Tires of 40 cars were slashed in Jaljulia last night, and anti-assimilation graffiti was sprayed on a bus. Police opened an investigation to clarify the circumstances.
Joint Arab Chairman MK Ayman Odeh blamed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the graffiti, claiming it was inspired by him.
"Netanyahu doesn't need surveys; he opened a newspaper this morning and saw that they did another Price Tag in Jaljulia. There's no stronger proof that his messages are seeping in and the incitement is working," Odeh tried to claim.
MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Joint Arab List) also utilized the incident: "Another hate crime - this time in Jaljulia. Since the beginning of the year, 43 localities have been attacked. Even in the face of this large-scale organization, the police are demonstrating laxness; there are almost no arrests or solving the incidents."
She claimed: "These crimes stem directly from the Prime Minister's unruly incitement. He and the Right-wing government are responsible."
In the past, the Jewish Department of the Shin Bet was the suspected instigator of Price Tag incidents in several Arab villages throughout the country.
For example, MK Betzalel Smotrich last year referred to such activity: "I have a lot more than a feeling that the many Price Tag incidents of the past few days are intended to frame the Hilltop Youth as part of the Shin Bet's efforts to legitimize the torture experienced by the murder suspects in Duma within the framework of the legal proceedings being conducted these days."
Smotrich said the Shin Bet instigates Price Tag incidents by means of its own agents, “to influence the judges and the public.”
The Honenu legal aid organization revealed that police had an agent among youths in Judea and Samaria who, in at least two cases, had persuaded a “Hilltop Youth” to carry out Price Tag actions. The agent updated security officials before, during, and after the Price Tag incidents, but the police refrained from thwarting them.
In one case, the agent gave the minor a bag with flammable material and spray paint, and coaxed him to carry out a price tag action against Arabs. The minor refused to carry out an arson, and only agreed to spray graffiti.
Later, the agent took the minor up to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem and instructed him how to cover his head and how to carry out the “price tag.” The agent also instructed him in the wording of the graffiti to spray on the houses of the Arabs there.
Israel Police said in response that those claims were “based on mistaken facts that do not fit reality."