Lod Mayor: Violence in City’s Streets Is ‘Kristallnacht’ Pogrom

Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared a state of emergency in the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Lod on Tuesday night after rioting in the city’s streets that saw the burning of three synagogues and the torching of nearly every car parked on a city street. Border Police units from the West Bank were ordered to deploy in Lod and other mixed Arab-Jewish cities on Tuesday night after police were overwhelmed by the violence and reportedly, in some cases, ran away from the Arab rioters instead of confronting them. Lod’s mayor, Yair Revivo, in a televised interview, called on Netanyahu to send in the military. He described the riots as a “civil war” and compared them to Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, a 1938 pogrom that targeted Jews across Germany. “This is too big for the police,” Revivo said. “This is Kristallnacht in Lod.” Meanwhile, Arab rioters in Lod threw rocks and firebombs at the windows of their Jewish neighbors and power has been cut to many buildings in the city. It is being called the worst violence in mixed Arab-Jewish cities in 20 years. The unrest began on Tuesday for a second day following the funeral of an Arab resident of Lod who was shot dead on Monday after Jewish residents, confronted on a city street by Arab protesters throwing rocks and fire-bombs into Jewish-owned homes, shot their firearms in the air as a warning.