Chief rabbis condemn attack on Israeli mosque
Israel's chief rabbis are among the Jews in Israel and abroad who
have strongly condemned an arson attack on a mosque in northern Israel.
The rabbis made a solidarity visit to the Israeli Arab village of
Tuba-Zangariyye, near Galilee, on October 3, soon after vandals torched
the mosque.
The U.S. State Department condemned the arsonists'
"hateful sectarian actions," calling them "dangerous and provocative."
The arson is believed to be the work of Jewish extremists, although no
one has been arrested.
Tensions between Jews and Arabs have
escalated in recent weeks as Palestinian leaders appealed to the United
Nations for recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
Israeli
extremists torched a couple of mosques in the West Bank; a fatal car
crash that killed a settler and his infant son is being blamed on
stone-throwing Palestinians. The names of the accident victims were
scrawled on the burned mosque.
Accompanied by Israeli President
Shimon Peres and Muslim and Druze leaders, chief rabbis Shlomo Amar and
Yona Metzger used unusually strong language to denounce the arson. "We
must cry out against this deed, it is a desecration of God," Amar said.
"All leaders should speak against this act of terror and hate."
In
the U.S., the Anti-Defamation League expressed "shock" and "outrage" at
the arson and said there have already been too many "wake-up calls"
about "the violence and hatred among fringe groups of Israeli Jewish
extremists." Israelis, the ADL said, must make it clear that violence
"is never acceptable" and must "continue to reinforce this core value of
Israeli society." —RNS
