ISRAEL: Tension in Acre, city of coexistence remain high as riots continue

Record ID: 395808

  • Title: ISRAEL: Tension in Acre, city of coexistence remain high as riots continue
  • Date: 13th October 2008
  • Summary: (BN08) ACRE, ISRAEL (OCTOBER 12, 2008) (REUTERS) (DAY SCENES) TORCHED HOUSE VARIOUS OF DAMAGE INSIDE HOUSE TORCHED CAR VARIOUS OF BORDER POLICE IN RIOT GEAR BEING BRIEFED (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) ACRE RESIDENT YUVAL HAVIV SAYING: "There has always been co-existence in Acre, there has always been co-operation with the Arabs. There has never been an atmosphere like the one cr
  • Embargoed: 28th October 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA7ES7F0PMIQJ21S5D7IC0A4JUB
  • Story Text: Tension remains high in the Israeli city of Acre, a rare bastion for coexistence between Israel's Arabs and Jews, as rioters clash for a fourth consecutive night.
    Rioters clashed for a fourth straight night on Saturday (October 11) in northern Israel, police said, raising tensions in a city once a rare bastion of peaceful relations between Arabs and Jews.
    Border policemen prepared with full riot gear lined the streets on Sunday (October 12) after Israeli police arrested 22 suspected assailants from both sides in Acre, a former Crusader capital of the holy land. Two Arab homes were torched and damaged a day earlier, Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for national police said.
    Israeli media reports said a reinforced police guard barricaded a section of the city after nightfall to contain stone-throwing protests, closing it to traffic, and that a third Arab home was later torched.
    Trouble started in Acre after dark on Wednesday (October 8) at the start of the Yom Kippur, the holiest day for Jews, when an Arab man drove into a Jewish district, disturbing the start of 24 hours during which many Jews fast and abstain from driving.
    As word spread from mosque loudspeakers of Jewish youths stoning the car, Arab crowds responded angrily, causing widespread damage to cars and shops in a main city street.
    There have been no serious injuries in the violence, but at least 11 Arab homes have been torched since the riots began, officials said.
    Many shops and restaurants in the old town, a popular tourist destination, were either closed or bereft of any business on Saturday.
    Hebrew-language flyers were circulated that called for a boycott of Arab businesses.

    "There has always been co-existence in Acre, there has always been co-operation with the Arabs. There has never been an atmosphere like the one created in the last few days. But I think it will all work out, it's just the anger of a few very extreme people," said Acre resident, Yuval Haviv.
    Relations between Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens have been sometimes tense, due in part to the tensions of Israel's continued conflict with Palestinians, 60 years after the Jewish state's establishment in what was then Palestine.
    Israeli and Palestinian leaders have agreed in principle on a two-state solution in which the 4 million Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza, many descended from those driven out or who fled Israel in a 1948 war, would eventually have a state.
    Arabs comprise about a fifth of Israel's majority Jewish population.
    Israeli prime minister-designate Tzipi Livni visited Acre on Friday and urged a return to calm. An escalation of the violence could hamper Livni's already tough job to form a new coalition government after the resignation of premier Ehud Olmert.
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