New Outbreak of Anti-Jewish Violence in Jerusalem

YouTube video shows Palestinian assailants targeting Jewish civilians in the heart of Jerusalem. 

A recent YouTube video shows a mob of Palestinian assailants attacking Jews driving by the Damascus Gate, a well-traveled entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City. The video clearly shows the Israeli drivers dodging stones being thrown at them, with Palestinian youth shouting at them in Arabic. The title of the YouTube video, which is translated as “Destroying the Settlers’ Cars and Arrests,” was posted by a group called Free Al Quds.

Scenes like this are becoming more frequent in Jerusalem. In the midst of the Muslim celebration of Ramadan, dozens of Jewish-owned cars in the mixed Jewish-Arab Jerusalem neighborhood Abu Tor have been vandalized. The attacks appear to target Jews in Abu Tor because residents report that there has been no harm to cars owned by Arabs, the United Nations, or foreign diplomats. The car attacks follow a spate of rocks and firebombs hurled into several Jewish homes in the neighborhood.

On Tisha B’Av, as Jews around the world mourned the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, Jews were denied entry to the Temple Mount after Palestinians threatened to riot. Later that evening, a 30-year-old Jewish man on his way home from praying at the Western Wall was stabbed multiple times by Palestinians outside of the Damascus Gate. The man was taken to the trauma room at the Shaare Tzedek Hospital where he is reported to be in moderate condition after suffering stab wounds in the chest and back.

These attacks are the most recent incidents in a year that has witnessed more than 300 reports of rock throwing and other attacks on Jews in Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives area and adjacent roads. The Mount of Olives plays a unique role in Jewish history, as heroes from ancient times to Prime Minister Menechem Begin are buried there. The recent increase in violence has made it more difficult — and more dangerous — for Jews to visit the graves of their ancestors buried in this cemetery.

Analysts’ theories on the cause of the recent increase in attacks on Jews, which are rarely reported in the mainstream press, include anti-Israel incitement by Arab members of Knesset, the continuing campaign of incitement by the Palestinian Authority, and the influence of radical NGOs that encourage confrontations in Jerusalem between Jews and Arabs.

To watch a video of Palestinians throwing rocks at Israeli cars, see below.

By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United with Israel

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