Six Jewish extremists arrested after assault upon mosque in Jerusalem

SIX Jewish extremists have been arrested following an arson attack on a 12th-century mosque in Jerusalem, the latest in a series of violent incidents by members of the Israeli far right.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the six suspects, in their late teens or early 20s, were detained in connection to “recent events” but were not believed to be involved in the latest mosque attack.

The Nebi Akasha mosque was set alight and defaced with anti-Muslim graffiti on Tuesday. Firefighters found writing on the wall in Hebrew saying “Mohammed is Dead”, “A good Arab is a dead Arab” and “Price Tag”.

“Price Tag” has become a common slogan sprayed on other targeted mosques in Israel and the West Bank in recent months. It is understood as signifying that Arabs will pay the price for any moves by the government and army to remove Jewish settler outposts.

The Israeli government has vowed to root out and punish assailants who in recent months have vandalised military bases, mosques, cemeteries and cars in the West Bank and Israel proper.

Nebi Akasha, situated in the ultra-orthodox Mea Shearim district of Jerusalem, has not been used for prayers since the area became part of Israel in 1948. Still, the arson ratcheted up tensions in the holy city, one-third of whose inhabitants are Muslim.

“If the government does not provide security for the mosques and does not rein in the ‘price tag’ gangs, the day will come when the Palestinians will be forced to defend their holy places with all the means at their disposal,” said Taleb Sanaa, an Arab member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

The increasing frequency of the attacks, the sparse number of arrests and absence of indictments have also generated allegations that the Israeli government is not acting forcefully enough against extremists after two years of violence.

In an incident on Monday that has possibly spurred the government to action, 200 Jewish extremists, some of them wearing masks, attacked a military vehicle carrying senior officers at an army base in the West Bank.

The army has been involved in the eviction of settlers.

During yesterday’s arrest, police burst into an apartment in a religious neighbourhood of Jerusalem.

The apartment is next to the Merkaz Harav seminary, a centre that is known as a stronghold of Jewish nationalists affiliated with the West Bank settlement movement.

It was not known whether the suspects were students there, but as they were led away, students and other residents shouted and taunted the police, slashing a tyre on one police car and smashing the windscreen on another.

Israel’s opposition leader Tzipi Livni termed the mosque attack a hate crime and said that it could not be dismissed as the work of a handful of individuals.

“This is not a handful, this is an extremist group that is growing and that is trying by force to change Israel into a different country. They want a country in their extremist nationalist image that has no law or courts, only their extremist warping of Judaism.”

She urged that the government follow through and implement Israeli supreme court decisions against West Bank settler outposts, which, according to media reports, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has considered trying to find a way to retain.

The army commander in charge of the West Bank, General Avi Mizrachi, said of the Monday night settler attacks, some of which he witnessed: “In my 30 years of service in the Israel Defence Forces I have never seen such hatred from Jews against soldiers.”