Jerusalem in Turmoil

Jerusalem in Turmoil

November 12, 2014 Lihi Ben Shitrit , Mahmoud Jaraba

http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/2014/11/12/jerusalem-in-turmoil/huad?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRokv6jPZKXonjHpfsX57eUuUaeg38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YEET8B0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEIQ7XYTLB2t60MWA%3D%3D

In the past few weeks, escalating clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and the Israeli police have become routine in East Jerusalem, prompting observers to note that perhaps the third Palestinian intifada has finally arrived. Like the intifada that broke out in October 2000, the al-Aqsa Mosque and its surrounding area, known as al-Haram al-Sharif to Palestinians and the Temple Mount to Jews, is again the mobilizing symbol for the violence. But the underlying grievances that have mobilized East Jerusalem Palestinian residents are about deteriorating economic and political conditions, increased isolation, settler encroachment, and the absence of any prospects for effective negotiations. On the Israeli side, while the question of the right of Jews to pray at the contested site has dominated public discourse, internal party politics and the government’s coalition conflicts animate recent developments.
The latest protests—as well as three separate attacks in October and early November by lone militants from East Jerusalem targeting Israeli civilians and military personnel—are ostensibly a response to Israel’s intention to change the status quo at the holy site. The existing arrangement, which has been in place since 1967, stipulates that the religious control of the site belongs to the Islamic Waqf and that prayer is permitted to Muslims only, while Israel maintains security control. However, in the last ten years right-wing Jewish groups, which government officials have allowed to operate largely unimpeded, have increasingly encouraged a Jewish presence at the site. Meanwhile the Israeli security establishment has repeatedly warned against the possible harmful consequences of these activists’ efforts.
Indeed, clashes around the al-Aqsa Mosque have erupted sporadically in the past years over the presence of right-wing Jewish groups at the site. But the increased visits by such groups in recent months have convinced many Palestinians that Israel’s plan is to gradually allow Jewish prayer at the site, and to divide it spatially and temporally between Muslims and Jews as was done in Hebron with the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tomb of the Patriarchs, a holy site of importance to both faiths. As tensions grew over the issue, an East Jerusalem Palestinian resident ran over passengers waiting for the city’s light rail train on October 22, killing a young woman and an infant. On October 29, a Palestinian shot Rabbi Yehuda Glick, a prominent activist for Jewish access to the site, and Israel moved to close off the premises of al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslim worshipers for a day. In response, another East Jerusalem resident ran over Israeli soldiers with his car on November 5, killing a border police officer.