Israeli in LA says Palestinians using cover of riots to vandalize synagogues

An Israeli living in Los Angeles told Israel Hayom he believes that Palestinians are exploiting the ongoing riots across American cities as a cover to attack synagogues.

Several L.A. synagogues have been vandalized or even destroyed during the protests, including one in Beverly Hills. “F**k Israel” and “Free Palestine” graffiti appeared on one Los Angeles synagogue during riots this week.

Eyal Dahan said he is sure that people protesting the killing of a black man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis, are not responsible for these attacks. Dahan believes Palestinians “exploited the opportunity to destroy synagogues.”

“I saw a PLO flag and them shouting to free Palestine. I don’t think it was black protesters who did this damage,” he said.

At another synagogue, locals discovered vandalism that read “Seig Heil, Heil Hitler, Trump 2020,” and reported it to the police and the Jewish Community Relations Council

“Antisemitism is never ok,” the Anti-Defamation League’s Los Angeles branch said. “The answer to hate and bigotry is not more hate.”

Richard S. Hirschhaut, the Los Angeles Regional Director of the American Jewish Committee, said in a statement: “It is deplorable that certain protesters in Los Angeles today resorted to violence and vandalism. The epithets scrawled on the synagogue wall do nothing to advance the cause of peace or justice, here or abroad.”

Liora Rez of the group Stop Anti-Semitism agreed.

“Once again we see vile antisemitism being disguised as activism,” she said. “To vandalize a synagogue during this horrific time does nothing but further divide a broken country.”