JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Bnei Brak resident was arrested in connection with the arson and vandalism attack on a Christian monastery that drew international condemnation.
The 22-year-old man, identified by the daily Haaretz as a Jewish right-wing activist, was arrested Monday in the attack last September on the Latrun Monastery.
The monastery door was set alight and the names of West Bank outposts were spray-painted on the walls along with the epithet “Jesus is a monkey.”
The incident was labeled a “price tag” attack in response to the evacuation last summer of Migron, a West Bank outpost.
Price tag refers to the strategy that extremists have adopted to exact a price in attacks on Palestinians and Arabs in retribution for settlement freezes and demolitions, or for Palestinian attacks on Jews. Several recent price tag attacks have struck Christian sites.
Bnei Brak, a densely populated city of 178,000 near Tel Aviv, has a mostly haredi Orthodox population.
An administrative restraining order was issued against the suspect, preventing him from traveling to the West Bank, according to Haaretz.
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