“Fighting between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants intensified overnight and continued this morning, the worst violence between the two sides in seven years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to extend the offensive, with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh retaliating, ‘If Israel wants to escalate, we are ready for it.’ Israel renewed airstrikes today following a flurry of rocket launches from Gaza overnight that set off explosions in Tel Aviv. U.N. envoy for Middle East Peace Tor Wennesland warned they’re heading for ‘full-scale war,’ while the U.N. Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting today. [5/12]” Presidential Daily Brief, OZY/Discover, May 12th.
The May 12th BBC.com adds some details: “More than 1,000 rockets have now been fired by Palestinian militants over 38 hours, Israel said, most at Tel Aviv… Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes, destroying two tower blocks in Gaza on Tuesday [5/11] and Wednesday [5/12]… At least 53 Palestinians and six Israelis have been killed since Monday [5/10]. That includes 14 Palestinian children caught up in the conflict… UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was ‘gravely concerned’ by the ongoing violence.”
To say, “it’s complicated” is an understatement of alarming proportions. But as with other nations around the world, there is a rise in extremism – from right-wing Israelis seeking to evict Palestinians from their homes on the West Bank to a growing sense of “nothing left to lose” Palestinians feeling abandoned by the rest of the world and destined to remain within an Israeli nation state that continues to treat Arabs as inferior beings, second class “citizens” and seemingly subject to an entirely different legal system than applied to Jewish citizens. As Israelis anchor their claims to Palestinian lands based upon prior occupancy, Palestinians wonder why they cannot use the same justification to reclaim houses lost to Israeli military conquest. As Israel and various Arab nations have recently established diplomatic relations – much of that motivated by their desire to receive the benefits of Israeli technology advances – Palestinians feel further left behind by their “allies.”
Additionally, as Muslims celebrate their holiest day within the month of Ramadan – a time of daytime abstinence and deep reverence, a period which fluctuates from year to year – in Israel, the focus falls on the most holy shrine, al Aqsa mosque, a 35-acre compound (picture above) that is of profound religious significance to Christians, Jews and Muslims. Sitting in East Jerusalem, what the Palestinians once hoped would be the capital of their future independent nation, the mosque takes on particular political meaning. As Jerusalem has become the official capital of Israel, a move fully supported by the Trump administration (a reality unlikely to be altered by the Biden administration), and as the notion of a “two-state” solution appears to have been thrown on the ash heap of good intention never implemented, so many Palestinians simply have lost hope. And people with little to lose and teetering desperately without hope can be most volatile and dangerous.
The confluence of the Jewish celebration of Jerusalem Day with the last day of Ramadan when the Muslims celebrate the giving of the Quran to Muhammad, creates an even greater significance to al Aqsa mosque, a building where Arabs may worship but Jews are banned from entering to pray (for reasons discussed below). Violence from both sides erupted accordingly.
“The mosque, which can hold 5,000 worshipers, is believed to have been completed early in the eighth century and faces the Dome of the Rock, the golden-domed Islamic shrine that is a widely recognized symbol of Jerusalem. Muslims consider the whole compound to be holy, with crowds of worshipers filling its courtyards to pray on holidays.
“For Jews, the Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as Har Habayit, is the holiest place because it was the site of two ancient temples — the first was built by King Solomon, according to the Bible, and was later destroyed by the Babylonians; and the second stood for nearly 600 years before the Roman Empire destroyed it in the first century.
“The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, has classified the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls as a World Heritage Site, meaning it is regarded as ‘being of outstanding international importance and therefore as deserving special protection.’
“Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City, from Jordan during the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, then annexed the area. Israel later declared a unified Jerusalem to be its capital, though that move has never been internationally recognized.
“Under a delicate status quo arrangement, an Islamic trust known as the Waqf, funded and controlled by Jordan, continued to administer the Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, as it had done for decades, a special role reaffirmed in Israel’s 1994 peace treaty with Jordan… Israeli security forces maintain a presence on the site and they coordinate with the Waqf. Jews and Christians are allowed to visit, but unlike Muslims, are prohibited from praying on the grounds under the status quo arrangement. (Jews pray just below the sacred plateau at the Western Wall, the remnants of a retaining wall that once surrounded the Temple Mount.)” New York Times, May 10th.
The fighting between Israeli forces and Arab worshipers at the mosque have been intense and very violent. The Hamas response with massive rocket fire, mostly repelled by Israel’s Iron Dome defensive missile system, smacks of a much wider conflict. Israeli counterattacks against Gaza have downed entire apartment buildings, with many civilian casualties. “Fady Hanona, a journalist in Gaza City, tweeted a video he said showed explosion after explosion in Gaza on Wednesday morning… ‘What is happening is unbelievable,’ he said. ‘What we experienced this morning was more war than what we lived during the last three wars.’” BBC.com
All of this is intensified as there has been a rather significant collapse of the Palestinians’ defined leadership, both within Gaza and more significantly the West Bank faction. If there is a peace or ceasefire to be negotiated, one that would hold, there appears to be no one on the Palestinian side with a strong enough voice to accept and implement that de-escalation. Much of the violence on both sides appears to have originated with younger, grass-roots spontaneity, even as Hamas has picked up that momentum and accelerated the violence with over a thousand rockets fired into Israel.
With the United States extricating itself from various Islamic conflicts in the region, trying to mend broken fences and reestablish a nuclear weapons accord with Iran, the resurrection of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could not have come at a worse time. The Biden administration has called for a ceasefire, as has the United Nations, but tensions have remained on high with limited paths to a sustainable peace. Did Israel contain the COVID-19 outbreak only to fuel mass demonstrations from all sides?
I’m Peter Dekom, and in a world plagued by a killer pandemic, struggles between super-powers and roiling instability in the Middle East, peaceful co-existence seems a distant hope for Israeli residents.
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