80 Graves Desecrated in Jerusalem : Israel: The tombstones are in the American section of the world’s oldest Jewish graveyard still in use, on the biblical Mount of Olives.

Vandals desecrated 80 tombstones in the American section of the cemetery on the biblical Mount of Olives, the world’s oldest Jewish graveyard still in use, police said Sunday.

Police took the cemetery’s Arab guard in for questioning after the desecration was discovered early Sunday. A police spokesman said there were no suspects.

Israel Television said police think that Palestinian nationalists were behind the attack.

Jewish tradition holds that the Mount of Olives is where the Messiah will appear and the Prophet Ezekiel will blow the trumpet of resurrection. Many prominent rabbis are buried in the cemetery, which is also the largest Jewish graveyard in the world, and many American Jews ask to be buried there.

Rock-hewn tombs at the foot of the mountain date back to the time of King Solomon’s temple, which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.

About 80 tombstones or raised limestone graves were smashed, crushed or toppled in two sections of the graveyard, on the side of the biblical mount in annexed East Jerusalem overlooking the walls of the Old City.

Flowers and memorial candles were strewn over the site, and the names of many of the deceased could not be read because of the damage.

“They must have come here with 12-pound hammers. I don’t know how they didn’t hear this,” Yonatan Shamai said, pointing to Arab homes about 50 yards away.

“I heard the report on the radio. It sent chills down my spine. I had to come and see for myself,” said Shamai, a 43-year-old diamond worker.

He said his father is buried in the graveyard, but his tomb was not among the damaged.

Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek denounced the desecration and warned that it may further disrupt Jewish-Arab relations in the city, already severely harmed by the 30-month Palestinian uprising.

“An attack on such a sensitive site is destructive for efforts to encourage understanding and tranquillity that we are trying to establish between Jews and Arabs in the city,” Kollek said in a statement.

The incident follows a wave of similar desecrations, including one in southern France and one in the northern Israeli port of Haifa.

After the desecration of 34 graves in the French town of Carpentras last month, two members of a Jewish messianic cult desecrated more than 300 Jewish graves in Haifa with spray-painted slogans calling on Arabs to kill Jews.

The two confessed and said they had hoped that Arabs would be blamed for the destruction. One was sentenced to three years in prison, and the other was found psychologically unfit to stand trial.

Although suspects were questioned in the French case, no one has been charged.