The tires of 12 cars were slashed overnight on the street separating Jewish, Arab parts of the once peaceful neighborhood

Arab violence against Jewish residents of the neighborhood of Abu Tor apparently flared up again, as residents of the neighborhood in southern Jerusalem woke up Wednesday to find that the tires of 12 Jewish-owned cars had been slashed overnight.

The cars were parked on the street separating the predominantl-yJewish section of Abu Tor from the Arab one.

The Jerusalem Police have launched an investigation into the attack.

Police sources said that they are not sure yet that the attack is nationalistically motivated. However, residents said that only vehicles that belong to Jews were targeted, while vehicles belonging to Arabs - some of which were parked alongside the target vehicles - were left untouched.

In addition, residents said, the vehicles of diplomats and United Nations personnel were not harmed.

Jewish residents of the neighborhood have been suffering from persistent violence at the hands of Arab extremists, including rocks hurled at their homes, and even firebomb attacks.

Abu Tor is one of modern Jerusalem's older neighborhoods, and many of the houses date back to before the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. The upper part of the neighborhood was liberated in 1948, and the lower part was held by Jordan for 19 years until it, too, was liberated by Israel in 1967.

Jews lived in peace alongside Arabs for decades in the leafy and relatively affluent neighborhood, but matters began to deteriorate in the aftermath of the Terror War (or intifada) launched by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2000.

Some analysts have attributed the growing violence by Arabs against Jews in the neighborhood to a number of factors, including incitement by Arab Knesset members who are openly hostile to the Jewish state, a long-term campaign of incitement by the PA, weakness on the part of the courts and police, and the corroding influence of radical NGOs which have been accused of encourage confrontations.

A very similar attack in Abu Ghosh, which targeted Arab residents, was front page news for days and prompted denunciations from the president and prime minister. Vandalism by Jews against Arabs is often referred to as "'price tag' operations," and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni even posted a message in Arabic on her facebook page, vowing to "obliterate" it.

In contrast, this recent attack against Jews in Abu Tor has so far received a far more low-key response from media and politicians alike.





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