A Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem was seriously injured last week when a boulder weighing 17 kilograms was thrown over the wall near his workplace and fell on his back. Four days earlier, his Israeli employer was lightly wounded when he was attacked with an iron pipe and knives.

Both attacks are attributed to students of the Diaspora Yeshiva on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion, with whom the Israeli victim, Arik Pelzig, has a decades-long land dispute. Three yeshiva students were arrested.

Pelzig has lived on Mount Zion since 1970, in the home that his father, artist Perli Pelzig, leased from the Israel Lands Administration, and runs the Harp of David restaurant on the site. In recent months, Pelzig said, he and the Diaspora Yeshiva had been talking and he thought that progress was actually being made toward a “peace agreement.” A document had even been drawn up to divide the contested land. But on November 7 everything changed. That day he began to build a shed on his property in the area adjacent to the yeshiva. At night someone entered his property and destroyed what Pelzig had built. He called the police and also went to the yeshiva.

Near the entrance to the study hall, he was approached by three people. “I went over to them and asked what they were doing, and in response, a metal pipe, 40 millimeters in diameter and 70 centimeters long, landed on my head. At that second you realize that your life is changing, my eyes were filled with blood.” Pelzig was also stabbed in his right hand.

The bleeding Pelzig entered the yeshiva where other students assisted him and called an ambulance. He was hospitalized and received stitches in his head and hand.

Four days later, a few meters from where Pelzig was attacked, Adnan Basila, a 52-year-old Palestinian laborer from Isawiyah employed by Pelzig, was repairing the damage done the previous week when a rock weighing 17 kilograms was thrown from the three-meter high wall from the yeshiva’s property and landed squarely on Basila’s back. He was severely injured and had life-saving surgery at Shaare Zedek Hospital, where he was diagnosed with four crushed vertebrae.

Pelzig complains that the police are ineffective. “There were two attempted murders here in on my property; all that’s left is for them to assassinate me,” he says. He claims police only opened a serious investigation two days after Basila was attacked. Jerusalem police reject his claims, noting that three yeshiva students were arrested following the two attacks. One of them was expelled from the Old City for 15 days. Police also said that the dean of the Diaspora Yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzchak Goldstein, was summoned and issued a warning about violence committed by his students.

Sharp escalation in violence

The attacks on Pelzig and Basila constitute a sharp escalation in the violence that has been plaguing Mount Zion and has been primarily aimed at the churches and non-Jewish religious orders in the area. The attacks have included vandalism, cemetery desecration, car arson and rock-throwing, in addition to countless incidents in which monks and Christian clergymen have been spat at and cursed. It seems to be a consensus among Christians in the area that people affiliated with the Diaspora Yeshiva are to blame.

“On Mount Zion, might makes right, whoever’s the biggest bully does what he wants,” said a senior official of one of the area’s churches. “There isn’t a monk who hasn’t been spat on; it’s part of the job description.”

Dr. Paul Wright, president of the Jerusalem University College, on whose grounds is a Protestant cemetery that was desecrated, said, “There is an ongoing attempt to grab Christian property on Mount Zion. They work in many ways to achieve this, Christians and Muslims are attacked, and now also Jews. We want justice done.”

The Diaspora Yeshiva was founded in 1967 as a yeshiva for foreign students. Over the years it has taken control of more and more buildings on the hill, mainly around the Tomb of David. Recently, some of these buildings have been occupied by young men whom the neighbors describe as “hilltop youths.” The yeshiva denies any connection to these teenagers, who are suspected of being involved in some of the attacks.

Goldstein denies that the yeshiva or its students had anything to do with the attacks on Pelzig and Basila. “These two incidents did not happen on yeshiva property,” he said. “He came into our place wounded and we treated him, gave him a towel, a cup of water, and called an ambulance. It’s somewhat surprising that he would suspect us, since the dispute between us was settled years ago.”

Goldstein also denied he had been warned by police; he said he had spoken with the police in an effort to assist the investigation.

Goldstein rejects the claims that his yeshiva is harboring hilltop youth, and said four people who had been arrested recently in connection with cemetery vandalism had nothing to do with the yeshiva.

Jerusalem police added that “the Diaspora Yeshiva continues to claim that the area in Pelzig’s courtyard belongs to them. The police have referred the parties to settle their dispute in court. The police stress that as of today and until the matter is resolved in court, if any person from the Diaspora Yeshiva enters the courtyard, the police will know about it.”