"Death to Christianity" spray-painted on Jerusalem church in "price tag" attack
Pastor Chuck Kopp examines a spray-painted wall
of a Baptist church in West Jerusalem.
"Jesus is the son of a whore,” “we will crucify you,” “Jesus is dead” and “death to Christianity” were the messages left behind by vandals who attacked the Baptist Narkis Street Congregation in West Jerusalem today. The tires of several cars parked in the compound were slashed as well.
The phrase “price tag” was spray-painted on the property several times, referring to “retribution settlers say they will exact for any attempt by the Israeli government to curb settlement in the occupied West Bank,” as Reuters reported today.
Reuters added, “Two weeks ago, similar graffiti was scrawled on the 11th-century Monastery of the Cross which is also in west Jerusalem,” but no one had been apprehended for that attack.
The Electronic Intifada has reported on such attacks; last month a woman in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron went on hunger strike to protest settler violence against her family and their property.
Such attacks happen on both sides of the Green Line — the 1949 armistice line marking the boundary between Israel and the West Bank. Last year Jillian Kestler-D’Amours reported for The Electronic Intifada that Palestinian community leaders in Israel were protesting the Israeli government’s failure to deal with increasing attacks against Palestinians in Israel.