By Juliet Moses on the NZ Herald (paywalled)…
“Child killer!” This is one of the slurs that media recently reported that a man yelled when he punched an Israeli visitor in Christchurch.
Two days before that report, a man in Colorado attacked Jews marching for the hostages still held in Gaza by the terrorist group Hamas after its barbaric invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023. As he set them alight, he yelled “free Palestine” and “how many children have you killed?”. Several marchers were hospitalised for burns, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor.
The Christchurch man’s lawyer argued that the attack was not a hate crime, arguing he had no issues with Israelis, or Jewish people, but he did have issues with the actions of the Israeli military. For most of Israel’s Jewish citizens (about 21% of Israel’s citizens are Arab), military service is compulsory because of the number of attempts and threats to annihilate the state since its founding, including from Hamas.
Read Juliet Moses’ full article on the NZ Herald HERE.