Tensions are blazing in Hevron over an incident in which Jewish activists trampled and burned a Palestinian Authority flag. Activists were demonstrating against a city-wide PA Arab campaign to protest IDF security measures, such as roadblocks, that have been necessary to protect the Jewish residents from terrorism.
The pro-Arab "campaign to remove to siege from the heart of Hevron" includes rallies held in various locations around the ancient mixed city, with PA flags draped from numerous walls, balconies and cars.
One Jewish woman reportedly tore down a PA flag from a fence and was joined by a group led by Jewish National Front leader Baruch Marzel, who trampled the flag and burned it, pledging that "Palestinians will have an unbearable life in Hevron."
Arab bitterly eyewitnesses told the Hebrew newspaper Yediot Acharonot, "We know of Palestinians who have been sent to prison for three years for burning an Israeli flag," but Marzel later told the news agency that the issue is more complex.
He asserted that Arabs and outside agitators started the first incitement of the day by waving a flag representing a murderous Arab terrorist organization while marching through a Jewish neighborhood.
"Since morning hours, leftist activists were walking around Hevron along with Palestinians, while carrying banned PLO flags," he explained. "I wonder what would have happened if we held up Kahane flags."
The "Kach" activist party, organized by the late U.S. immigrant Rabbi Meir Kahane, advocated transferring the Arab population out of Israeli territory and prosecuting the Hevron mayor for the 1929 massacre of the Jews in the city.
The party was founded in the early 1970's and served in the Knesset in 1984, but was barred from participating in elections by 1988 under a Knesset Elections Law that banned parties that incited racism.
The "Kahane Chai" faction split off from the group in 1990, but both groups remained barred from the Knesset, and both were outlawed in Israel in 1994. Both are considered terrorist organizations under Israeli law, as well as in the United States, Canada and the European Union.