TEL AVIV: On Friday morning, a crowd of several young Jewish Israelis attacked three Palestinians in Jerusalem. One Palestinian man has been seriously injured and is presently in intensive care in a Jerusalem hospital. As many West Bank Palestinians were granted entrance to Jerusalem for the final Friday of Ramadan, Israeli security forces were deployed in increased numbers. The attackers, however, were able to escape without being confronted by police or apprehended. A mob of over a dozen Jewish youth approached the three Palestinians in Zion Square and began chanting “Death to the Arabs!" As they departed, it was reported, the attackers yelled, “A Jew is a soul, and an Arab is a son of a bitch." Medics arrived to find one victim with no pulse and not breathing. They were able to resuscitate him, but he is presently in critical condition. The Jerusalem Police Department announced that it set up a special investigation team to find and arrest the suspects. Many are doubtful that justice will be served. In March, around 300 supporters of Beitar Jerusalem soccer team, known for its right-wing following, attacked an Arab cleaning staff in a Jerusalem shopping mall. When the police were asked why no one was arrested, they told the media that no formal complaints had been filed. Only after immense public pressure was a probe launched. “I'm afraid I actually have no words," Alex, an American graduate student in Tel Aviv, told Bikyamasr.com. “I'm incredibly sad to think that I've walked down that street dozens of times before so peacefully and to know that something like that happened is deeply troubling." One witness described Friday's attack in Jerusalem as a “lynching." She described the event on her Facebook page: “When two volunteers went into the circle, they tried to perform CPR the mass of youths standing around started to say resentfully that we are resuscitating an Arab, and when they passed near us and saw that the rest of the volunteers were shocked, they asked why we were so in shock, he is an Arab." She added, “Children aged 15-18 are killing a child their own age with their own hands. Really with their own hands. Children whose hearts were unmoved when they beat to death a boy their age who lay writhing on the floor.”
