JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Arab-owned restaurant in Jaffa was torched and graffiti pointing to a price-tag attack was spray-painted on its walls.
The Abu al-Abed restaurant, which has been in existence since 1949, was set ablaze early Monday morning. It serves Palestinian and Lebanese food.
The words "price tag" and "Kahane was right" were spray-painted on the building. The latter invective refers to the late Kach leader Meir Kahane, who advocated the transfer of Arabs out of Israel. Price tag refers to the strategy that extremist settlers have adopted to exact a price in attacks on Palestinians and Arabs in retribution for settlement freezes and demolitions or for Palestinian attacks on Jews.
Police investigating the incident told Ynet that they are not ready to say it was politically motivated.
In recent weeks, incidents labeled as price tag include the cutting down of 20 olive trees belonging to an Arab family in eastern Jerusalem, the desecration of two cemeteries in Jaffa and the torching of a mosque in a Bedouin town in northern Israel.
Also Sunday, the tomb of Elazar Hakohen, the son of Aaron, was discovered desecrated. The tomb, which is located near the West Bank village of Hawarta and is a popular destination for Jewish worshipers, was painted with graffiti including drawings of rocket launchers, and the headstone was shattered.
Meanwhile, Israeli police and soldiers on Sunday demolished four structures under construction in an outpost near the Bat Ayin settlement in Gush Etzion.
