National Union chairman MK Ya'akov Katz (Ketzaleh) on Sunday railed against IDF Army Radio for what he called a “blood libel” several of the station's talk show hosts had leveled against the Hesder Yeshiva in Yafo (Jaffa).
The comments by Niv Raskin and former soccer player Jimmy Turk came in the wake of several acts of vandalism in Christian and Muslim cemeteries. Graffiti was scrawled on tombstones, and comments denigrating Arabs were discovered. Police said that they were not sure when the graffiti was scrawled, and they have no suspects. While they have not ruled out the possibility that the vandalism was committed by groups espousing anti-Arab “price tag” attacks, they said it was just as likely – perhaps even more likely, based on the evidence at the scene – that the graffiti was scrawled by local teenage hoodlums.
However, Raskin and Turk apparently have all the evidence they need to try and convict Yeshiva students in Yafo, says Ketzaleh. “The organized blood libel against the Jews of Jaffa reached new lows Sunday when Raskin and Turk went on for a very lengthy time on how the incident was the fault, if not the actual acts, of the IDF officers and students in the Yafo Hesder Yeshiva.”
Even worse, said Ketzaleh, officials were looking for ways to pin the vandalism on Jews living in Judea and Samaria – despite the fact that there were more than enough local suspects who are not members of the National Religious community, and who are not even Jewish. “One of the former Shabak officials interviewed on the program took great pains to point out that 'not all religious Jews are settlers' – meaning that the 700,000 Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria were the chief suspects.”
Ketzaleh said he planned to file a complaint with police against Raskin and Turk over their incitement against the Yeshiva students. “We, on the other hand, are absolutely positive that the vandalism was committed by radical leftists, or Arabs working on their behalf, in an attempt to make the Jews look bad. The Jewish people endured thousands of years of pogroms that regularly took place when the body of a kidnapped Christian child was discovered dead on Jewish property, allegedly for use of his blood for Passover matzos,” said Ketzaleh.
“It's a shame that Raskin and Turk don't realize that Jews would never desecrate a cemetery, or burn down a mosque,” Ketzaleh said. Regarding the latter, he added that “in a few days the young Jewish man from the Galilee who was arrested for the arson at the Tuba Zangriya mosque will be released, proving that the agitation against Jews in that instance was also a blood libel.”