Last month, the shooting of a young Palestinian in Kufr Kana, near Nazareth, triggered a new wave of rioting in Palestinian towns and villages inside Israel amid sharp tensions after months of clashes in and around annexed East Jerusalem. As Palestinian anger at Israeli oppression escalated spreading outside the ‘Holy City’, it became once again clear how developments in Jerusalem are crucially related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound – known to Jews as the Temple Mount- has been the scene of tense confrontations in the past months, largely triggered by Palestinian fears that Israel was planning to allow Jewish prayer at the site. Israeli authorities have repeatedly rejected this suggestion.
Under the current ‘status quo’, Jews are permitted to visit the esplanade but not to pray there for fear it would cause friction at the mosque compound, which is holy to both Muslims and Jews, one of the most sensitive holy sites in the Middle East. Israel’s control of access to Al-Aqsa has been a contentious issue in relations between Jews and Palestinians for decades.
In recent weeks, Israeli security forces clashed with Palestinians protesting against a campaign by far-right Jewish nationalists to enable Jewish prayer access to the flashpoint compound, which included visits by prominent MPs.
Heavy cashes at Jerusalem’s holiest site intensified after Israel imposed entry restrictions to the mosque to Muslim worshipers due to continued clashes in the city.
Speaking at the 10th anniversary of the death of veteran leader Yasser Arafat, Palestinian president Abbas warned against any Israeli plans to divide the Al-Aqsa mosque. Abbas claimed that a global religious war could be triggered if Jews were allowed to pray in Al-Aqsa mosque, adding that Muslims ‘’have the right to defend themselves and the holy places’’.
That said, what’s been going on in Jerusalem is far bigger than the clashes revolving around Al-Aqsa.
Besides religious sensitivity, the rising tensions have been motivated by moves to expand settler presence in the occupied eastern sector of Jerusalem, coupled with the general state of neglect in East Jerusalem. And decades of occupation in the background.
For several months, right-wing Jewish settlers have been coming into the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem irritating the residents with provocations and threats of moving into sensitive locations nearby, or taking over their houses.
The continued construction of Israeli settlements throughout occupied Arab East Jerusalem is part of the process of Judaization of Jerusalem and, widely speaking, the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Israel recently approved plans for 200 homes in a settlement in East Jerusalem.
Michel Warschawski, Israeli anti-Zionist activist, claimed that two combined phenomena ignited such explosive situation. An offensive led by the Israeli leaders, the far-right groups and the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem, on one hand, and a Palestinian population extremely angry about these policies, on the other.
In Warschawski’s view, Israel’s continued targeting of the Al-Aqsa compound is motivated by a kind of competition between the various far-right parties over who would be more determined to Judaize Jerusalem.
‘’If leader of the religious party Bennett goes to Al-Aqsa, someone from Likud party should go too’’, he said, ‘’It’s petty politics with no-one taking political risks seriously, it’s totally irresponsible’’.
Making a comparison with Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Al-Aqsa esplanade in 2000, which preceded the Second Intifada, Warschawski observed that a similar provocation could be seen behind an attempt to challenge the ‘status quo’.
‘’Touching Al-Aqsa is the red line’’, the Israeli activist commented, ‘’The Israeli government realized it but too late’’.
Israel struck the hardest symbolic hit by attacking the very heart of the identity of the Palestinians, the Arabs, and the Muslim world.
Amany Khalefa works at Grassroots Jerusalem, an NGO helping communities to connect, and create maps to promote a more accurate portrayal of local realities, reflecting the Palestinian narrative, versus separation policies.
‘’The situation in Jerusalem is much bigger than the events around Al-Aqsa’’, Khalefa emphasized, ‘’Jerusalemites today suffer a collective punishment imposed by Israel’’.
In an interview with The Real News, on 9 November, political economist Shir Hever said the recent unrest stemmed from the daily dilemma faced by Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel in 1967, while not being considered citizens of Israel.
Although the international press mainly portrayed the events in Jerusalem as religious confrontations, the economic dimension played a major role in the uprising.
Jerusalem has seen ongoing unrest since early July when Palestinian teen Mohammad Abu Khdeir was burned alive by a group of young Jewish extremists, in the wake of the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, which escalated to Israel’s war on Gaza this summer. The climate started aggravating after that with daily clashes between Palestinian youth and Israeli police.
Since July, over 1,000 Palestinians have been arrested, 40% of them are minors, in conjunction with the riots.
Although Abu Khdeir’s murder led to days of rage in East Jerusalem, Arab residents quickly moved on to protest the neglect and degradation in their neighborhoods.
Living conditions in the city’s Palestinian neighborhoods are very difficult with chronic poverty, high levels of unemployment, no police presence, lack of infrastructure, nonexistent or insufficient standard services like garbage collection and sanitation.
Living under Israeli occupation means not only that Palestinians are denied minimal services and equal rights, but they’re punished for protesting to get their rights back.
Imposed closures, search and arrest operations, house demolitions have become routine in East Jerusalem, often sparking violent clashes between the residents and the police, and adding to the frustration and anger of the native people.
It is no coincidence that an urban insurrection erupted across Arab neighbourhoods like Silwan, Isawiya, Wadi Joz or Abu Tor, with residents putting up with such oppression for a long time.
The recent upsurge of violence amidst confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli forces has been marked by single attacks on civilians on both sides as lethal incidents of hatred and vengeance spread to Israel’s Arab towns, Tel Aviv and the West Bank in the past few weeks.
Israel’s response has been predictably harsh. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised he would use all means available to stop the wave of violence and protests, including increasing security forces on the ground in both Jerusalem and the West Bank, and ordering the razing of suspects’ homes.
Palestinian activist Khalefa appeared unsurprised about Israel’s escalation in Jerusalem, arguing that Israel has been carrying out its policies according to the Zionist project which was never meant to give the Palestinian people their rights.
Such policies have become clearer to everyone in the last few years as Israel openly continues to create facts on the ground, not bothering about violating international and humanitarian law.
Like many Palestinians, the NGO worker does not believe there is no plan to change the ‘status quo’, as Netanyahu and other senior Israeli politicians insisted on saying.
Further escalation recently saw the first full closure of the compound by Israeli police in decades, and a police raid into the building of al-Aqsa mosque. The event provoked widespread outrage in the Muslim community.
That followed the hit-and-run attack by Ibrahim al-Akari, from Shuafat refugee camp, who killed two soldiers with his car in Jerusalem.
The unrest grew in reaction to the increasing oppression in the city to resist occupation policies implemented by Israeli authorities and the Jerusalem municipality at the expense of Palestinian Jerusalemites.
Khalefa explained that the lack of political representation, given the absence of the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, prompted people to protest as individuals.
‘’It’s a popular reaction coming from these communities, a great sign of resistance’’, she noted.
Warschawski thinks it’s time for the Palestinian leadership to make a new assessment on the basis that Israel is not ready to negotiate, as Palestinians don’t seem to trust the peace talks option any more.
Making more assaults on Al-Aqsa, flooding Jerusalem with police reinforcements, and continuing to harass the Arab population in the city’s eastern neighborhoods could not help Israel contain the unrest, rather add fuel to the fire.
Originally published in Perspektif Magazine