Vandalized street sign
Vandals 'change' Lod street name
Vandals remove "IDF Boulevard" signs, declare main city thoroughfare "Salah a-Din Boulevard"
LOD – Jewish residents of this mixed Arab-Jewish town were shocked to wake up on Shabbat morning to find the name of a main thoroughfare “changed” to its original, Arabic, name.
Working apparently undisturbed, vandals removed street signs declaring the street “IDF Boulevard,” and replaced them with the previous name of the street, “Salah a-Din Boulevard.”
Before Israel became independent, Lod was an Arab city, and the city retains a sizeable Arab population.
Jews furious
Jewish residents nearby were furious upon discovering the change.
“It is absurd for people to act like this in a law-abiding country.”
Another resident, T, told Ynet, “It was an unbelievable sight, to see, in a law-abiding country, how people give themselves license to do something like this. They simply took down the signs and replaced them with the Arabic name for the street, from before Lod was a Jewish city in Israel.
“It’s very strange that no city officials noticed, and no one has done anything about it,” he said.
Officials to lodge complaint
Overall, the city manages to maintain a delicate status-quo between Jews and Arabs, despite tensions that surface from time to time, but the latest incident would appear to have broken several agreements.
City officials were shocked by the move, and do not know who was responsible for it, but said they would lodge a complaint with the police Sunday.
“We do not know at this time who is behind this act, said Yoram Ben-Harush, a city spokesman. The municipality will replace the signs Sunday, and will submit a complaint to the police for destruction of public property.
“It’s too bad that some people are trying to disrupt the excellent co-existence we have here between Jews and Arabs,” he said.
