By: David Parsons, ICEJ Vice President & Senior Spokesman

The recent reports of Jews attacking Christians in Israel are real!

There indeed has been a surge in Jewish harassment and assaults on Christians and church properties in Israel since the start of the year, and the list of these attacks is getting rather long.

For instance, a Jewish man toppled and damaged a statue of Jesus in the Church of the Flagellation on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem’s Old City; the Tomb of the Virgin Mary was vandalized on the Mount of Olives; a monastery in the Armenian Quarter was defaced with offensive anti-Christian graffiti (“Death to Christians”, etc.); several gravestones were flattened and smashed in a Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion; an Orthodox Jewish man was arrested for throwing a rock through a window of the Upper Room on Mount Zion; and Israeli settlers reportedly set upon an American Christian tour group at an Armenian restaurant in the Christian Quarter, leaving behind what many described as a battlefield.

There also has been an increase in Orthodox Jews spitting at robed Christian clerics in the Old City. Recently, Israeli TV reporter Yossi Eli with Channel 13 put on a traditional brown cloak of the Franciscan friars and was spit on five times in the only five minutes while walking through the Old City streets.

Nonetheless, there has been a dramatic upswing in Jewish harassment of Christians of all backgrounds and denominations, leading to the urgent questions: Who is behind this? And why?

Read the full article by David Parsons here.