Israel is a colonial war machine that never sleeps. Its mounting provocations in Jerusalem in recent weeks have predictably driven Palestinians to the streets in protest.
Hence, the short answer to the question, “why?”, is simply, “why
not?”, considering that every new Israeli day brings along more Palestinian
dismay.
The Israeli occupation, repression, disruption, discrimination, property
confiscation or home demolition are a decades-long daily affair. Likewise,
racist and violent provocations by Israeli fanatics are common practice in the
occupied Palestinian territories.
Not surprisingly, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu justifies the Israeli
repression of peaceful protest and religious worship by portraying it as “a
struggle between tolerance and intolerance; law and order and law breaking and
violence”.
Netanyahu’s carefully articulated, self-righteous trademark “hasbara” has
grown tired, blatant and ineffective, alienating instead of deceiving the
allies, and infuriating Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims the world over. But it
works at home.
In fact, the short answer to the other frequently asked question, “why
now?” is well, Netanyahu, of course. Duh!
The man widely believed to be a serial liar and a skilled manipulator is on
trial in Israel on various corruption charges, including fraud, breach of trust
and accepting bribes. If he loses his premiership, there is little doubt he,
like his predecessor Ehud Olmert, will go to jail.
Netanyahu has resorted to all possible means to maintain power, including
grooming, empowering and allying with the most fanatic elements of the Israeli
society – even more extreme than his extremist Likud party.
These are the same ultra-religious “neo-fascists”
who, according to one Israeli journalist, in
mid-April descended on the Palestinian areas of the city, intimidating,
beating, looting, and destroying Palestinian property.
Netanyahu helped these racist fanatics organise and unite into the
Religious Zionist Party, to ensure they pass the minimum threshold to enter the
Knesset and join his planned coalition.
But while he has thus far failed to form another coalition government, they
have succeeded beyond expectations, winning six decisive seats in the new
parliament and unleashing a tirade of violent provocations, starting with
Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, late last month, the relentless Netanyahu vetoed occupied East
Jerusalem’s Palestinians from voting in their upcoming national election, as
they had done before, further infuriating the Palestinians and hampering their
internal democratic process.
Ironically, the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas jumped on
the opportunity, postponing the elections he feared he would lose. Even more
ironic is that the Palestinians are rebelling the most in areas where Abbas
commands no security control or coordination with Israel.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has jumped on the threats by the Islamist movement
Hamas to retaliate against Israel, if it continued its siege on Al-Aqsa
compound, to further escalate the tension leading to attacks, counterattacks
and, sadly, scores of mostly Palestinian casualties, and steering the attention
away from the popular upheaval in Jerusalem.
I have no doubt that Netanyahu will use the new escalation to stay in
power, whether by denying the opposition the chance to form a coalition or by
insisting on another national emergency government.
But while he has had a major role in the ongoing escalation, he is by no
means the first, nor it seems, the last to provoke violence and war.
Netanyahu, like his right- and left-wing predecessors, has been guided by
his ideological guru, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who published almost a century ago his
revisionist treatise, “The Iron Wall”, advising the Zionist leaders to do all
to snuff out any glimmer of Palestinian hope that they might be able to prevent
the transformation of “Palestine” into the “Land of Israel”.
Jabotinsky argued that the Palestinians are no fools to be deceived or
bribed into giving up their homelands to the Jewish newcomers, and no reward
would ever be enough to compensate them for the loss of their homeland, and
therefore, they must be driven into total despair by coercion or force.
This may be shockingly brutal, but unlike Netanyahu’s spin, it is at least
candid, especially in Jerusalem, the focal point of the Zionist conquest.
Israel has systematically Judaised Jerusalem at the expense of its
Palestinian inhabitants, whether current or refugees prevented from returning.
And today, the Palestinians are worried that Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest
site in Islam, could be next, considering Israel’s colonial record.
Jerusalem is in fact a microcosm of occupied Palestine, where for decades,
Israel has confiscated or demolished Palestinian lands, homes, and businesses
in favour of its Jewish immigrants, and deconsecrated or reconsecrated many of
Palestine’s holy sites in further the process of Judaisation.
Former deputy mayor of West Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, who
also served as the head of Jerusalem planning department from 1971 to
1978, argued in his book, Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy
Land Since 1948, that: “There was nothing novel about the victorious Jews’
takeover of sites sacred to the Muslims, save for the fact that it was
something that might have been plucked from another era; not since the end of
the Middle Ages had the civilised world witnessed the wholesale appropriation
of the sacred sites of a defeated religious community by members of the
victorious one. It’s true that places of worship in many countries have
been vandalised – 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 to find accurate parallels for the reconsecration of
places of worship by a conqueror, one must go back to Spain or the Byzantine
Empire in the middle of the late 15th century.”
Another such example of rare candour came from none other than Teddy
Kollek, who was West Jerusalem’s mayor for almost two decades, notably after
the 1967 occupation of the eastern part of the city. He revealed Israeli
chauvinism in a telling interview with Ma’ariv newspaper soon after the Al-Aqsa
massacre in October 1990: “Kollek: We said things without meaning them, and we
didn’t carry them out, we said over and over that we would equalize the rights
of the Arabs to the rights of the Jews in the city – empty talk … Both Levi
Eshkol and Menachem Begin also promised them equal rights – both violated their
promise … Never have we
given them a feeling of being equal before the law. They were and remain
second- and third-class citizens.
Ma’ariv: And this is said by a mayor of Jerusalem who
did so much for the city’s Arabs, who built and paved roads and developed their
quarters?
Kollek: Nonsense! Fairy tales! The mayor nurtured nothing and built
nothing. For Jewish
Jerusalem I did something in the past 25 years. For East Jerusalem? Nothing!
What did I do? Nothing. Sidewalks? Nothing. Cultural
institutions? Not one. Yes, we installed a sewerage system for them and
improved the water supply. Do you know why? Do you think it was for their good, for their welfare? Forget
it! There were some cases of cholera there, and the Jews were afraid that they
would catch it, so we installed sewerage and a water system against cholera.”
This goes to show how Israel’s bigotry in Jerusalem is
nothing new; in fact, it has been going on for decades, and it has gotten worse
as more extremist mayors have taken the rein, contributing that much more to
the pent-up tension in the city. Meanwhile, the Israeli
authorities have continued their sermons about tolerance and peace.
Today, the self-proclaimed “only democracy in the Middle East” with the
self-proclaimed “eternal, united capital”, stands once again exposed for its
hypocrisy and double standard, having once again fuelled the cycle of hate and
violence in Jerusalem and beyond.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem and extended its jurisdiction and
administration to the captured city after the 1967 war, but for the
Palestinians and for much of the world, Al-Quds remains an occupied city,
albeit with better medical insurance.
It is also an isolated city. Israel severed Jerusalem from its Palestinian
hinterland in the occupied West Bank soon after it signed the Oslo accords in
1993, making it ever harder for its residents to connect with their own
families and loved ones.
In short, Jerusalem highlights Israel’s greed and Palestine’s creed like no
other. The Palestinians generally accept to share the city, the Israelis mostly
insist on having it all for themselves, come what may.
But Israel should be careful what it wishes for as it might just come true. The only way Jerusalem will be truly united is as the capital of a binational state.
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