The problem is the violence is tolerated by police, and the far right ruling coalition encourages these religious hate attacks.
Christian leaders in Jerusalem say Israeli attackers felt more emboldened under the far-right ruling coalition.
www.aljazeera.com
Jerusalem – Nothing about the attack or what happened since surprised Miran Krikorian. The Armenian owner of Taboon and Wine Bar in the Old City of Jerusalem was not surprised to receive a call the night of January 26 that a mob of Israeli settlers was attacking his bar in the Christian Quarter and shouting “Death to Arabs … Death to Christians.”
It didn’t surprise him how little effort the police made to catch the perpetrators; after some press about the attack and a lack of arrests, police told him two months later they detained three of the suspects among the mob. But they also asked for his surveillance video, despite the videos being already
online and surveillance cameras omnipresent in the Old City.
“You have cameras over here that can show the underwear that someone is wearing, so how come you’re asking for my footage two months later?” asked Krikorian.
It was easy for him to identify many of the perpetrators himself – they went online and gave his restaurant a 1-star review minutes after the attack – but when he went to the police station that night, the officer there scolded him: “Don’t bother me too much.”
A couple of days later, Armenians leaving a memorial service in the Armenian Quarter say they were attacked by Israeli settlers carrying sticks. An Armenian was pepper-sprayed as settlers scaled the walls of the Armenian convent, trying to take down its flag, which had a cross on it. When Armenians chased them away, the settlers began shouting: “Terrorist attack,” prompting nearby border police to draw their guns on the Armenians,
beating and detaining one of them.
“Instead of [the soldiers] calming or condemning [the settlers], I was looking into the eyes of the soldier and telling him to calm down,” one of the attacked Armenian youth told Al Jazeera.
Hostility by fundamentalist Jews towards Jerusalem’s Christian community is not new, and it is not just Armenian Christians who suffer from it. Priests of all denominations describe being spat at for years. Since 2005, Christian celebrations around Holy Week, particularly Holy Fire Saturday, have brought military barricades and harsh treatment from soldiers and settlers alike, with the number of worshippers allowed inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre drastically limited, from as many as 11,000 historically during the Holy Fire ceremony to now 1,800 since last year, with authorities citing safety concerns.
But since Israel’s new government – the most right wing and religious in its history – came to power, incidents against Christians in Jerusalem have reportedly become more violent and common. At the beginning of the year, 30 Christian graves at the Protestant Mount Zion Cemetery were desecrated. In the Armenian Quarter, vandals spray-painted “Death to Arabs, Christians and Armenians,” on the walls.
At the Church of the Flagellation, someone attacked a statue of Jesus with a hammer. Last month, an Israeli came to the Church of Gethsemane during Sunday religious services and tried to attack the priest with an iron bar. Being spat and shouted at by Israelis has become, for some Christians, “a daily occurrence”.
Struggling with ‘Messianic syndrome’
Most of the time, victims of these incidents say little is done by police to catch or punish attackers.
“My fear is that these perpetrators are known, but they enjoy impunity,” said Munib Younan, bishop emeritus of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. “That’s the reason they are doing this.”
Church and community leaders note that police do little to investigate and dismiss or minimize the religious and ideological motivations behind these attacks, typically saying the perpetrators suffer from mental illness.
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