Hundreds of Jews yesterday encircled the Hassan Bek mosque in Jaffa, opposite the site of Friday night\'s terrorist carnage in south Tel Aviv, and threw rocks and bottles at Arabs inside. Jewish protesters also later torched a famous Arab bakery nearby. Worshippers inside the mosque hurled rocks back out at the enraged protesters before security forces moved in. Several policemen were lightly hurt in the ensuing struggle. Arabs later hurled rocks onto a nearby Jewish street.
Background on the Hassan Bek mosque is provided by Uri Dan and Dennis Eisenberg, writing in the Jerusalem Post in February 1996:
\"In 1948, Jaffa Arabs began firing into Tel Aviv even before the Arab armies invaded Israel. Jews were killed in the Carmel Market and surrounding areas. From the Hassan Bek mosque snipers picked off Tel Aviv citizens at their leisure. Urged to leave their homes in April 1948 by their own leaders, nearly all [of the Arabs] did so. They were told: \"When the Jews are wiped out you can live in the choicest Tel Aviv homes.\" Even before the war was over, \"liberal\" Israelis urged Ben-Gurion to allow the Jaffa Arabs to return to their homes. \"No!\" said Ben Gurion. \"They started the war. They will pay for it.\"... [Labor party leaders at the time] encouraged the restoration of that sniper\'s paradise, the Hassan Bek mosque, close to the Dan Panorama hotel.\"
Har Hevron residents blocked the main regional road to Arab traffic this morning. They explained to Kol Rina News Agency this morning that in this way they remove murderers from the road. An Arab truck driving on the Ramallah-bypass road south of Ofrah and Beit El this morning overturned; of its three passengers, two were killed and one was severely injured. An investigation is underway into how the truck had avoided the encirclement of the Arab cities and entered a road used largely for Israeli traffic. The IDF Spokesman\'s Office said today: \"We have imposed closure on all of the Palestinian cities in Judea and Samaria. Palestinian travel is prohibited on all the roads in Judea and Samaria with the exception of humanitarian and medical cases.\"
Jews are protesting not only in Judea and Samaria, but throughout the country. The grass-roots \"Cities of Israel\" reports that rotating teams of Tel Aviv residents demonstrated all day in front of the Ministry of Defense against the Oslo Accords, calling on the government to declare them null and void. In Haifa, 50 demonstrators gathered at Merkaz Horev and called on the government to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, return to PLO-controlled areas, and exile Arafat to Tunisia.
A large Israel-solidarity rally will be held in New York this afternoon, outside Israel\'s UN Mission, at 2nd Ave. and 42nd St. Demonstrators will \"join as one to tell our brothers and sisters in Israel: We are with you! You are not alone!\" They will also \"tell the world and the media: There is no moral equivalency between cold-blooded murder and acts of self-defense.\" The event is sponsored by over 100 rabbis, synagogues, and Jewish community organizations.
Background on the Hassan Bek mosque is provided by Uri Dan and Dennis Eisenberg, writing in the Jerusalem Post in February 1996:
\"In 1948, Jaffa Arabs began firing into Tel Aviv even before the Arab armies invaded Israel. Jews were killed in the Carmel Market and surrounding areas. From the Hassan Bek mosque snipers picked off Tel Aviv citizens at their leisure. Urged to leave their homes in April 1948 by their own leaders, nearly all [of the Arabs] did so. They were told: \"When the Jews are wiped out you can live in the choicest Tel Aviv homes.\" Even before the war was over, \"liberal\" Israelis urged Ben-Gurion to allow the Jaffa Arabs to return to their homes. \"No!\" said Ben Gurion. \"They started the war. They will pay for it.\"... [Labor party leaders at the time] encouraged the restoration of that sniper\'s paradise, the Hassan Bek mosque, close to the Dan Panorama hotel.\"
Har Hevron residents blocked the main regional road to Arab traffic this morning. They explained to Kol Rina News Agency this morning that in this way they remove murderers from the road. An Arab truck driving on the Ramallah-bypass road south of Ofrah and Beit El this morning overturned; of its three passengers, two were killed and one was severely injured. An investigation is underway into how the truck had avoided the encirclement of the Arab cities and entered a road used largely for Israeli traffic. The IDF Spokesman\'s Office said today: \"We have imposed closure on all of the Palestinian cities in Judea and Samaria. Palestinian travel is prohibited on all the roads in Judea and Samaria with the exception of humanitarian and medical cases.\"
Jews are protesting not only in Judea and Samaria, but throughout the country. The grass-roots \"Cities of Israel\" reports that rotating teams of Tel Aviv residents demonstrated all day in front of the Ministry of Defense against the Oslo Accords, calling on the government to declare them null and void. In Haifa, 50 demonstrators gathered at Merkaz Horev and called on the government to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, return to PLO-controlled areas, and exile Arafat to Tunisia.
A large Israel-solidarity rally will be held in New York this afternoon, outside Israel\'s UN Mission, at 2nd Ave. and 42nd St. Demonstrators will \"join as one to tell our brothers and sisters in Israel: We are with you! You are not alone!\" They will also \"tell the world and the media: There is no moral equivalency between cold-blooded murder and acts of self-defense.\" The event is sponsored by over 100 rabbis, synagogues, and Jewish community organizations.