Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana commits to 'safety and freedom of all' following a meeting with Jerusalem's Archbishop, agreeing to promote religious freedom together
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana spoke out against the recent spate of attacks on Israel’s Christian minority, declaring Israel’s “commitment to ensuring the safety and freedom of all.”
Following a meeting in the Knesset on Wednesday with Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Ohana tweeted that he had “condemned recent acts of violence by an extremist minority against Christian citizens and members of the clergy,” adding that the two would “continue to promote interfaith dialogue and stand for religious freedom.”
Ohana’s statement came as attacks against Christians in Jerusalem – spanning from vandalism of grave sites to physical assaults – have been spiking, with the police reluctant to track down perpetrators.
This week, Channel 13’s Yossi Eli was derided and spat at, including by a child and a soldier, as he spent a day dressed as a priest in Jerusalem to investigate spiraling hate crimes against Christians in the city.
This is not the first time that soldiers have been caught committing hate crimes against Christians in Jerusalem. In November, troops from the Givati infantry brigade spat at the Armenian archbishop during a procession. They were later disciplined by the army.
In his first interview with Israeli TV, the Vatican’s custodian of the Holy Land, Father Francesco Patton, blamed Israel’s politicians, arguing that the wave of attacks began “when the political language became more violent.”
He mentioned the desecration of a Lutheran cemetery, the vandalizing of a Maronite prayer room and the spraying of “death to Christians” on Armenian property, all in the space of weeks. He also noted “the responsibility of the leaders, of those who have power.”
Church sources have said that the police do not treat the situation seriously enough and refuse to identify the growing list of violent incidents as a trend. According to the sources, only a small percentage of incidents are reported to the police, and the extent of the phenomenon is unknown.
Earlier this month, a conference dealing with attacks against Christians in Jerusalem was moved from the Tower of David Museum to another site in the Old City following pressure from the municipality.
Sources said Mayor Moshe Leon’s aides threatened to fire museum director Eilat Lieber if the conference was held there. Leon’s aides denied this and said “none of it ever happened.”
The conference “Why Do (Some) Jews Spit on Gentiles” was organized in response to a spike in the number of attacks on nuns, priests and pilgrims in the Old City of Jerusalem in recent months.
Foreign Ministry and municipal officials were invited to the conference but refused to attend. So far, both the municipality and the Foreign Ministry have refrained from denouncing the attacks against gentiles in the capital.
Jerusalem’s Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar issued a letter denouncing the conference. “The Tower of David Museum is inviting the public with seeming innocence to presentations and discussions, which were apparently arranged by those seeking to eradicate religion and to confuse and convert innocent Jews,” Amar wrote. He added that the museum operated on Shabbat and called to boycott it.
Deputy Mayor Arieh King shared Amar’s statement on Twitter, adding that it was an “anti-Semitic conference.”
Amar, however, is the most senior public figure to condemn the attacks on Christians so far. In a letter he published last month he wrote the attacks “are completely forbidden. We are not permitted to show contempt for any man created in the image… and apart from this clear ban it also involves blasphemy.”
Several days after the incident with the conference, on Thursday evening, an Israeli Jew threw stones at the windows of the room said to be the site of the Last Supper, outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls, shattering the stained-glass.
This site, also known as the Cenacle, is sacred for Christians and is part of the David’s Tomb complex.