Attack on Israel mosque enrages Netanyahu

Vandals torched a mosque in northern Israel in a suspected revenge attack by right-wing extremists that on Monday sparked a "furious" response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The mosque, located in the Bedouin village of Tuba Zangaria in the northern Galilee region, sustained heavy damage in the overnight attack, in which the arsonists scrawled the words "tag" and "revenge" on the walls.
Police described the attack as "a very severe price tag incident" - a term which usually refers to acts of vengeance against Palestinians and their property by Jewish settlers in the West Bank. "The images are shocking and do not belong in the state of Israel," Netanyahu's office quoted him as saying. "This is an act which is against the values of the state of Israel, which places supreme importance on freedom of religion and freedom of worship," he said.
The Israeli leader immediately ordered the head of the Shin Bet internal security service to "quickly find those responsible for the arson at the mosque." The attackers also graffitied the word "Palmer" on the walls in an apparent reference to Asher Palmer, an Israeli settler who died with his infant son in the southern West Bank on September 23 after his car was hit by stones thrown by Palestinians, causing it to crash.
Although such acts of vengeance normally occur in the occupied West Bank, a similar attack targeted another mosque in Ibtin village in Galilee, last year. The overnight attack sparked anger in the village, with a few hundred residents burning tyres and trying to block a road, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
Protesters threw stones at police, who used tear gas to disperse the crowds, Rosenfeld told AFP, saying police representatives were talking to village leaders "in an effort to calm things down." Northern District Police Commander Roni Attia described the attack as "a very severe price tag incident" and set up a special investigation team to deal with it.
Several government ministers spoke out against the attack but Muslim activists accused them of not doing enough. "This is an atrocious act that harms the State of Israel," Defence Minister Ehud Barak said in a statement. "The criminals who carried it out seek to destabilise the relations between Jews and Arabs, and severely damage Israel's reputation in the world."