Catholic Church demands Israel act after vandals attack Jerusalem offices
By Agence France-Presse | reposted from Raw Story
The Roman Catholic church demanded Israeli action Wednesday after suspected Jewish extremists daubed hate graffiti on Vatican-owned offices in annexed Arab east Jerusalem just two weeks before a papal visit.
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said the government planned to use detention without trial against the suspected extremists as it comes under mounting pressure over its failure to secure a single prosecution in an intensifying wave of hate crime.
Hebrew-language graffiti reading “Death to Arabs and Christians and those who hate Israel” was daubed over offices of the Assembly of Bishops at the ”Notre Dame centre”, a Vatican-owned complex opposite the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, on Monday, the Roman Catholic church said.
“The Notre Dame centre is the property of the Holy See and this provocation comes two weeks before Pope Francis’s visit to the Holy Land and Jerusalem,” the Latin patriarchate said on its website.
“Heads of the Churches in the Holy Land are preparing a series of actions aimed at informing local and international public opinion, and to make the authorities and law officials aware of their responsibilities.”
Police confirmed there had also been fresh hate attacks on Muslim targets in northern Israel on Wednesday, the latest in a spate of such attacks mainly targeting Palestinian or Arab-Israeli property but also targeting churches and mosques.
Police caught a man as he punctured the tyres of Arab-owned vehicles in the town of Yokneam, spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
Investigators were seeking to establish if he was also responsible for vandalising a Druze dentist’s practice earlier in the day.
“Death to Arabs” and “Price Tag” were sprayed on his clinic windows, media said.
“Price tag” is a euphemism for the hate attacks by Jewish extremists.
The internal security minister said the government was preparing to allow the use of detention without charge against those suspected of such crimes, powers previously used almost exclusively against Palestinians suspected of security-related offences.
“It is the government’s intention to use administrative detention against those carrying out so-called ‘price tag’ attacks,” Aharonovitch told army radio.
Administrative detention allows for suspects to be held without trial for up to six months. Such orders can be renewed indefinitely by court decision.
Although police have made scores of arrests, there have been no successful prosecutions for price tag attacks and the government has come up under mounting pressure to authorise the Shin Bet internal security agency to step in.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said on Sunday she would back the idea of defining such crimes as “terrorism” after the U.S. State Department for the first time included mention of price tag attacks in its global report on terror.