Israeli leaders adamantly condemn Jerusalem spitting incident

Condemning an incident that saw an ultra-Orthodox Jew spit on Christian worshippers in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday the Jewish state was "totally committed" to safeguarding the right of worship and pilgrimage for all faiths.

"I strongly condemn any attempt to intimidate worshippers, and I am committed to taking immediate and decisive action against it," Netanyahu added.

Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen likewise condemned the incident, saying it was an "ugly phenomenon."

"I condemn the ugly phenomenon of spitting on Christians and harming any person because of his religion or belief. This phenomenon does not represent the values ​​of Judaism," Cohen wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

"Freedom of religion and worship are fundamental values ​​in Israel," the foreign minister stated. "Hundreds of thousands of Christian tourists come to Israel every year to visit the holy places for them and for us."

"I call on all citizens of Israel to respect the tradition and faith of all who come to the gates of Jerusalem, the Holy City," Cohen concluded.

The high-level condemnations came in response to a settler activist that called the act of spitting on Christians as an ancient Jewish practice, commenting on a video of such an incident in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Settler activist Elisha Yered gained notoriety for his involvement in a clash near the west Bank village Burka, that led to the death of a Palestinian man, as well as for his previous employment by a lawmaker in Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power party.

Vered shared a short quote from the book "The Mists of Purity" that was written by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, "In my youth, I would feel a stench of a lavatory from the prayer houses of other nations, even though they were supposedly very clean, and stood within a garden of planted trees."

Kook was a former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi and a spiritual father of the Religious Zionist movement in Israel. He had written about the Christian faith negatively, blaming it for the atrocities of the First World War. However, he would also advocate for loving others from every corner of the earth and of every faith.

Jewish mystics had often used major world powers, such as the Roman or Greek empires, as allusions to spiritual matters. Nevertheless, some adherents interpret Kook's writings literally, in this case to incite acts against Christians in Israel.