Graffiti sprayed in yeshiva calls for gassing Netanyahu
Students of Bar Ilan Yeshiva in on Tel Aviv's popular Rothschild Boulevard return after Shavuot holiday to find courtyard covered in graffiti, apparently sprayed by Antifa radicals, calling for PM and Naftali Bennett's death, renouncing God's existence; police launch investigation.
The offensive graffiti was scrawled on the walls of the Bar Ilan Yeshiva on Rothschild Boulevard at the end of last week.
Students who arrived back at the Yeshiva on Monday morning after the holiday of Shavuot, found that the area had been completely defaced with violent slogans against Israeli politicians, including Education Minister and Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett.
“Bibi to the gas,” was among the slogans sprayed onto the walls, along with “Kahane is dead” in reference to the late American-born and ultra-nationalist rabbi, Meir David HaKohen Kahane, who served in the Israeli Knesset. Next to the graffiti about Kahane, the vandals asked: “What about Bennett?”
The perpetrators also sprayed slogans offensive to the religious institution of the yeshiva such as “There is no God” and objected to the Israeli presence in the West Bank, writing: “There is no pride in occupation” and “Free Palestine.”
Next to the graffiti, the vandals wrote the word Antifa, indicating that it was carried out members of a loose-knit radical movement of anti-fascist militant groups in the United States.
The yeshiva’s director, Rabbi Benny Perel, responded to the incident on his Facebook page, arguing that his institution would have received more compassionate treatment if it has been a mosque.
“If this was a mosque, the Tag Meir group would come and give me a flower,” he said, in reference to the left-wing organization, which was set up to counter the phenomenon of what are known as price tag (Tag Mechir) attacks against Arabs.
“The (Israeli) president would have delivered a speech to his people, the media would have shown compassion, the Israel Police, the Shin Bet, the Mossadf and the CIA would have dealt with the incident in a dark interrogation room, the Tel Aviv Municipality would have renovated the palce and cleaned it up, but we are a yeshiva,” he continued.
Speaking to Ynet after the incident, Rabbi Perel said he was considering filing a complaint to the police. However, despite his anger, the political establishment and the Tel Aviv Municipality did issue statements of support for the yeshiva.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) issued her comments on social media. “Hate crime calling for the assassination of the prime minister and the education minister on the walls of a school in Tel Aviv, as if nothing has happened in the Israeli media,” she wrote on Twitter.
“There are no notifications and there is no widespread coverage. Why is hate crime only covered when the victims are from the Left?" She asked.
Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon also weighed in on the matter. “Incitement is incitement, is incitement! The police must immediately investigate who is responsible for the graffiti against the prime minister and Minister Bennett and bring them to trial. No political dispute justifies hate graffiti and incitement to murder,” he wrote.
The Tel Aviv Municipality denounced the graffiti as a “violent and cowardly expression. We also condemn the attack on an educational institution through the vandalism of property,” it added in a statement, before extolling the virtues of the yeshiva itself.
“The Bar Ilan Yeshiva is an institution that educates about values of respect for human beings, humanity and tolerance for all. It is important that point out that we have offered all available help for the school’s management and for the Education Ministry. Obviously, the municipality immediately went to the school to remove the graffiti and filed a complaint to the the police. Violence is a fundamental corrosion of democracy.”
