NYT:


JERUSALEM — Scores of Israeli youths assaulted a group of Palestinians last week, beating one unconscious as hundreds of bystanders watched without intervening in the heart of West Jerusalem, the police said on Monday, announcing that among the seven people arrested was a 13-year-old boy and two teenage girls.

On Monday, some of the teenage suspects commented near the courthouse where they were remanded, adding to the shocking nature of the case. “For my part he can die,” said one of the suspects, who admitted taking part in the assault. “He’s an Arab,” he told reporters outside the courtroom by way of explanation. “He cursed my mother.

“If it was up to me, I’d have murdered him,” he added.

The attack, described by one witness as a “lynch,” has laid bare the undercurrent of Jewish-Arab tensions that plague this mixed but politically divided city and that is leading many Israelis to question how their society could have come to this.

The police said the episode started as a brawl on Thursday, after a girl in a crowd of Israeli youths complained that she had been harassed by an Arab. Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said that her comments spurred the crowd to seek vengeance.

These youths should not be punished; they are only reflecting the state of their social environment. As the world has never produced a child born hating whites or blacks, there has never been a child born hating Jews or Arabs.