JERUSALEM (JTA) — About 20 cars were vandalized in eastern Jerusalem and the Galilee area of northern Israel in what are being investigated as anti-Arab hate crime attacks.
In eastern Jerusalem overnight, in a swath running from the Arab Shuafat neighborhood to the haredi Orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, tires were slashed and spray-painted messages read “price tag” and “King Pikar” — a reference to Elkana Pikar, who the Israeli military believes is a leader of the settler hilltop youth. The damage was discovered early Tuesday morning.
Jewish extremists use the term price tag to indicate revenge for attacks on settlers and other Israelis, or when legal action is taken against one of their own. Pikar, who lives with his wife and six children in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, which is home to many extremists, was recently given an administrative restraining order banning him from the West Bank for four months.
A wall in the area also was spray-painted with the words “Mohammed is an administrative pig.”
In the Arab-Israeli village of Naura in the Galilee, the tires of eight cars were slashed and price tag graffiti including “Administrative revenge” and “Administrative price tag” was sprayed on the walls of several houses.
Security cameras showed the apparent vandals entering the village at 2 a.m. Tuesday.
