Shimon Peres
Shimon PeresIsrael news photo: Flash 90

President Shimon Peres denounced on Tuesday the spray painting of graffiti against Jesus on a monastery doors. “This is not the Jewish way,” he said.

The attackers scrawled anti-Christian graffiti in Hebrew on a Franciscan monastery just outside Jerusalem's Old City, the church and Israeli police said.

Photos on a church website showed blue graffiti scrawled on the monastery's front door denigrating Jesus and adding the words "price tag," reported AFP.

By mid-morning, officials had removed the graffiti that cursed Jesus.

"What took place is that a church on Mount Zion was targeted. On it was written graffiti against Christianity, and 'price tag,' and now we're investigating the incident," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

The term “price tag” refers to vandalism allegedly carried out by nationalists and usually against Arabs as a response to the government’s policies of destroying Jewish communities and expelling their residents in Judea and Samaria.

Last month, vandals burnt the door of a Catholic monastery west of Jerusalem, scrawling anti-Christian graffiti on its walls.

The Israeli government has strongly condemned such incidents in the past.