Israeli March Turns Violent : ‘Death to Arabs!’ Say Mourners in Old City

An estimated 1,000 Jews chanting “Death to the Arabs!” and “We want revenge!” turned a memorial march for a murdered Jewish student Sunday into what Israel radio described as “an ugly demonstration that nearly ended in a riot.”

Several Arab shops in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s walled Old City were damaged as the marchers burst through the Damascus Gate and down the ancient, narrow streets toward the spot where Eliahu Amedi, 22, was stabbed to death Nov. 15.

Most of the 17,000 Arab residents of the quarter stayed out of sight, but two who did not were beaten by angry demonstrators before some of the hundreds of riot-equipped Israeli police, soldiers and border guards on duty in the area could intervene.

Three Palestinians from the West Bank town of Janin, 50 miles north of Jerusalem, were arrested within minutes of Amedi’s murder and have allegedly confessed to the crime. But the killing has nevertheless sparked a week of indiscriminate attacks against Jerusalem Arabs in what officials now call the worst such explosion of anti-Palestinian violence since Israeli troops captured the eastern half of the city from Jordan in 1967’s Six-Day War.

Police Commissioner David Kraus reported on the situation to the regular weekly session of the Cabinet on Sunday morning. Citing intelligence reports, he told Cabinet ministers that about 300 Jews who have moved into the Muslim quarter in recent years have illegally stockpiled firearms, hand grenades and Molotov cocktails.

He said that members of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s right-wing Kach movement, which advocates expulsion of all Arabs from Israel and the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River, have been inciting Jews all week in the Old City and the nearby Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood, where Amedi lived.

He also accused students at the Shuvu Banim yeshiva, or Jewish religious school, in the Muslim quarter of provoking their Arab neighbors. Amedi had entered the yeshiva two weeks before his death, and his fellow students have sworn revenge.

About 100 Arab cars have been stoned or vandalized during a week of violence, and dozens of Arabs have been beaten. A leftist Israeli member of Parliament required stitches in his head after being stoned by anti-Arab demonstrators when he tried to pay a condolence call on the dead student’s parents.

At least 10 Arab residences or businesses in the Old City have been firebombed, and scores of Jews have been arrested.

Anti-Arab demonstrators have justified their actions by saying that no Arab tried to help Amedi as he struggled with his attackers and that Palestinian leaders did not publicly condemn the killing.

Message From Shamir

According to a communique released after the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir “expressed the government’s appreciation for the work of the police in speedily apprehending the suspects in the despicable murder and for doing its best to preserve law and order. In the name of the government, he called on the entire population in Jerusalem to refrain from disruptions of order, so as to maintain the peace in Jerusalem.”

Within a few hours, however, hundreds of Jews assembled near the Amedi family home in the Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood. Rabbi Moshe Levinger, the spiritual leader of the religious-nationalist Gush Emunim movement, which promotes Jewish settlement on the occupied West Bank, praised residents for their anti-Arab actions of the previous week and blamed Amedi’s murder on government weakness.

Referring to Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, who has condemned Jewish violence, one demonstrator at the Amedi home told an Israel radio reporter: “We’ve got to kill Teddy Kollek, and we’ve got to get rid of all the Arabs. We will not be quiet until all the Arabs are gone.”

‘Victim of Propaganda’

David Ben-Dor, a Kach leader, said Amedi was “a victim of the propaganda of coexistence. He genuinely believed that there is coexistence, and look what happened--he went out into the street and got knifed. So can you blame his brothers? Revenge is one of the oldest human feelings. Look what’s happening all over the world. Why do you come here pointing fingers at someone whose heart is bleeding?”

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers and police guarded the route as the crowd, by then swelled to more than 1,000, marched from the Amedi family home to his grave on the Mount of Olives for a memorial service.

Rabbi Eliezer Berlan, leader of the Shuvu Banim seminary, declared at the service: “Arabs now believe they can thrust a knife into the back of any Jew. We will avenge this spilled Jewish blood.”

On Verge of Collapse

Amedi’s mother appeared on the verge of collapse as she wept at the graveside, and about 100 bearded, ultra-religious students in long black coats and wide hats prayed. Nearby, other Jews unfurled banners calling for “Death to Terrorists.” One featured a drawing that depicted an Arab in traditional kaffiyeh headdress with a hangman’s noose around his neck.

From the cemetery the crowd marched into the Old City, where shops in the Muslim quarter were shuttered both for protection and as part of a protest strike against the anti-Arab violence.

Marchers kicked some of the metal shutters down and broke windows as they made their way to the murder site. There, the sound of memorial prayers was again drowned out by cries of “Death to the Arabs!”

Hundreds of heavily armed troops and police with helmets, shields and batons remained on duty in the Old City late Sunday against the possibility of more violence.

Meanwhile, the city’s Arab affairs adviser, Amir Heshin, said he hoped that within a day or two, tempers would cool and the city would return to normal.