UK Foreign Office swallows a "price tag" lie

From Human Rights and Democracy: The 2011 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Report (UK)

We were concerned at violent attacks by extremists among the Israeli settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem against Palestinians and their property in 2011. We saw an increase in the number of so-called “price tag” attacks – a reaction by some extremist settlers to Israeli government policies that they see as against their interests – including vandalism of Muslim and Christian cemeteries in Jaffa, hate graffiti on the homes and offices of Peace Now activists, and arson attacks on mosques. We have condemned these incidents; Mr Burt described the “intentionally provocative attack” on a mosque in Tuba Zangria, northern Israel as “appalling”.

Pretty much all of the Jewish leaders in Judea and Samaria have severely condemned "price tag" attacks as well, something that should have been mentioned in the report.

More problematic, though, is the fact that the Tuba Zangaria attack was almost certainly done by Arabs.

An Israeli blogger was the first to discover that the evidence did not add up. Later Israel's Channel Two did its own investigation and interviewed a Muslim resident who stated flatly that it was done by Arabs.

It is interesting that the FCO seems unaware of this months after the fact.


After the Arab's comments on Tuba-Zangaria were published, his house was sprayed with gunfire.

But that breach of human rights was not considered important enough to be covered by the FCO.

In fact, Arab-on-Arab violence is essentially ignored in the report, and human rights abuses by Hamas are similarly downplayed compared to what they consider the major human rights crime of the area - Jews building houses in their ancestral homeland.

(h/t Gidon)