An arson attack on a Christian seminary in Jerusalem Thursday, and a similar attack on a mosque the day before are hate crimes, committed by extremist individuals, and are representative of the systemic racism directed at Palestinians by the Israeli government and its policies.

Because while the Israeli mayor condemns such attacks, the perpetrators of these so-called “price tag” attacks are likely well known to the authorities and yet are seldom apprehended.

Any attack against any religious building or structure deserves widespread condemnation. And yet similar attacks against synagogues – deplorable acts of anti-Semitism – receive much more Western media attention than such acts against mosques. And if they happen in Europe they are manipulated into a political tool, and lead to calls from the right-wing Israeli government for all Jews to move to Israel, further attempting to legitimize the state.

Consistency is vital here, and the international community must be balanced in its reactions to any such hate crimes, whether in Paris or Timbuktu or Jerusalem, and whether targeted at Muslims, Jews or Christians.

To ignore such attacks against Palestinian places of worship is tragic not just in and of itself but also for what it represents: a wholesale neglect of the Palestinian cause, the ordinary citizens who are living under occupation or besiegement, not to mention the millions of Palestinians living as refugees.

As international attention focuses on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his dirty political power plays in Washington ahead of the upcoming elections, the everyday struggles of Palestinians are ignored by much of the world. Israeli settlements continue to be built in the West Bank, and Gazans are denied the opportunity to rebuild their homes, destroyed in the latest Israeli war against the enclave.