BEIT FAJJAR – Jewish settlers opposed to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians were accused of setting fire to a mosque in the West Bank yesterday, burning the Koran and scrawling threats in Hebrew on its walls.
“Mosques, we burn,” said a warning scribbled at the door of the smoke-smudged mosque of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, on the day Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu appealed for cool heads to avert the collapse of US-brokered peace talks.
Palestinians said settlers were behind the attack.
“The settlers’ message is: terrorise the Palestinian people,” said Mohammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. “Crimes like these do not terrorise the Palestinian people. On the contrary, such attacks will only embolden the Palestinian people.”
Violence could complicate US-led efforts to prevent the collapse of Middle East peace talks launched a month ago. They were plunged into crisis last week when a 10-month Israeli moratorium on building new houses in West Bank Jewish settlements expired.
A Star of David symbol and the words “Price Tag” were found scrawled over the mosque’s doorway. Militant settlers coined the slogan to warn of the cost of any threat to their presence.
It was the fourth such attack since December and “a very serious incident which we view with utmost gravity”, said Israeli military spokeswoman Lieut Col Avital Liebowitz.
On Saturday, the Palestinian leadership said the peace talks relaunched on September 2nd but now in suspension could not resume until Israel halted settlement construction completely.
Mr Netanyahu said yesterday there were “sensitive diplomatic contacts” with the US to try to save the talks. “I advise everybody to be patient, responsible, cool-headed and, above all, quiet,” he said.
Young Palestinians smoking on the wide porch of the house of Abou Mohammad opposite the mosque scoffed at the idea of a peace deal creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
“The peace talks are doomed from the start.
“There is no point in talking with the Jews, they are determined to build settlements,” said Abou Mohammad. – (Reuters)