Israel Police have arrested a Jewish teen for allegedly pepper-spraying a group of Arabs who he said attacked his family on Rehov Shalshelet in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The incident took place late this morning (Tuesday, Sept. 29), when the teen and his family was passing the Shalshelet Gate.
The youth allegedly released the spray after a group of screaming and cursing Arabs harassed his family near the Gate.
Family members told the Honenu organization they had come to the Old City to celebrate the Sukkot holiday. It was only after they arrived in the city and heard the Arabs screaming and the invectives they yelled, however, that they began to realize the danger they were in, they said.
Honenu Attorney Rehavia Pilz traveled to the police station in an attempt to sort out the situation for the youth who tried to defend his family from screaming and cursing Arabs in Jerusalem.
Last month an older Jewish woman who immigrated to Israel on aliyah from the United States almost a year ago was punched in the ribs by a screaming burka-clad Muslim Arab woman while touring the Temple Mount grounds.
The problem with Muslim Arab harassment here in Israel is that it is impossible to predict when the shrieking “Allahu Akbar!” howls will transform themselves from war cries into true, active jihad (Islamic holy war). It is precisely this dilemma that daily faces Israel’s military, its police force, its government and worse, its civilian population.
The Israeli government has stiffened the penalties for perpetrators of terror, including those of younger ages, their parents, and those who throw stones.
But the government has yet to contend with the perpetrators within its own midst who nurture, incite and encourage terrorism aimed at our own population.
These are the Israeli Arab Knesset members who have traveled to hostile enemy governments in order to promote new forms of attacks on the country they purport to represent, or who have joined hostile, illegal flotillas aimed at breaching Israel’s maritime blockade that exists to prevent terrorists from smuggling weapons to each other.
Some, like MK Jamal Zahalka, joined rioters on the Temple Mount Tuesday morning (Sept. 29) in order to curse and malign the very security forces that are there to protect their lives and those of Israeli citizens who come to visit the site.
