Far-right group warns Arabs not to flirt with Jews

A week after attempted lynch, anti-assimilation group hands out fliers in J'lem warning Arab men not to hit on Jewish girls.

By BEN HARTMAN
flags311 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
flags311
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
A far-right group that works against what it calls “assimilation” and mixing between Jews and Arabs has entered the spotlight in the last few days, as it has come out in support of the brutal beating of two Arab youths by a teenage Jewish mob in Jerusalem last Thursday that left one of the boys on the brink of death.
This week, Lehava (an acronym for the Hebrew words meaning “preventing assimilation in the Holy Land”) began circulating flyers in Jerusalem that warn Arab men against flirting with or talking to Jewish girls, saying “We don’t want you to get hurt, respect our girls’ honor because they are dear to our hearts.”
The flyers, which some Lahava activists have been handing out at Damascus Gate in east Jerusalem and elsewhere in the city, also say “Our girls are dear to us, just like you don’t want a Jew to date your sister, we also aren’t willing to accept an Arab dating one of our women. Just like you would do anything to stop a Jew from dating your sister, so would we!”
The flyers warn Arab men not to come to west Jerusalem’s malls or public areas to meet girls, advising them to “walk around in your village and find a girlfriend there, not here!” The flyer also mentions the savage beating that left 17- year-old Jamal Julani near death in “Cat Square” in downtown Jerusalem last Thursday, saying “Last week, an Arab who thought he’d come here and find a Jewish girlfriend was hurt, we don’t want you to get hurt, respect the honor of our girls because they are dear to us!”
Lehava chairman Bentzi Gupstein, who also sits on the local council of the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba outside Hebron, offered praise for Julani’s attackers on Tuesday saying “These youth picked the honor of the Jewish people up off the floor and did what the police should have.”
The organization Ir Amim on Wednesday filed a police complaint for incitement to terror against Lehava, following Gupstein’s remarks and the issuing of the flyer.
Attorney Oshrat Maimon of Ir Amim said Wednesday: “The time has come for the police and the authorities to intervene against these wild acts of incitement that groups like Lehava and extreme right-wingers are carrying out without interference in the streets of Jerusalem.”
After the incident last week, Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon (Likud) called the attack, as well as a Molotov cocktail attack on a Palestinian family traveling in a taxi in the West Bank, “acts of terror in every sense of the word.”