other mixed cities.
Police said on Sunday they were also investigating who was behind a renewal of rock-throwing by haredi youths at cars travelling in violation of Shabbat on Jerusalem's Rehov Yirmiyahu.
During the course of the day on Saturday, at least 13 vehicles were lightly damaged, police said.
Following a spate of rock-throwing attacks on vehicles in the early 1990s, police in 1997 began closing off Rehov Bar-Ilan (which extends to Yirmiyahu at its western end) during prayer hours on Shabbat.
Meanwhile, on Saturday morning, residents of Rehov Bar Ilan woke up to a sight of shattered glass on the pavement and a row of battered cars with broken windshields, Israel Radio reported.
The area where the cars were parked is adjacent to the Gur yeshiva and according to a haredi Web forum, it is known in the community that Gur chassidim coming to pray often park their cars there right before Shabbat.
A police official is quoted on the Web site as saying "We view this incident very seriously. We have several leads and hope for cooperation [from the community] in our investigation."
Tellingly, talk-backers on the forum almost uniformly accused supporters of mayoral candidate Meir Porush as being responsible for the act. Several others theorized that Gur hassidim wrecked their own cars in an attempt to incriminate Porush.
There was no comment from Porush's office.
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