- Feb 5, 2002
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Church sources accuse Israeli police of downplaying acts of violence towards them, and attribute Jews' vandalism to a growing national legitimization of discrimination
Vandalism and assaults targeting Christians and Christian institutions in Jerusalem have risen sharply since the beginning of the year, something leaders of churches in the city link to the tone of the new government.
Church sources say the police do not treat the situation seriously enough and refuse to identify the growing list of violent incidents as a trend. According to the sources, only a small percentage of incidents are reported to the police, and the extent of the phenomenon is unknown. A document of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Center, which coordinates among the city’s various Christian denominations, quotes an Armenian priest as saying that he has been spat on more than 90 times in the year to date. Most of the reported incidents took place in the Old City of Jerusalem.
On January 2, two Israeli Jewish teenagers desecrated more than 30 graves at a Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion, breaking crosses and smashing headstones. They were later arrested and charged. Just 10 days later, anti-Armenian and anti-Christian slogans were scrawled on the walls of the Armenian monastery in the Old City, and a Maronite Christian community center in the Western Galilee community of Ma’alot-Tarshiha was vandalized. In two separate incidents in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem in late January, Christian teenagers were assaulted and young Jewish men threw chairs at customers of an Armenian restaurant.
Continued below.
Vandalism and assaults targeting Christians and Christian institutions in Jerusalem have risen sharply since the beginning of the year, something leaders of churches in the city link to the tone of the new government.
Church sources say the police do not treat the situation seriously enough and refuse to identify the growing list of violent incidents as a trend. According to the sources, only a small percentage of incidents are reported to the police, and the extent of the phenomenon is unknown. A document of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Center, which coordinates among the city’s various Christian denominations, quotes an Armenian priest as saying that he has been spat on more than 90 times in the year to date. Most of the reported incidents took place in the Old City of Jerusalem.
On January 2, two Israeli Jewish teenagers desecrated more than 30 graves at a Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion, breaking crosses and smashing headstones. They were later arrested and charged. Just 10 days later, anti-Armenian and anti-Christian slogans were scrawled on the walls of the Armenian monastery in the Old City, and a Maronite Christian community center in the Western Galilee community of Ma’alot-Tarshiha was vandalized. In two separate incidents in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem in late January, Christian teenagers were assaulted and young Jewish men threw chairs at customers of an Armenian restaurant.
Continued below.
