Since the beginning of the year, five acts of vandalism or aggression perpetrated by Jews have taken place in the holy city. The Churches denounce the inaction of the Israeli authorities.
by Clothilde Mraffko (Jerusalem, Correspondence)
Thursday, February 2 in the morning, a man entered the chapel of condemnation, in the old town of Jerusalem, built where Jesus was promised to death by Ponce Pilate, first stage of the Cross Cross in the Christian tradition. The unknown struck a statue of wooden Christ with a hammer. A video watching him shouting: “You cannot have idols in Jerusalem, it is the holy city!” The guardian of the place ended up mastering him. The police arrested the assailant, an Orthodox Jewish American tourist, and submitted it to a psychological examination.
It was the fifth attack in five weeks against Christians, their places of worship and their properties in the Holy Land – against thirteen over the year 2022 and nine in 2021, according to the data collected by the Jerusalem Inter-Church Center and the Protecting Holy Land Christians campaign, which bring together various Christian churches. “It is by no means a coincidence if the legitimization of discrimination and violence in public opinion and the current Israeli political environment is also reflected in acts of hatred and violence against the Christian community,” condemned the Latin patriarchy of Jerusalem. “Welcome to the new Israel who hates Christians, encouraged and supported by the current government!”, Wrote Father Nikodemus Schnabel on Twitter of the Dormition Abbey, located just outside the ramparts of Jerusalem.
graves, cultural center and vandalized restaurant
Some members of the new Israeli government, such as Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance, promote a supremacist policy, directed against those who do not share their religion and those they consider as “bad Jews”. “More than on anti-Christian assaults, these are often assaults against non-Jews,” observes Marie-Armelle Beaulieu, editor-in-chief of the Holy Magazine, the Journal des Franciscains de la Custodie de Terre holy.
The 1 er January, more than thirty tombs were vandalized in the Protestant cemetery of Mount Sion, below the Dormition Abbey. The video surveillance cameras show two Jewish teenagers launching stones and dismantling the crosses, in broad daylight and with an open face. The Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry condemned the attack and the attackers were arrested. On January 11, a Maronite cultural center was vandalized in northern Israel and Hebrew threats were traced on the walls of the Armenian district of the old town of Jerusalem. “Death to Christians”, “Death to the Arabs and the Gentiles” (term which designates non-Jews), “death to the Armenians” could be read.
You have 54.54% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.