Monday night, the tires of 28 cars parked on a street in the village of Abu Gosh, where Arab and Jewish families live, were punctured. The area was painted with graffiti messages saying: “Racism or Assimilation,” and “Arabs out.” Police began investigating the incident.

This is the first time that the a Tag Mechir (Price Tag) operation takes place in Abu Ghosh, a Christian Arab village with a rich history of supporting Jewish independence since before 1948, and the only Arab village that has kept its neutrality, even during the worst days of the Intifada.

“There is a small group of evil conspirators who want to generate a chain of hatred and violence between Arabs and Jews in our country. This group gives our enemies around the world the means with which to blacken our faces. We will not allow them to succeed.

“This week we gave police and the Shabac (GSS) wide powers to catch them.

“I urge the security forces to act strongly against this despicable phenomenon.”

News of the incident shocked local police. Police sources said this morning to Walla News: “If it was, indeed, an incident of nationalist crime, it damages the very fabric of co-existence and neighborly relations of Arabs and Jews in this friendly village. Police view this very seriously, and will devote great efforts, as it has done so far, to reaching the perpetrators, capturing them and bringing them to justice.”

Last week, on the night between Thursday and Friday, two vehicles were set on fire in a parking lot in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in East Jerusalem. A security camera recorded the ignition and the explosion. Both vehicles was damaged from the blast. The slogan Tag Mechir was spray painted on a nearby wall.

One day before the parking lot arson, the slogans Tag Mechir and Star of David symbols were spray painted on gravestones in a Christian-Orthodox cemetery in Jaffa. The tires of five parked car on a nearby street were punctured.

“Price Tag” vandals who damage and burn Arab property and spray graffiti on mosques and churches are now official an illegal organization in Israel, thanks to a Security Cabinet decision.

It is not quite clear how a group of people without any formal party or unit can be called an “illegal organization.”

The Security Cabinet stopped short of calling the price tag attackers “terrorists,” despite the insistence of Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovitch, who last month proposed legislation designating them as such.

Both ministers voted against the new classifications for price tag attackers, apparently thinking it is not strong enough.

The JTA contributed to this article.

Here is what I said at a Knesset deliberation that I initiated recently on the escalation of Arab terror in Judea and Samaria:

The internal security minister defined graffiti – albeit of unknown origin – in the Arab villages as “terror.” No more and no less. Writing on the wall is a new type of terror. He also recounted the incidents and counted, for example, the [Arab] village of Tuba Zangaria as one of the locations where this terror was perpetrated. He apparently did not know that the acting mayor of the village himself openly admitted that village residents wrote the graffiti.

Nobody really knows if Jews perpetrated this phenomenon, or if it is an Arab provocation. I am sure that it is usually a provocation. But just as in the case of Mohammed al-Dura [the 12-year-old Palestinian boy killed in 2000], our entire country blames itself, adding more and more fuel to the fire of self-blame. So let us speak a bit about the real terror that is raging right now in Judea and Samaria.

We are witnessing a complete loss of common sense on the part of Israel’s government and security forces on the roads of Judea and Samaria. Rocks and firebombs hurled at motorists have become routine – including on major highways like 443 between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. But who cares? We are all busy with the graffiti in some Arab village. We all quake over that terror.

A government that is incapable of taking care of rock throwing is incapable of dealing with a nuclear Iran. This impotence draws from the same source. This is not a philosophical pontification: It is the simple lesson of the past 25 years. Every rock in Yesha is the promo for the missile that will land in Tel Aviv.

The impotence is explained away with ethical principles, so to speak. There is no greater lie. Ask the two-year-old baby, Adele Chaya Biton, who is hovering between life and death after a rock to her head. Even if she remains alive, I know first-hand the meaning of a head injury.

That is not unidentified graffiti in some village.

You can also ask Aharon Zlatkin and others, whose skulls were shattered by rocks. Ask them to explain to you what our Sages meant when they said, “Those who have mercy on the cruel will ultimately be cruel to the merciful?”

The source of this impotence is the loss of our confidence in the justice of our position.

Those who turn their backs on the bedrock of our existence in this Land, on the source of all sources, on the Temple Mount; those who effectively transfer the sovereignty on the Mount to the Arab enemy find themselves incapable of justifying themselves or defending themselves everywhere else.

Is there someone else who does not understand that after the rocks, he is the next in line – no matter where his house may be?

Another synagogue was again vandalized on Friday night in Bat Yam, adjacent to Tel Aviv, in the sixth anti-Semitic attack on a synagogue in the city in the past month.

“We came to the synagogue, and were deeply distressed to find it vandalized. It really tears up my heart. The police came and saw the damage, but announced that nothing can be done”, one member said. ”

“If this would happen to a mosque or church the world would be reeling with rage. The police must put an end to this before a real tragedy occurs. This must stop,” another added. Thousands of Arabs and Christians live in the area.

Last Wednesday, crosses were spray-painted at the entrance to the nearby Ohel synagogue, and swastikas and crosses  were painted on the walls of synagogues and windows were broken in previous attacks.

Members of the Ohel synagogue, which was established by Holocaust survivors, staged a protest rally on Thursday against desecration of the synagogues.

“The police come, take statements and shoot photos, but none of the terrorists have been caught yet” one of the congregations members said.

After vandals struck the Ohel synagogue twice a month ago, synagogue official Miki Moskowitz told Channel 2,  “I am certain that if settlers had sprayed hate slogans on a mosque, that Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovitch would immediately be interviewed on any available podium” to condemn the attack. “Since this was done in Bat Yam, no one cares,” he added.

‘My Israel’, an extra-parliamentary Zionist activist group, issued the following statement in response to these recent attacks, “All acts of vandalism are ugly, in the Shomron as well as in Bat Yam. The media must awaken and become active and ‘biting’ as they can. These incidents in Bat Yam should be treated by the government, police and media with the same magnitude as they are in the Shomron.”

American news headlines over the past few weeks have focused on political targeting by the Internal Revenue Service of conservative groups. But Israel is experiencing its own form of political targeting by the state. The attorney general is leading an initiative to have a small group of radical juveniles who engage in mischief declared a terrorist organization.

The group of politically-motivated Jewish vandals operates under the name Tag Mechir, or Price Tag. They came together as a response to Arab rock-throwing and general acts of vandalism against Jews perpetrated in the West Bank and in some other areas. Much of their activity consists of writing graffiti on cars and homes of Arabs or Jewish leftists. Their worst acts of misbehavior have involved vandalizing mosques. The local police have been unsuccessful in tracking down and arresting those involved, but they are thought to be young people from settlements in the West Bank.

Most people on the political right in Israel, including most pro-settler organizations and parties, regard the Price Tag radicals as an embarrassment. The vandals have been condemned by nearly every rabbi in the country. The Price Taggers have damaged property and they needlessly provoke Muslims and others in the most explosive region of the world. But they have killed no one. They do not engage in actual violence against humans, except for some revenge-rock-throwing.

(As it turns out, in several cases leftists and Arabs have vandalized Arab property as provocations to be blamed on settlers and the Price Tag group. Presumably, the Price Taggers are happy to accept the “credit” for these crimes even when they are not involved.)

The same leftists who seek to define the Price Taggers as terrorists bend over backward to excuse rock throwing by Arabs against Jews. Members of Israel’s chattering classes are always willing to defend freedom of speech for those holding opinions of which they approve.

Rather than engage the Price Tag juveniles in debate or simply denounce their behavior in the media, the government apparently prefers to deal with them by redefining terrorism to include petty vandalism.

It should be noted here that not one of the many cases of synagogues being vandalized by Arabs has been defined by the government as terrorism.

The initiative to proclaim the Price Tag group a terrorist organization has come from Israel’s politicized attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein. It was immediately endorsed by the leftist herds in media and academia, as well as by political hacks such as the minister of internal security and the justice minister.

Weinstein has a long track record of “differential prosecution.” This is manifested in his refusal to prosecute leftists and Arabs while running a special surveillance agency to spy on right-wing Jews. When an Arab Knesset member who participated in the “Hamas flotilla” seeking to end Israel’s naval control of the waters around the Gaza Strip violently attacked Israeli soldiers, Weinstein refused to prosecute her.

Weinstein has also studiously defended freedom of speech for radical leftists and Arabs while just as studiously seeking its suppression for everyone else. He has repeatedly indicted rabbis and others for “incitement” and “racism” when they dare to express political opinions with which the left disagrees – even prosecuting people for catcalls at a soccer game – but has never indicted any leftists calling for violence or mutiny by soldiers.

So what are we to make of this initiative to declare a group of juvenile vandals and punks a “terrorist organization”?

The most obvious problem with it is that it empties the very notion of terrorism of any substantive meaning. If some teenagers engaging in fraternity-like pranks and malicious graffiti are in the same category as the genocidal suicide bombers of Hamas and al Qaeda, then how bad can the Islamofascist terrorists really be?

But what is at least as outrageous is that the initiative is really nothing more than an assault against freedom of speech inside Israel. It is an arbitrary attempt to criminalize the political behavior of a fringe group while ignoring the violence constantly being perpetrated by groups from the other end of the political spectrum.

For example, the “Anarchists Against the Wall” organization that operates in Israel engages in actual violence against actual Israeli soldiers and police officers every single week. For years the group’s members have been joined by fellow anarcho-fascists from overseas in provoking violent confrontations with Israeli security personnel, supposedly all as part of their “protests” against Israel constructing its security fence against Palestinian terrorists.

For the fourth time this month, a synagogue in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv along the sea coast, has been vandalized with crosses spray-painted at the entrance.

In previous attacks, abusive slogans as well as swastikas were painted on the walls, and windows were broken. Similar attacks have occurred at other synagogues in the vicinity.

The Ha’ohel Central Synagogue in Bat Yam was established by Holocaust survivors who still frequent it. They were shocked and dismayed by these repetitive antisemitic attacks in the heart of Israel.

Synagogue chairman Miki Moskowitz told Tazpit News Agency about the lack of police response to the vandalism: “When there is a ‘price tag’ action in Samaria, the police arrests suspects within days. This has been going on for a month, in the center of Israel, and the police have no leads. I fear for the health of the survivors who have to endure these attacks, now on a regular basis.”

Moskowitz said he knew of no possible suspects who would wish to harm the congregation.

Synagugue member receiving medical care after witnessing the vandalism. Photo by Tazpit News Agency.

Moshe Yishai, a member of the congregation who is handling the case, said that some of the congregants required medical treatment after encountering the defacement. He announced that the community is planning a protest meeting Thursday, at the synagogue.

The police released a statement that they were investigating the attacks, primarily through intelligence work.

In a definite setback for their ethos, the violent Palestinian riots over the past week were mis-founded: Israeli Health Officials from the Abu-Kabir Forensic Institute announced today that Arafat Jaradat’s death last week was not the result of poisoning or physical violence against him.

Palestinian administrative detainee Arafat Jaradat’s autopsy found no evidence of poisoning or physical violence, stated a report released by the Health Ministry on Thursday.

Jaradat died on Saturday in the Megiddo Prison. The Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine continues to run tests to determine the cause of death. (Dr. Itay Gal) YNET So who can we blame for Palestinian violence? Settler violence [TM] and Price Taggers [TM]? Ooops. Seems like the Palestinians fabricated that too.

The Shai District Police found that the alleged “price tag” incident which took place at the West Bank village of Kusra was fabricated.

The police findings show that the claim, stating that six vehicles were set on fire, is untrue and that the Israeli identification card presented by one of the village residents was lost in the area a few days prior. (Itamar Fleishman, YNET). Fair readers, do not be alarmed.  There many do-gooders over at Haaretz concocting new slanderous stories as you read these very lines.

But here’s a photo of Palestinian violence below….just in case you want to remind yourself what’s really going on.

Photo: Tazpit News Agency

Visit The Muqata.

Israel police announced Thursday that the alleged “price tag” attack in the Arab village of Kusra last week was fabricated and staged by Arabs for propaganda purposes.

Police had received a report of six burned cars in the village of Kusra, located in Samaria, and blue Israeli identification card was found on site. The media publicized that the arson was the work of Israelis, a so-called price tag operation, in retaliation of the destruction of Jewish homes the previous week by the Israeli government

The police carried out an intensive investigation the police, including questioning several residents of Kusra, whose statements were not compatible with the findings at the scene. The Israeli ID card belonged to a soldier who dropped it a few days earlier while on a mission in the village.

Aish Kodesh, a nearby Jewish community was implicated by the media in the alleged attack on Kusra. Aish Kodesh spokesman Aharon Katsof told Tazpit News Agency, “We have stated throughout the entire time that this was a Palestinian provocation against Aish Kodesh. In the past months we have been assaulted on a daily basis by hundreds of Arab vandals who destroy our property and fields, throw stones and fire-bombs at our homes, causing us tremendous financial loss.

“Albeit our repetitive requests, the IDF has not provided sufficient security to our families, and we have recently learned that the army has further decreased its presence in the area, which will bring to an increase in the Arab attacks against us. The solving of this case proves again that the Arabs are constantly trying to stage provocations and their claims are accepted without proper scrutiny. The damaged caused to the community’s name as a result of the media publications is immense.”

Despite dozens of alleged attacks on Arabs by Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria, no Israeli has been tried or convicted on such charges.

The supposed attack on Kusra is not the first case in which the vandalism turned out to be a staged provocation, local criminal activity or Arab infighting.