Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday, 24 Sivan 5773 opted to use the media coverage portion of the weekly cabinet meeting to address price tag incidents. After ministers expressed support for declaring price tag incidents “acts of terror”, the prime minister commented following another weekend of multiple hate crimes against Jews, Arabs and Christians alike.

The prime minister however fails to comment on graffiti attacks against shuls and churches, but prefers to only address attacks presumably committed by Jews against Arabs.

“The Middle East is going through an especially sensitive period of shocks and upheavals in many sectors. While we have no interest in being party to the conflicts around us, we are acting and we are committed to prevent dangers to Israel’s security, and we have a clear policy of responding to attempted attacks against our territory. Also, I would like to strongly condemn recent phenomena of racism against Israeli Arabs and hooliganism against Palestinians, which were without any provocation or justification whatsoever. We strongly reject these phenomena and will act with all legal means at our disposal to step them.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)