Israel's nazis

This story was brought to my attention a little while ago. It's about neo-nazi activism in Petah Tikva in Israel. I got this from the World War 4 report but it first appeared in Ha'aretz.

A week after the desecration of the Great Synagogue in Petah Tikva, nothing remains of the horror the worshipers encountered there last Thursday when they arrived for morning prayers. The walls, which had been sprayed with swastikas and blasphemy, have been newly painted, the floor polished and the curtain covering the holy ark replaced.

However, the danger is far from over. For the past two years the ultra-Orthodox community there, which includes some 5,000 families and 300 synagogues, has been subjected to incessant attacks by street gangs from the former Soviet Union (FSU). The gangs have been beating ultra-Orthodox men, hurling curses at them and desecrating synagogues.

"These youths feel out of place in the Russian community they belong to, but they are not accepted in Israeli society either," says Bella Alexandrov, the director of the multi-disciplinary youth center in Petah Tikva. She distinguishes between two kinds of immigrants - punks and skinheads.

"The skinheads buy Russian videos about 'white power' that call for cleansing Russia of Jews. They don't get it from home. It comes from not belonging and not finding answers to their distress."

I posted on this subject back in June last year. At the time it surprised me that Israel had no law against antisemitism.