Arab Chalk Circle: the events around the Temple Mount

Photo: Amit Shaabi

Finally, Israel is giving the world media a familiar picture. Arab teenagers throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at policemen dressed like aliens. In front of the formation of the same aliens there are crowds of people praying right in the square, on stone slabs: Muslims are not allowed into their mosque, to the shrine.

Framework Disagreement

Pictures are enough. Very few people, especially abroad, know, because of what the next aggravation in the center of the world - on the Temple Mount. That it is not praying not allowed into the Al-Aqsa mosque, and they, at the call of their religious leaders, refuse to go through the framework of metal detectors installed at the entrance to the Temple Mount. Breaking the status quo! Humiliation of Muslims! Apartheid!

And even in Israel, where everyone knows everything, this is precisely the setting of frameworks that is discussed as the reason: was it worth it? Will the authorities be firm enough to insist on their own? Will this insistence lead to a new intifada, or even a religious war?

Behind all this was forgotten the direct reason for the introduction of a new measure - no longer up to it. The occasion was July 14 attack on the Temple Mount.

Three terrorists opened fire, killed two fighters of the border guard. During searches immediately after the attack in the premises of the Muslim religious administration of the WAKF, they found weapons and firecrackers. Probably, the automata of the terrorists are from these or similar caches. Therefore, set the frame. And they will also install surveillance cameras, against which the WACF has always strongly objected.

For the world, terrorist attacks in Israel are a routine. Yes, and the Israelis have developed a habit for them, no matter how blasphemous to say it. But the one that happened last Friday on the Temple Mount is too revealing. In it, which is not particularly significant in scale, and possibly consequences (here it is still too early to say with certainty), some tendencies emerged in a concentrated form that should be addressed in order to understand something important about the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation in general.

This is worth doing to both the Israelis and those who are observing our situation from outside, including those who are building plans for a new attempt at reconciliation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, initiated by the current US administration.

Photo: Alex Kolomoisky

Place

Temple Mount is the hottest place on this earth. If the whole Holy Land is considered an apple of discord, then the mountain is its core. Not only is it the shrine of three monotheistic religions that for thousands of years have been in opposition to each other, including bloody wars that have defined the picture of the world since the Middle Ages. Not only that the actual ownership of the Temple Mount went to the one who has the least rights to this heritage. And that she considers herself the most offended and disadvantaged.

God be with her, with history. But in modern times, all terrorist wars - from the pogroms of the 20s and 30s of the last century to the second intifada in 2000, called the “Al-Aqsa intifada” and which claimed almost a thousand lives of Israelis and almost five thousand Palestinians, burying an idea that was already close at that time the creation of a Palestinian state began from behind the Temple Mount. And the last wave of “lone wolf” terror, which broke out two years ago, also occurred as a result of incitement under the slogan of protecting Al-Aqsa, which was not attacked by anyone from the Israeli side.

In order to increase the area of ​​claims, grievances, conflicts and reasons for unrest and war, in recent years in the Arab, and especially Palestinian, narrative, the concept of Al-Aqsa - the mosque itself - has been expanded to the entire territory of the Temple Mount - a plateau once created by the Jews to build their Temple.

Muslim preachers have convinced their flock that the foot of the unfaithful stepping on this plateau is already the desecration of one of the three main shrines of Islam - all this is the Al-Aqsa mosque.

It is in this holy place for their weapons caches. It was from here that the terrorists came out to open fire on the Israeli border guards (by the way, the Druze, the Druze and the Arabs mainly guard there). That is why the attack was a success - they were shot in the back: fighters of the frontier guards protect the Temple Mount from external threats and therefore face the Old City, their backs to the Temple Mount. It was here (that is, to the holy land of Al-Aqsa in their understanding) that the terrorists ran, shooting, and here they themselves were shot dead.

Such are their notions of holiness.

To complete the picture, it is necessary to recall how the Temple Mount ended up in the hands of Muslims. 50 years ago, the paratroopers who drove out the Arab Legion from there planted an Israeli flag there, which the residents of the Jewish Quarter carried out in 1948, leaving their homes. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, seeing this flag, ordered it to be removed immediately. He determined the fate of the Temple Mount. A great warrior, but a very short-sighted politician, Dayan said: “What use is this Vatican to us?” and ordered the mountain to be transferred into the hands of the Muslim administration of the Waqf under the protectorate of Jordan, which then experienced a shameful defeat and did not lay claim to anything at all. They say that in this way the general, known for his passion for ancient artifacts, was preparing the ground for illegal excavations. The Israelis would not have allowed him to dig wherever he wanted, and the WAQF sheikhs and the defeated Jordanians, frightened at that time, would not have said a word to the winner.

Anyway, Dayan, with his rash step, laid a ticking bomb - an eternal catalyst of future conflicts.

Today, speaking about the futility of territorial concessions for a settlement with the Palestinians, we recall the “Oslo process”, which gave the PLO Judea, Samaria and Gaza, a unilateral retreat from Gaza, which only whetted the appetite for claims and expanded the springboard of aggression against Israel.

But everything could have been understood much earlier - when the Temple Mount was given, which became and can still cause a new war.

Prayer outside the Temple Mount. Photo: Ohad Zweigenberg

Time

So far there are no concrete reasons to suspect the Palestinian administration in Ramallah of organizing last Friday's terrorist attack. But even without evidence of direct involvement, this is precisely the case when, if there had been no reason, one should have been invented.

The White House begins a new round of the settlement process, and in it Abu Mazen found himself in an extremely difficult situation. Unlike the previous US administration, which traditionally demanded concessions only from Israel, the new one also demands the Palestinian leadership. First of all, in stopping incitement to terror, in particular, abolishing the payment of salaries to terrorists, which Abu-Mazen cannot do under any circumstances.

When Arafat found himself in a similar position in 2000, he launched a terrorist war - the Al-Aqsa intifada. Abu Mazen has no such opportunity. The infrastructure of terror has been crushed. There is nothing to start a war.

The terrorist attack on the Temple Mount and the “popular protests” that broke out after it against metal detector frames provide an opportunity to start a war almost by proxy. From Ramallah, a cry was issued to the “Palestinian youth” to join in the “day of wrath.” The next day, Hamas declared a “day of wrath.”

If you're lucky, the fire of popular protests will inflame more, and the Palestinians, who have already been forgotten in the nightmare of today's turmoil in the Middle East, will come to the fore again. Only more victims are needed - a proven method.

This has already taken effect. It was not by chance that the framework was already shielded by a terrorist attack in a holy place.

Family

Naturally, none of the Arab leaders, either in the Palestinian Authority or in Israel, condemned the terrorist attack committed in a place that was sacred to them. All they had to do was condemn the setting of boundaries. This is a crime, not what prompted preventive measures.

The Palestinian leadership does not cause questions. As already mentioned, for him the terrorist attack occurred is a rare success, and when next time they call streets, squares, entertainment centers with the names of martyrs, the heroes of the terrorist attack on Temple Mount should be in the forefront for perpetuation.

City

But in vain do you think that this is only their problem. She and ours. All three terrorists are from the Israeli city of Umm al-Fahma.

Umm al-Fahm is a famous hotbed of Arab nationalism and Islamic extremism. At the beginning of the second intifada, the local youth strikingly synchronized with their Palestinian brethren to cause unrest, blocking the highway connecting the north of the country with the center. The police had to use weapons. There were no victims. I was there immediately after the events, talked with respected citizens. The feeling is depressing. These are enemies.

The heroes of the terrorist attack on the Temple Mount were then small children. Now they have grown up and instead of the Molotov cocktails on the highway near their house, they took machine guns in Jerusalem.

In today's situation, the Israeli security services have an effective method of suppressing terror in the Palestinian territories. The places from which the terrorists left are blocked, the families of the terrorists are denied the right to enter Israel, they remain without earnings. It works. The relative silence of the last year is the result of this practice.

In relation to the Israeli Arabs, in particular, to the inhabitants of Umm al-Fahm, it is not applicable. They enjoy all the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Israel, continuing to hate this country, its Jewish inhabitants, and are waiting for the moment for revenge.

It is not by chance that immediately after it became clear where the terrorists had come from, many, even small admirers of the current Minister of Defense Lieberman, began talking about his idea of ​​exchanging territories and people, which had previously only been banished.

Its essence is that in exchange for the annexation of large settlement enclaves, Arab enclaves inside Israel are transferred under the control of the Palestinian Authority or a hypothetical Palestinian state. In particular, the “Arab triangle”, where Umm al-Fahm is located. No one will have to be relocated or evicted anywhere. Only the administrative-state affiliation will change.

Naturally, Israeli Arabs and especially their elects in the Knesset are ardent opponents of this idea. They prefer to fight for the creation of a Palestinian state, which will threaten the existence of a Jewish state, living in Israel, taking advantage of its protection, treasury, medicine, social guarantees, education system.

It is necessary to end their double morality, to deprive them of crafty comfort. This should be the national Israeli consensus. If Israeli Arabs and their political leaders are fighting for the creation of a Palestinian state, let them know that they will have to live in it. This awareness will greatly cool today's enthusiasm.

It is unknown whether a Palestinian state is destined to exist. Most likely no. But Israeli society must announce to its Arab fellow citizens the price of their current aspirations: if you want another, your own power, it will be yours completely, you will not be able to sit on two chairs. Even at the level of declarations, this will contribute to sobering up. The “Arab Triangle” must be included in this vicious circle. They must be presented with a choice, and let them make it.

The original column is published on the website. editionsNEWS".

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