Suspected Anti-Israeli Hate Crime in Hebron: Israeli’s Vineyard Destroyed
Arab vandals early Wednesday morning destroyed dozens of vines at an Israeli-owned vineyard in Hebron.
The vineyard, located in ancient Tel Hebron near the neighborhood of Adamot Yishai (Tel Rumeida), was planted eight years ago by a farmer from the Jewish community of Hebron.
The vandals arrived at the vineyard in the early hours of Wednesday morning utilizing a special permit that the IDF granted to Hebron municipality workers who came to perform conservation work at the ancient olive groves near the Israeli neighborhood.
They sawed the vines, effectively killing them.
The police stated that they had launched an investigation into the incident.
Haim Bleicher, a Hebron resident and an attorney with the Honenu legal rights organization, said that “the area is monitored by IDF security cameras. We demand the immediate arrest of the vandals.”
“This is a criminal act, the uprooting of dozens of vines in which much money and hard work have been invested,” he said, noting that this incident joined “the many other acts of terrorism” which the Arabs of Hebron perpetrated against the Israelis “with the objective of uprooting the Jews from Hebron, as their forefathers did in the 1929 riots.”
He was referring to the 1929 Hebron massacre, in which Arab rioters killed 69 Jews. They were incited to violence by rumors that Jews were planning to seize control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The bloody day also left scores seriously wounded or maimed. Jewish homes were pillaged and the synagogues were ransacked. The Jewish community of Hebron effectively ceased to exist until it returned after the Six Day War, some 40 years later.
Arab vandalism of Israeli-owned agricultural endeavors is a common occurrence. On Sunday night, Arab vandals uprooted an Israeli owned vineyard in the Jordan valley. A total of six incidents of vandalism occurred in the same area in the past two months. Israeli vineyards in Judea and Samaria have been repeatedly targeted by Arab sabotage.