The Jewish Federation of St. Louis and the Jewish Community Relations Council condemn two horrific acts of violence in Israel: the stabbing of six at the Jerusalem Pride Parade and the deadly arson attack in the West Bank.
The Jewish Federation of St. Louis and the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) condemn two horrific attacks that took place this week in Israel: the stabbing of six people at the Jerusalem pride parade on Wednesday and yesterday’s deadly arson attack in the West Bank that killed 18-month-old Ali Saad Daobasa and wounded three of his family members. Prime Minister Netanyahu called the arson a “terrorist attack” and expressed his condolences to Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in a phone call. “I am shocked by this horrible criminal act,” said Netanyahu, who visited the injured family members in the hospital. “This is a clear terrorist attack. Israel takes a tough stance against terrorism regardless of who the perpetrators are. I have instructed the security forces to use all means at our disposal to capture the killers and bring them to justice as soon as possible.”
Israeli police arrested Yishai Schlissel for the pride parade attack, which the prime minister called a “despicable hate crime.” Schlissel was convicted and served ten years for stabbing and wounding three people at the 2005 pride parade. President Rivlin said: “people celebrating their freedom and expressing their identity were viciously stabbed. We must not be deluded; a lack of tolerance will lead us to disaster. We cannot allow such crimes and we must condemn those who commit and support them”
The Jewish Federation and the JCRC are shaken and saddened by these violent events. These expressions of hatred rip at the fabric of Israeli society, our shared celebration of pluralism and diversity, and core Jewish values. We are confident that the Israeli justice system will find and convict the perpetrators of the arson attack and provide a swift judgment on Schlissel. The recent sentencing of two Israeli youths who set fire to a bilingual Hebrew-Arabic school in Jerusalem and covered it with hate graffiti in November 2014, and Wednesday’s indictment of two men, Yinon Reuveni and Yehuda Asraf, for the arson attack on the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes at Tabgha, on the Sea of Galilee, five weeks ago, are evidence of the workings of the democratic institutions that uphold Israel’s laws and societal norms.