Anti-Christian graffiti scrawled on Jerusalem church

A Baptist church in downtown Jerusalem was defaced with anti-Christian slogans on Sunday night, the second time in as many weeks a Jerusalem church has been targeted.

Vandals sprayed anti-Christian graffiti and the words “Price Tag” on the Narkis Street church, and slashed the tires of three vehicles parked nearby.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that the background for the crime was as yet unclear, citing the possibility of either nationalistic or criminal motives.

On February 7, the Valley of the Cross Monastery and the “Hand in Hand” Jewish-Arab bilingual school were targeted in suspected “price tag” attacks by Jewish extremists. Jerusalem Police are investigating the possibility of a connection between last night’s incident and the attack on the monastery earlier this month, Rosenfeld said.

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Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, who was in Jerusalem on Monday, condemned the attack, but said those who perpetrated it did not represent the Israeli majority.

“In every culture and society there are people who lack good manners and lack understanding, even of recognition of who their friends are. It’s unfortunate. But I don’t hold an entire group responsible for what a few radical and crazy people do. And that’s crazy stuff. It’s uninformed and it’s ignorant,” he said.

Huckabee said that in the 1980s it was worse. “One of my very dear friends, who is from Arkansas, was a member of the staff of Narkis Street, and there were bombings there. There is a much better environment for Christian churches in Israel now.”

Huckabee, a former US presidential candidate and political commentator, is currently in Israel as the head of an American delegation of 175 mostly Christian pilgrims who are visiting the Holy Land for the first time.