Aharonovich condemns Wadi Ara ‘price tag’ attack

Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharanovich condemned an apparent price tag
incident in the Wadi Ara on early Tuesday morning, vowing that police will find
those responsible for such nationally-motivated attacks.

“I view with
grave severity any efforts towards incitement or to hurt people. We won’t stop
until we find those responsible,” Aharonovich added, saying police will take
steps to increase their ability to prevent future such attacks.

Menashe
Regional Council Head Ilan Sadeh said local residents have condemned the
incident, which he said threatens traditionally friendly relations between Jews
and Arabs in the neighborhood.

“We haven’t had incidents like this in the
past and I think that’s part of the reason this area was targeted, because of
the good relations between Jews and Arabs, which they want to ruin,” said Sadeh,
whose council includes the village of Umm el-Kutuf where three vehicles were set
fire and graffiti spray-painted on the wall of a mosque. Anti-Arab graffiti was
also found in nearby Safed.

The graffiti included a Star of David and the
words “Tag Mehir” (price tag) and “Evyatar”, the latter an apparent reference to
Evyatar Borovosky, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar who was
stabbed to death at the Tapuah junction last month.

Sadeh said that the
Menashe council will hold a special meeting with village elders in order to show
solidarity with the village, and in his words “to work together in order to
prevent incidents like this in the future.”

“These cars were right next
to the wall of a house, what if the house had caught fire? There could have been
a serious tragedy here,” Sadeh added.

Dozens of “Jewish-Arab Center for Peace” workers, along with representatives of the youth movement “HaShomer HaTzair,” braved thunderstorms to travel to Umm el-Kutuf following Tuesday’s price-tag incident.

Their mission was to take a tour of the village, witness the damage done and to plant olive trees as a symbol of hope and peace.

Yaniv Sagee, head of the “Givat Haviva” educational institute said, “price tags are dentrimental to the democractic process in Israel.”

“This type of terror is forbidden, and sons and daughters of the Jewish nation here in Israel cannot allow these acts even the slightest hint of legitimacy,” he added.

Meretz MK Issawi Freij, a Kfar Qassem resident, also visited the village and had some strong words to direct at Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett.

“I am calling on Minister Naftali Bennett, who claims to be a national leader…to say that terrorism is terrorism, no matter who is the perpetrator, Jews or Arabs,” Freij said.

In a separate incident in late
April, four vehicles were torched in the village of Akbara near Safed, while the
words “don’t touch our girls, price tag” were found written on a nearby
wall.