Ben-Gurion Grave Is Found Defaced With Swastikas

The grave of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was defaced with swastikas, apparently by members of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish underground group suspected of carrying out anti-secular bombings, police said Tuesday.

Three swastikas were painted in red on the tombstone, near the Sede Boker kibbutz in the southern Negev desert. Also written on the grave was the message: “Keshet. Look for us. We have even reached here,” a police spokesman said.

Keshet is the name of an underground ultra-Orthodox group that has claimed responsibility for a series of bombing attacks against newsstands that sell secular publications in Bnei Brak, a religious suburb of Tel Aviv.

Ben-Gurion, who forged a doctrine of pragmatic socialist Zionism, is regarded by many as the symbol of Israel’s independence and a founding father of the country.