Sunday, October 12, 2008

Acco in flames

Acco has been a "model of Jewish/Arab relations" for the past number of years. They shop at each others stores, eat in each others restaurants and drink coffee together like brothers. At least that's how it was until Yom Kippur. In an obvious attempt to incite a riot, the Arabs sent a driver playing loud music into a Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur evening. The Jewish residents asked him to stop and when he refused they roughed him up a little bit (He was not sent to a hospital and had no serious injuries).
At the same time, the loud speakers at all the mosques in town started blaring that the Jews were attacking Arabs for no reason and they should all get over there. 2000 arabs attacked the Jewish section of Acco, smashing car windows and shops, beating up people and burning things. Arabs were yelling "itbach al yahud" "slaughter the Jews."

God told the people of Acco, your prayers were ignored.

After Yom Kippur, the Jews had had enough. They went on a rampage and starting their retaliation. Apparantly, the police had forgotten that it was their job to stop the Arabs and they didn't much stop the Jews either. Houses were firebombed and people were beaten up. There is a call for an economic boycott of all Arab businesses in Acco.

I heard from an Acco resident that her eyes stung on her way home from shul after Yom Kippur because of the amount of tear gas that had been fired on the crowd. She said she doesn't even live in that neighborhood. Right now she is completely freaked out and is thinking of moving in with her grandma in Haifa just to get away from the madness. The Arab leaders have agreed to condemn the violence but they do it in such a wussy manner that it is telling the Arabs, you go slaughter some Jews, and we'll say "noo noo".

2 comments:

concernedjewgirl said...

so what is the solution?

Anonymous said...

Sigh... Having done nearly 6 months of volunteer MDA work in Akko in 5768 (2008), I'm so shocked and appalled to hear about this, especially now that I'm on the other side of the world. Our MDA team co-exists peacefully. Why can't everyone else?