Arsonists set fire to a school in Jerusalem on Saturday night in a hate crime against the only early education institution in the city where Arabs and Jews learn together.
No one was hurt but this was an escalation of previous acts of hate against the Max Rayne Hand in Hand school for bilingual education. “Death to Arabs” had been scrawled on its walls on several previous occasions.
Students at the school responded to such a graffito three weeks ago by creating a banner saying “There is cooperation, love and friendship here between Arabs and Jews”. But on Saturday night, the hateful rejoinder to this hit home.
School officials said the assailants made a fire out of books and objects and badly damaged a classroom before firefighters put out the blaze. “There is no coexistence with cancer” and “Kahane was right” were scrawled in black, the latter slogan referring to Meir Kahane, the racist rabbi who advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.
