Cars vandalized in suspected ‘price tag’ incident

Police suspect right-wing extremists slashed the tires of five cars in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem Thursday morning. The vehicles were spray painted with graffiti reading “price tag,” a calling card of Jewish extremists.

An initial police investigation found that three of the vehicles belonged to Arab residents of the neighborhood, while the other two belonged to local Jews. The police said the unknown vandals may have mistaken the identity of the car owners in those two cases.

Last week Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (Hatnua) and Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich (Likud-Beytenu) announced that they would present the Cabinet with a proposal that would classify price tag attacks as acts of terror.

After meeting with Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein last Thursday, Livni and Aharonovich said their plan would increase the tools at police disposal in the battle against a rising number of attacks by Jewish extremists on non-Jewish targets including church properties, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinians in the West Bank.

“Price tag” is a term used by extremist Jewish Israelis to describe attacks carried out against Palestinians, the military and other targets as “punishment” for Israeli government decisions they perceive as being oriented against settlers. The attacks mean to exact a “price” for government actions the extremists oppose, like outpost demolitions.