Israeli Settlers 'Desecrate Christian Monastery'

  Another attack on a non-Jewish religious organisation, this time a Christian monastry.  Usually it is mosques which are the target for vandalism and destruction, but in the eyes of Jewish zealots from the West Bank settlements and the religious Orthodox, the original evil was Christian.

As normal the Israeli police will investigate and as normal they will not be able to find the culprits.  Unsurprisingly since the Israeli military arm and train and many of the armed settlers are themselves part of the army units stationed nearby.

Tony Greenstein

Israelis evicted from an illegal settlement are believed to be behind an arson and graffiti attack on a Christian monastery.

Israeli police are investigating after vandals attacked a famous Christian monastery - setting fire to its door and spray-painting "Jesus is a monkey" on the wall.

The Latrun Monastery, on occupied land in the Ayalon Valley, 15 miles west of Jerusalem, was daubed with pro-settler graffiti.

Officers believe it was in possible retaliation for the eviction of 50 families from the nearby unauthorised Migron settlement on Sunday.

Migron, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, was cleared after an Israeli court ruled it had been illegally built on Palestinian land.

The settlers left the area quietly and moved to temporary housing at another settlement, but eight youths who protested were arrested.

Police were warning of possible reprisal attacks from a vigilante settler group known as Price Tag. The group says its name refers to the price to be paid for stopping settlement in the occupied West Bank.

They have targeted mosques and, less commonly, Christian churches in the past.

Father Paul Saouma, the monastery's abbot, looked dazed as he inspected the damage. "Not nice. What can I say? What can I say?" he said.

An Israeli rabbi visiting the Trappist monastery called the attack an "ugly event".

"As a rabbi and as an Israeli citizen I am ashamed today, and I am deeply troubled by the fact that this is not the first time that such an event takes place in Israel, " said Rabbi Gilad Kariv, head of Reform Judaism in Israel.

"We need to make sure that the other faiths, other communities, feel secure here."

The monastery is located on land Israel captured in 1967. The United Nations says all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal.

Israel disputes this and distinguishes between about 120 settlements it has sanctioned and another 100 built by settlers without authorisation.

Some 500,000 Israelis now live on occupied land, nearly all of them in east Jerusalem or the West Bank.