Rights and Accountability 21 February 2012
Vandals spray-painted “Jesus is the son of a whore” and slashed the tires of a car parked in the Baptist Narkis Street Congregation in Jerusalem.
Pastor Chuck Kopp examines a wall spray-painted with the hateful messages “Price tag,” “we will crucify you,” “Jesus is dead” and “death to Christianity.”
“Price tag” is spray-painted on Baptist Narkis Street Congregation property.
“Jesus is the son of a whore,” “we will crucify you,” “Jesus is dead” and “death to Christianity” were the messages left behind by vandals who attacked the Baptist Narkis Street Congregation in West Jerusalem today. The tires of several cars parked in the compound were slashed as well.
The above photos were taken by The Electronic Intifada contributor Ryan Rodrick Beiler.
The phrase “price tag” was spray-painted on the property several times, referring to “retribution settlers say they will exact for any attempt by the Israeli government to curb settlement in the occupied West Bank,” as Reuters reported today.
Reuters added, “Two weeks ago, similar graffiti was scrawled on the 11th-century Monastery of the Cross which is also in west Jerusalem,” but no one had been apprehended for that attack.
The Electronic Intifada has reported on such attacks; last month a woman in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron went on hunger strike to protest settler violence against her family and their property.
Such attacks happen on both sides of the Green Line — the 1949 armistice line marking the boundary between Israel and the West Bank. Last year Jillian Kestler-D’Amours reported for The Electronic Intifada that Palestinian community leaders in Israel were protesting the Israeli government’s failure to deal with increasing attacks against Palestinians in Israel.
“We are really worried. Now these people are attacking holy places; tomorrow they could also hurt people,” Sami Abu Shehadeh, a resident of Jaffa and a member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council, told The Electronic Intifada.
Thank you to Dena Shunra for translating the Hebrew-language graffiti in the photos.
