Vandals Deface Jerusalem Monastery With Religious Insults

Suspected hardline Israeli’s scrawled pro-settler graffiti and religious insults on a monastery outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City on Tuesday, in the latest of a series of attacks on non-Jewish site: The vandals wrote the phrase “price tag” in Hebrew on the gate of the Monastery of Saint Francis of Mount Zion- a reference to a violent campaign supporting unauthorized settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The “Price tag” is the retribution some Israeli settlers say they will exact for any attempt by their government to curb settlement in the territory, which Palestinians want as part of a future state. The group has targeted mosques, and less commonly, Christian buildings, regarding non-Jewish religious sites as an intrusion on the land. The monastery of Saint Francis is near the spot where tradition says Jesus gathered his disciples for the Last Super. It was the second attack on a Christian institution in less than a month.