Two Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem, ages 18 and 19, were arrested on suspicion of attacking two young men in the city last Shabbat, according to an Israel Police tweet Tuesday morning. The tweet added that police suspect the two of cursing their two victims, beating them and fleeing the scene. The suspects will be brought to extend their remand in court shortly, the tweet concluded.
But a report from the Honenu legal aid society The Jewish Press online received two hours later, describes a terrifying event that violated not only the two victims’ bodies but their souls.
The victims, two Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) men from Jerusalem, approached Honenu on Monday with the shocking details of their ordeal. They reported that while they were being beaten, their two attackers forced them to utter the Arabic verses of the “testimony” of the conversion to Islam. They were also forced to praise the terrorist organization Hamas, and curse the State of Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu –while their attackers were documenting the event on video.
Honenu Attorney Haim Bleicher, who immediately contacted the police and pushed for the rapid arrest of the terrorists, said that this was a serious anti-Semitic incident, which is unique even in these volatile times in the city.
“Every day I treat victims of terror, but this a different kind of incident,” Bleicher said. “It’s an event that reminds us of the darkest days when Jews were humiliated and trampled. The attackers not only physically harm their victims, but they also humiliated them, forcing them to undergo a caustic, racist and anti-Semitic ordeal.”
An attack on Haredim in 2013 (illustration video)