Beit Shemesh Haredis riot after bus harrasser gets arrested
Beit Shemesh extremist Haredim, the ones who libeled Israel last year by spitting on a national religious girl, went crazy Wednesday after police arrested a Haredi couple for telling a woman to go to back of the bus.Anyone who'd make mountains out of molehills and then resort to using dangerous weapons to vandalize property and potentially endanger innocent people's lives is a terrorist almost on the same level as jihadists and should be tried accordingly. It does sound quite logical that Neturei Karta would be the leading offender in those neighborhoods.
The only injury was Israel’s image, once again blackened by a small but growing number of extremists who have tried to make life miserable for secular and modern Orthodox Jews of the city, west of Jerusalem.
Involuntary gender segregation on public buses is illegal in Israel. Nevertheless, a Haredi couple demanded that a woman passenger move back to the back, prompting a call to police.
The couple was detained, setting off a riot that led to two more arrests of men who blocked a bus from moving. Other rioters smashed the windows of four buses.
One of the drivers told the Hebrew-language Yediot Acharonot’s website, "One of [the Haredim] took out a hammer and began shattering the windows. There were many women and children onboard. I tried to drive forward a little to scare them. After a few seconds they moved and we continued on our way."
One passenger reported that women and children, on summer vacation, were on the bus as it was being attacked. In December, 2011, a member of a radical Haredi sect, an offshoot of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta group, spat on a national religious girl for "immodest dress” as she was walking to school. The family, originally from the United States, has since moved out of the city.
The Times of Israel says that:
The driver said it was not his first time being attacked by Haredi crowds and that similar incidents had occurred in Jerusalem as well.Obviously, Abutbul hasn't made any effort to step up security measures in Beit Shemesh, which compounds his dishonest image.
MK Dov Lipman (Yesh Atid), an Orthodox Beit Shemesh rabbi who has rallied against religious coercion in the city in the past, called on the mayor to install surviellance cameras to help catch stone throwers.
“Incidents of this nature of the exclusion of women are unacceptable occurrences and we need rid them from our society,” Lipman said. “Torah makes it clear that it is forbidden to degrade women and there is no place for this in Israeli society.”
It's to be hoped that Aliza Bloch, one of the current candidates for mayor in Beit Shemesh, can be elected and turn things around.
Update: this news says the Haredi couple were quarreling with several women on the bus.
Labels: haredi corruption, Israel, Jerusalem, misogyny, Moonbattery, terrorism