Ramallah: The car of the moderate Palestinian professor Moahmmad Dajani was set ablaze outside his house in the Beit Hanina neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Dajani told The Times of Israel that when he returned from an overseas trip on Wednesday, he heard neighbours shouting that his car was on fire.
He tried to extinguish the blaze, but was unsuccessful. Firefighters later took two hours to quell the fire.
“The fire was so intense because a week earlier someone vandalised the car and put a very strong glue on the hood. This is a glue that supposedly seeps through the hood and into the engine,” said Dajani.
The timing of the fire and glue attack have lead the professor to conclude that the attack was planned ahead of time. “It seems they knew my schedule,” he said.
The moderate academic had not received any threats before the arson. He was, however, forced to resign from Al Quds University in May 2014 after taking 30 Palestinian students to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.
“I am sad about the mentality and culture that makes people who disagree [with someone] use violence instead of dialogue [to resolve the issue]. This is the culture we’d like to change through our plans to set up a Wasatia academic centre to teach conciliation and conflict resolution,” he told The Times of Israel.
The source also noted, “Poignantly, a copy of the Quran that Dajani had left in the car did not burn and was retrieved intact.”
Dajani wrote on his Facebook page the day after the arson, “Last night, my car was burnt, and all I have to say is: Islam is my religion, and moderation is my doctrine and my way of life.”