Attack at the Basilica

Now here is a new definition of hypocrisy, a deranged man and his family
explode firecrackers in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, and
Christians and Muslim Arabs march with signs saying "Death to the Jews." This
is their way of showing their dedication to freedom of religion and
brotherhood!
Also, Arab MKs, most of them Muslims, explained that this attack happened
because of the "swamp" of anti-Christian and anti-Muslim prejudice held by
Israeli Jews! Khaled Mashaal and the Hamas leadership said essentially the
same thing in Moscow. Never mind the facts, ignore the actual situation, but
they know that the Jews are prejudiced, and they are, of course, not!
So what actually happened, a Jewish man from Jerusalem, Eliyahu Havivi, who
if not mentally retarded is definitely disturbed, who is married to a
Christian woman, decided to draw attention to his social plight by attacking
the major Church in Israel. He entered the Basilica with his wife and daughter
20 years old) with a baby carriage (with no baby in it!) and then proceeded to
set off firecrackers. His reason was that he wanted to protest that his three
younger children had been taken away from him by social services and as a
welfare recipient he doesn't have enough income. Once before, in 1999 he had
gone to Ramallah and requested political asylum from Yasir Arafat (!), and he
was rejected (how low do you have to be for that to happen!).
He was attacked by the crowd in the Basilica, but was rescued by the police
and held in the Church while a mob rioted outside. Two police cars were burnt
and ca. 20 rioters and the same no. of police were injured. Luckily this was
not a terrorist attempt, because it showed the lamentable state of security
there, with a big crowd inside, where many could have been killed if Havivi
had been mad enough to use bombs instead of firecrackers. At his arraignment
last night in Tiberias he said that he has nothing against Christians and he
apologized for his actions. The police have said that he does not belong to
any organization.
As it was, the police managed to handle the situation well, and after a march
today of ca. 1,300 the situation hopefully will return to normal. The FM
contacted the Vatican to assure them that there was no Israeli involvement in
this attack and that freedom of worship would not be affected. Acting PM
Olmert used the occasion of the Cabinet meeting today to criticize the Muslim
Council for using the incident to attack Israel and Jews in general, when
there was no basis for this.
Immediately today Amir Peretz and his whole Labor crew rushed to Nazareth to
meet with the Catholic Archbishop Sabah to sympathize with the Christians over
the attack. I find this to be a disgusting example of political exploitation
of an incident that doesn't deserve the kind of attention and publicity that
it got, and that Labor felt they could benefit from (they must be desperate).
Hopefully this kind of attack won't happen again if the police and security
services take the message that they need to greatly improve security at all
places of worship and especially at major ones such as the Basilica.