Earlier this week, an Israeli settler hurled a Molotov cocktail into the Church of All Nations at the Garden of Gethsemane. It is one of Jerusalem’s most beautiful and sacred sites, where Jesus is reputed to have spent the night before his Crucifixion. The attack ignited the wooden pews and damaged the exquisite mosaic floor tiles. It was only the quick thinking and bravery of a church guard which prevented a massive fire. The guard also detained the suspect till Israeli police could arrive and take him into custody.
All this happened on the same day when the city’s Catholic community was at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre celebrating the appointment of a new patriarch. It was the perfect moment to launch an attack when the world’s attention was elsewhere.
בסרטון הזה הוא כבר מגיע לכנסייה פולש ואז שופך את החומר הדליק ומצית את הכסאות. השומר שהיה במקום עצר אותו מלעשות נזק גדול יותר. בחקירה טען כי עשה את זה כי צריך לשרוף כנסייה pic.twitter.com/6iHhCx8Bxs
— Yossi Eli יוסי אלי (@Yossi_eli) December 8, 2020
Despite the seriousness of this crime, it has barely been reported outside Israel. And in Israel the media have till now been prohibited from naming the suspect. But a reporter for Channel 13 has tweeted video of the attacker as he prepared the incendiary device, identified him, and offered a screenshot of the police file which determines he had a terrorist motive. It took days before police lifted a judicial gag order.
Now, Israeli media have reported his name, Yehoshua Alkobi. He is a 49 year-old resident of Har Gilo, a settlement south of Jerusalem. According to other Israeli websites, he has been hospitalized in the past for mental health problems. In 2013, police issued a pubic notice seeking to find him after he escaped from a mental institution. Earlier, in 1998 he escaped from another institution. He had been committed there for an arson attack against a Tel Aviv brothel. He harbored messianic delusions that he was tasked with the mission to “save the Jewish people from its sins.”
תראו בקשה להארכת מעצר: כאן המשטרה כבר בטוחה שמדובר באירוע לאומני. העיקר לקבוע ישר פלילי pic.twitter.com/mENe6okv3k
— Yossi Eli יוסי אלי (@Yossi_eli) December 8, 2020
In the original Israeli media account of the attack, police said Alkobi’s motives were “criminal rather than political.” Now that the police investigation has clearly indicated that he was motivated by religious hatred, and the firebombing was an act of terrorism, it’s evident those earlier efforts were intended to suppress any news which might incite concern among the international Christian community (the Church is Roman Catholic). This effort succeeded as the story has gone completely under the radar of foreign media. The few such outlets which have reported it have not named the attacker nor referred to his terrorist motives.
Israeli authorities feared such an incident would sour Christians and lessen their ardent support for Israel’s maximalist approach to occupying and settling all of Palestine. Israel’s far-right government has carefully courted the support of American Christian evangelists. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has even been quoted as saying that as American Jews turn more hostile toward his government, that Christian Zionists will replace their former support. Permitting Christians to view the religious hatred and Christophobia simmering beneath the surface of the settler movement could seriously damage Israel’s image.
Nor is this the first such attack. In fact, a settler terror cell burned down much of the Galilee Church of Loaves and Fishes in 2015. Another infamous settler terrorist, Jack Teitel, deposited bombs at the Israeli homes of a Christian missionary and Hebrew University Prof. Zeev Sternhell. Both exploded. Sternhell was slightly injured. But Ami Ortiz nearly died. Settlers have also attacked monasteries in the West Bank. This also calls to mind an arson attack that was the reverse of this plot: an Australian messianic zealot burned down much of the Al Aqsa mosque in the weeks after the 1967 War.
In the past, Israeli police have sought to downplay Jewish terror attacks by claiming the attackers were mentally ill. In many cases it has delayed punishment by months or years through legal appeals. It serves a useful purpose because the authorities can claim that such acts are an aberration, rather than an expression of the innate, simmering racism and hatred in the heart of Israeli society. In this case, the suspect at least at one time was committed to an institution. But so far, police have not resorted to illness as an excuse for not punishing such acts.
“rather than an expression of the innate, simmering racism and hatred in the heart of Israeli society.”
this sentence somewhat is in contradiction to what you wrote concerning his battle with mental disease. Israelis are not interested in burning down churches or mosques except for a few fringe nut cases. if they were they would have done it 60-70 yrs ago when no one would have said a thing. The burning of Notre Dame was a tragedy and as far as I know they really never revealed the cause. When i lived in Paris for short time I would go and sit outside the ND and just observe the ‘flying buttresses’. something like that can never be built again.{ I never got to Chartres because I never got up on time for the bus}. If Notre Dame was arson by a Muslim they would never reveal-too much backlash.
And ‘no’, I am not Islamophobe.
@ avram: Israelis are interested in destroying Christian and Muslim holy sites. Their senior leaders muse about it all the time. And when someone does try to burn down mosques or churches they’re invariably treated with kid gloves. If you burn down a church you’re treated a bit more harshly than if you burn down a mosque. But the response is not that dissimilar. The only reasons Israelis hold back their distaste for Christians is that they know that Israel is a holy site for Christianity. They can’t very well dismiss a billion or so Christians throughout the world without getting some flack for it. Not to mention all those Christian evangelicals Bibi is counting on to save Israel’s ass.
Notre Dame’s fire has nothing to do with arson or Muslims. Stop with the nonsense. It was caused by a construction accident. Everyone knows that. Even raising a hypothetical as you do is ridiculous.
It is surely necessary to prioritise the mental health of the suspect above and beyond political and/or religious motivation for the attack.
No Israeli I’ve ever met seriously wants to see churches and mosques destroyed. Israelis are more interested in having fun and making money.
@ Sepp:
You’ve got to get out more. If you haven’t met any then you’re not looking very hard.
So let me explain how politics and society work: you vote for a government. In your case it’s a settler government. Run by and for settlers. Settlers hate non-Jews. Hence the State hates non-Jews. Non-Jews are both Christian and Muslim. Hence the State hates (or at best tolerates) them. You get what you vote for and you are saddled with it whether you like it or not.
“Israelis are interested in destroying Christian and Muslim holy sites.” – oh yes. This is what we all plan and do all day long. We are such useless fools so in 70 years we found only idiots who can’t even accomplish such a simple task (while taking out well guarded scientists overseas).
Your twitter account claims to “surrounds hate & forces it to surrender”. Are you sure such statement are helping in your mission?
@ Ariel: It doesn’t matter what you do or think about Christians. You are a settler state in which settler politics and religion run the country.
As for the Mossad, even Tamir Pardo boasts that his was the only job in which he could be a criminal and be lionized for it. The Mossad is Israel’s mafia crime family.
Regarding hate, when Israel stops being a state steeped in hate, then I’ll relax my own views of the matter. I embrace tolerance, justice and mutual respect. Israel endorses apartheid, idolatry, and Occupation. All values redolent of hate. So don’t try to lecture me on the subject.
“You are a settler state in which settler politics and religion run the country.”
And you are a racist, misogynist, Islamophobic and chauvinist country b/c your leader is.
Oh wait…
he isn’t the leader any more…
but still in office…
On what day did the US turn from a dark place to light of the nations.
Funny how no one is allowed to generalize anymore, except for you of course.
@ Ariel: So let’s see how the U.S. is different than Israel:
1. Except for minor interludes, Israel has been governed by Judeo-fascist parties for more than 50 years. The U.S. on the other hand has been governed by two parties with widely different political and policy platforms.
2. Israel has destroyed any serious political alternative to the ruling right wing regime. Even “centrist” parties are essentially soft-right in ideological orientation. The U.S. has two parties and each one has a diverse set of political ideas including, among Democrats, a genuine progressive-left movement.
3. Israel has been run by a mafia clique run by Netanyahu for 15 years. Here in the U.S. no president serves more than 8 years. And we got rid of the worst president in our history after 4. You permitted the worst PM in Israel history to rule you for 15 years.
4. The US has a constitution guaranteeing rights which may not be infringed. Separation of powers gives the Supreme Court the right to strike down laws which violate the constitution. Israel has no constitution and its Supreme Court has no clear power to overturn laws. The Knessset, military and intelligence apparatus is free to ignore the Court rulings and frequently do.
You are done in this thread. No more comments here.
@Ariel
Same moral values … exceptional … religion and State affairs as conjugal twin … Ariel and Bibi solidair with New York and Neocons after 9/11 … Fear Inc. … terror … Palestinians … Islamophobia … Xenophobia … refugees from ME … immigration and populism … move towards extreme rightwing politics … basic definition of racist, misogynist, Islamophobic and nationalist nation. Democracy captive of fake news and state propaganda. Who needs Ariel and Bibi in this mix? Ahh … Donald Trump.
According to Palestinian media, the settler was intercepted not by a church guard but by local Palestinian youth, some media specifically state they were Muslims.