By YOSSI
MEKELBERG
If anyone required further evidence of the microscopically thin veneer of Jewish–Arab coexistence in Jerusalem, last week it was there for everyone to see, with outbursts of violence and hate speech pouring forth in this holy city.
From the outset, it must be said that there will not be genuine coexistence in this most complex though fascinating of cities as long as one ethnic or religious group claims a monopoly over its entirety and deprives other communities of their right to shape its character, not to mention to have an equal say in how the city should be run. Moreover, this unique city, like no other in the world, will never enjoy the peace and tranquility it is crying out for if it is left to religious-nationalist extremists to dictate the agenda.
The solution for a lasting coexistence is not necessarily establishing a “Special International Regime,” as the 1947 UN Partition Plan suggested, but instead to establish Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and Palestine, who must share responsibility for everyone who lives there and advance the vision of unity and harmony that many millions around the world are praying for it to experience.
There is a tendency when violence breaks out to concentrate on the immediate trigger, at the expense of addressing the root causes of the volatile situation such as currently prevails in Jerusalem. Then, when the violence recedes, the city returns to its artificial normality, but another round of clashes is always just around the corner.
At the heart of the explosive state of affairs in Jerusalem is that part of the city is occupied by Israel, and the Palestinians, who constitute nearly 40 percent of its population, don’t enjoy the same rights as their Jewish neighbors. On the contrary, despite Israel formally annexing East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law, Palestinian residents are deprived of the civil and political rights that Jewish residents of the city enjoy, and can hardly find solace even in the courts. Instead, Jewish neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem continue to expand, encroaching on Palestinian land and property, encircling and suffocating their neighborhoods, on a mission to prevent parts of Jerusalem ever becoming the capital of an independent Palestinian state. This is why feelings of anger, hatred and fear prevail in a city whose name means “City of Peace.”
Palestinian protests last month were initially sparked by anger over the decision by the police during Ramadan to erect barriers at the Damascus Gate plaza and thus prevent people from gathering in this normally bustling place, which tends to become even more popular during the holy month. For the authorities to justify this decision as an attempt to regulate the flow of people entering the Old City was a combination of thoughtlessness, insensitivity and lack of understanding of the underlying anger at the occupation and the forces that represent it, especially during holy times. The barriers were eventually removed but only after several nights of protests, some of them descending into levels of violence that have not been seen for years.
At the heart of the explosive state of affairs in Jerusalem is that part of the city is occupied by Israel, and the Palestinians, who constitute nearly 40 percent of its population, don’t enjoy the same rights as their Jewish neighbors.
Into the fray entered, in a deliberate and calculated manner, Jewish-supremacist religious elements of the likes of the despicable Kahanist organisation Lehava, which thrive on these confrontations, intentionally misrepresent the situation and inflame the hatred. Now that their representatives have been elected to the Knesset, thanks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lobbying for them, they grow equally in their confidence and their nastiness toward Arabs. For them to chant out loud in the streets “death to the Arabs” is a matter of routine, and the police do nothing to stop them.
When another far-right leader, Bezalel Smotrich, with whom Netanyahu is flirting to get him to join the coalition as a senior minister, says that “Arabs are citizens of Israel, for now at least, and they have representatives at the Knesset, for now at least,” it sends a chilling, racist and threatening message to Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line. Smotrich’s partner in the Religious Zionism party, Itamar Ben Gvir, Lehava’s founder and leader and now shamefully an elected Knesset member, is taking a central role in these demonstrations of hate and incitement toward Arbs at the Damascus Gate, aggravating an already explosive situation by warning his supporters of imminent “pogroms by the Arab enemy.” –AN
