Israel is a never-sleeping imperial war machine. The unfolding tragedy in Jerusalem has, unsurprisingly, prompted Palestinians to take to the streets in protest. As a result, the short answer to the question, “why?” is clearly, “why not?”, given that each new Israeli day carries with it more Palestinian angst.
Israeli takeover, censorship, destruction, bigotry, confiscation of land, and home demolition have been everyday occurrences for decades. In the occupied Palestinian territories, racial and violent provocations by Israeli fanatics are commonplace.
Not unexpectedly, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu defends his suppression of nonviolent protests and religious worship. It is characterizing as a “fight between liberalism and intolerance; law and order and law-breaking and crime.”
Netanyahu’s self-righteous trademark “hasbara” has become old, overt, and futile, alienating rather than deceiving friends and infuriating Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims throughout. It does, though, fit at home. The quick answer to another commonly posed question, “why now?” is, of course, Netanyahu. Of course!
The man accused of being a serial thief and expert manipulator faces corruption charges in Israel. it including bribery, abuse of confidence, and taking bribes. If he retains his prime ministership, he is almost certain to face the same fate as his mentor, Ehud Olmert.
To stay in control, Netanyahu has used every trick in the book. It including grooming, motivating, and allying with the most fanatical elements of Israeli society – far more radical than his own Likud faction.
According to one Israeli writer, ultra-religious “neo-fascists” descended on Palestinian parts of the city in mid-April, threatening, beating, looting, and damaging Palestinian land.
Netanyahu aided these racist fanatics in forming the Religious Zionist Party and uniting them for them to cross the Knesset’s minimum threshold and join his proposed coalition. Although he has yet to form a new coalition government, they have outperformed forecasts, capturing six crucial seats in the new parliament and launching a series of aggressive provocations, beginning with Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, late last month, Netanyahu used his veto power to prevent Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem from voting in their upcoming national referendum, further infuriating Palestinians and impeding their internal democratic process.
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, ironically, seized the moment, postponing elections he feared he would lose. The fact that Palestinians are rebelling the most in places where Abbas has no security authority or cooperation with Israel is perhaps more ironic.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has seized on Hamas’ attempts to retaliate against Israel if the Israeli blockade on the Al-Aqsa compound is maintained, to further intensify tensions, leading to assaults, counterattacks, and, unfortunately, dozens of mainly Palestinian deaths, thus diverting attention away from the popular unrest in Jerusalem.
I do not doubt that Netanyahu would take advantage of the current escalation to maintain his grip on power. Whether by refusing the opposition the opportunity to form a coalition or by imposing yet another national emergency government. Although he has played a significant role in the current escalation, he is by no means the first or, it seems, the last person to incite violence and battle.
Netanyahu, like his right-wing and left-wing predecessors, has been led by his intellectual mentor, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who wrote his revisionist treatise, “The Iron Wall,” almost a century ago, urging Zionist officials to do everything possible to suffocate every glimmer of Palestinian hope that they would be able to avoid the transformation of “Palestine” into “Land of Israel.”
Jabotinsky concluded that Palestinians are not idiots who can be duped or bribed into giving up their homelands to Jewish immigrants and that no amount of compensation would ever be able to compensate them for the loss of their homeland. So, they must force into despair. That may be surprisingly brutal, but it is at least candid, particularly in Jerusalem, the focal point of the Zionist takeover, unlike Netanyahu’s spin.
Israel has deliberately Judaized Jerusalem to the detriment of its Palestinian residents, both those who live there now and those who are unable to return. And, given Israel’s imperial history, Palestinians are concerned that Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest spot, maybe next.
In reality, Jerusalem is a microcosm of occupied Palestine, where Israel has seized or destroyed Palestinian property, houses, and industries in favor of its Jewish settlers, and deconsecrated or reconsecrated much of Palestine’s holy sites to advance the Judaisation movement.
Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of West Jerusalem and the head of the Jerusalem planning department from 1971 to 1978, argued in his book, Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land, that Since 1948, there has been:
“The triumphant Jews’ plunder of Muslim holy sites was nothing new, except for the fact that it seemed to have been plucked from another era; not since the end of the Middle Ages had the civilized world seen the mass appropriation of a vanquished religious community’s sacred sites by representatives of the victorious one.
Places of worship in many countries have indeed been vandalized – even recently – from the bombing of mosques in Sarajevo in the 1990s and the blowing up of churches by the Bolsheviks following the October Revolution, down to the plundering of churches and monasteries during the French Revolution. But one must go back to Spain or the Byzantine Empire in the middle of the late 15th century to find accurate parallels for conquerors reconsecrating places of worship.”
Teddy Kollek, the mayor of West Jerusalem for nearly two decades, especially after the 1967 takeover of the city’s eastern sector, provided another example of unusual candor. In a telling interview with Ma’ariv newspaper shortly after the Al-Aqsa massacre in October 1990, he exposed Israeli chauvinism:
“Kollek: We said words without meaning them, and we did not do anything about it; we say over and over that we did equalize Arab and Jewish rights in the city – empty speaking… Levi Eshkol and Menachem Begin both offered them equal treatment, which they both broke… We have never given them the impression that they are on an even footing with the rules. They were, and continue to be, members of the second and third classes.
Ma’ariv (Sabbath): And this from a mayor of Jerusalem. Who has done so much for the city’s Arabs, building and paving roads and developing their neighborhoods?
Kollek: No way! I love fairy tales! Nothing was nurtured or constructed by the mayor. In the last 25 years, I have done everything for Jewish Jerusalem. For East Jerusalem, perhaps? There is nothing! What exactly did I do? There is nothing. Sidewalks, you say?
There is nothing. Institutions of culture? There is not one. Yes, we upgraded their water supply and built a sewage system for them. If you have any idea why? Do you believe it was for their sake, for their well-being? Forget about it! There were some outbreaks of cholera there. The Jews were also scared of contracting it, so we built a cholera-proof sewer and water system.”
That demonstrates how Israel’s bigotry in Jerusalem is nothing new; It’s been going on for decades and gotten worse when mayors lead to the city’s already high tension levels. In the meantime, Israeli authorities have started to preach unity and reconciliation.
Today, the self-described “only democracy in the Middle East” with the self-described “eternal, unified power”. Yet, they exposed for its contradictions and double standards, fueling the cycle of hatred and abuse in Jerusalem and beyond.
After the 1967 war, Israel conquered East Jerusalem and expanded its authority and administration to the seized city. However, Al-Quds remains an occupied city for Palestinians and most of the world, although with improved medical insurance.
It is also a city that is far off from the rest of the world. Israel split Jerusalem off from its Palestinian hinterland in the occupied West Bank shortly after signing the Oslo Accords. This made it much more difficult for its citizens to communicate with their relatives and loved ones.
Briefly, no other city does a better job at showcasing Israel’s greed and Palestine’s faith than Jerusalem. The Palestinians are generally happy to divide the land. While the Israelis are dead set on having it all to themselves.
However, Israel should be cautious in its desires since they should come true. And as the capital of a binational state may Jerusalem be fully unified. It is a need of an hour that the unfolding tragedy in Jerusalem will end soon.
Painting pictures with words and showing rather than telling is the underlying principle of my wholehearted artistic writing.