n the West Bank, but the overall context is the same….
It’s worthwhile seeing this as a cyclical news cycle, both symbolic and used for larger agendas. It’s not clear if people will ever be evicted in Sheikh Jarrah or whether court cases are really what matters. Israel often wins court cases in these property disputes, meaning that the government or claimants are often legally correct, but that doesn’t mean that when it comes to policy that anything actually takes place. Often Israel backs down and doesn’t evict people.
Israel also seems incapable of foreseeing which of these issues will become a major cause every year and predicting accordingly. It also fails to find compromises that work, such as paying compensation and removing the issue of contention.
In other words, it's complicated.
The situation is on a knife-edge. From today's Jerusalem Post:
It could go either way. Calm can return, or Israel will eventually find itself at war.
Though the past week has seen hundreds of Palestinians and Israeli police officers and civilians injured, the defense establishment still believes that the situation can return to normal.
Normal as normal can be in this region.
Over 300 Palestinians and several Israelis were hurt in clashes with police on Monday alone, in violence that some say the city has not seen in years. Israel has been condemned for how it is dealing with the crisis in Jerusalem, but, the situation could have been much worse.
As of this article’s writing, while people have been wounded at the Temple Mount and stun grenades have been thrown inside al-Aqsa mosque, nobody has yet lost their life.
But were there to be fatalities at the holy site, especially if is a child or a youth, the entire country could explode….
Jerusalem is a tinderbox, on slow burn. It does not need to become an inferno.
So, clearly, calm responsible leadership is called for – from all sides.
Here's a senior Hamas figure, Fathi Hammad, doing his bit:
From the MEMRI summary:
Hamas Political Bureau Member and former Minister of the Interior Fathi Hammad urged the people of Jerusalem to “cut off the heads of the Jews.” His remarks were made in a public address, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas-Gaza) on May 7, 2021. Hammad demonstrated how they should “cut their heads off” from the artery. He added that a knife only costs five shekels, saying: “with those five shekels, you will humiliate the Jewish state.” Hammad continued to say that Jews have spread corruption and acted with arrogance, and their day or reckoning and moment of destruction have come.
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