The Next Intifada?

Every Friday with out fail Palestinians youths march on the border between the West Bank and Israel in order to throw stones at the Israeli police in protest against the occupation. Every Friday the police respond by firing tear gas and stun grenades at the Palestinian youths.

However over the last month or so tensions have increased meaning that this rioting has become an almost daily occurrence and the level of violence has increased with the Palestinian youths now throwing fireworks and petrol bombs and the Israeli police responding with rubber bullets and sometimes live ammunition. A particular flashpoint has been the border crossing between Palestinian East Jerusalem and Israeli West Jerusalem and the entrance to the Al-Asqa Mosque/Temple Mount.

This has created a situation that is very, very similar to the start of the second or Al-Asqa Intifada which began in 2000 when  hard-line Israeli politician Ariel Sharon visited Al-Asqa/Temple Mount and declared it his right as a Jew to pray there. This triggered a mass uprising (literally Intifada) by the Palestinians that lasted for nearly five years and saw almost constant rioting across the West Bank during which both sides not only traded petrol bombs and rubber bullets but also routinely exchanged sniper fire. It also saw an intense suicide bombing campaign by Hamas and other Palestinian groups that saw 141 attacks which killed some 600 Israelis. It was this bombing campaign more then anything else that led to the building of the security wall between Israel and the West Bank.

The main driving factor behind this current escalation in tension has been this summer's war between Israel and Hamas. Although the majority of that war was fought in Gaza it began in the West Bank when Hamas kidnapped and then killed three Israeli teenagers. Israel's response to this crime was to send 40 battalions (40,000 troops) of the Israeli Army into the West Bank to conduct house to house searches and arrest more then 500 suspects in an operation that was known as "My Brother's Keeper." A significant part of the reason why I find the largely unwarranted and often hysterical criticism of Israel's operation in Gaza (Protective Edge) so frustrating is that it seems to have more or less erased the West Bank operation from the public memory.

While I appreciate the urge to kick down every door and beat every bush in response to what was a particularly heinous and provocative crime during My Brother's Keeper some 23,000 Palestinians were prevented from travelling to work in Israel, 8 people died, 120 were wounded and more then 700 homes were destroyed. Added to the fact that it failed to either arrest any of the main suspects in the crime or recover the bodies of the victims in a timely manner My Brother's Keeper seemed less like the police trying to solve a crime and more like an exercise in collective punishment.

During times of war collective punishment is considered a war crime under Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention. It also goes against a long standing legal principle in civilised societies that people should not be punished for crimes that they themselves have not committed. Although I'll need to check I'm pretty sure that the origin of this principle is the Jewish Torah specifically the Deuteronomic Code. While I now think that Hamas had been planning to fire rockets into Israel all along if they hadn't the aggressive and repressive nature of My Brother's Keeper would have made it near impossible for even the most moderate Palestinian leader to avoid being seen to strike a blow against Israel in retaliation.

Aside from the obvious provocation of the military operation in Gaza and the hyperbolic and often irrational international response to it the war in Gaza also added to the specific tensions in East Jerusalem which was already smarting from My Brother's Keeper. As often happens during times of increased tensions such as war during Operation Protective Edge Israel restricted Palestinian access to the Al-Asqa Mosque to women and men over the age of 50 along with a ban of more then 150 people of any religion gathering in public anywhere in Israel while rocket attacks are taking place.

Located on what is believed to be Mount Zion where all life on earth began, the first Jewish Temple was built and the Ark of the Covenant was stored the Temple Mount is considered the holiest site in the Jewish religion. As Christianity and Islam are simply extensions of Judaism the site is also hugely important to them both and in 705AD Al-Asqa Mosque was built there by Caliph Umar, a companion of the Prophet Mohamed. As such Al-Asqa Mosque is considered the third holiest site in Islam and the only Islamic holy site that most Palestinian Muslims will ever get to visit.

Although I think the restrictions on those going to pray at Al-Asqa were lifted for a day or so the timing of the Gaza war meant that there was very little break between the war ending and the start of the Jewish New Year. During this time Israel is locked down entirely meaning that people in Palestine cannot travel into Israel for any reason due to a well proven risk of terrorist attack. This overlap meant that effectively Palestinian men were barred from Al-Asqa from the start of July 2014 right up until the end of September 2014 - a period of three months.

During this time the Gaza war also substantially weakened Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and with it the peace process. Throughout his current term Netanyahu has focused on "maintaining the quiet" which essentially meant avoiding any major confrontation with the Palestinians in the hope that most Israelis would sort of forget about the security situation and concentrate on getting on with their lives. With Israelis going on to have fulfilling lives they have seemed less interested in religious extremism including the Zionist desire to continue expanding Israel into Palestine making a two state solution seem more possible then at any point before.

The Gaza war brought all that crashing down because along with the situation in neighbouring Syria it became impossible for Israelis to ignore security issues and the Palestinian question. Also the fact that Israel's objective in Gaza was to degrade Hamas' ability to launch attacks rather then to completely destroy the organisation, re-occupy Gaza or wipe out the Palestinians Netanyahu was denied a big flag waving victory that he could show to voters.

Having been weakened by a war that exposed his lefty peacenik tendencies along with harsh and unfounded criticism from US President Obama in particular Netanyahu has been forced to consolidate his position with the very extreme right-wing members of his coalition in order to fend off a potential challenge for Labor and Tzipi Livni who were key architects of 2008/9's Operation Cast Lead.

A key demand of the Israeli far right has always been Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory. Shortly after the end of the war Netanyahu clearly signalled this extra pressure on him by authorising the 1000 acre Gvaot settlement which is one of the largest such moves in Israeli history. Although I think there are quite stages to go before that settlement is built there has been a clear renewal of the settler movement with a 500 unit settlement at Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem being announced just on Monday (3/11/14).

Another key demand of Israel's extreme religious right is the right to be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount in defiance of Jordan's Waqf Ministry which has administered the site since the Crusades in the 11th Century. At face value this actually sounds quite reasonable and I for one find it hard to argue that Jews shouldn't be allowed to pray at the most holy site of their religion. However many Ultra-Orthodox Jews want to go much further then that and not only pray on the Temple Mount but also prevent all Muslims from praying and even go so far as to destroy Al-Asqa Mosque. The destruction of Al-Asqa Mosque is something that both Jewish and Muslim extremists consider as a key sign of impending Judgement Day.

With the Ultra-Orthodox seemingly in the ascendancy in Israeli politics and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claiming to be fighting the battle that is one of the other signs of the impending apocalypse just across the border in Syria the fact that Palestinian men have been prevented from praying at Al-Asqa for so long has led many to believe - rightly or wrongly - that Israel is going to seize Temple Mount and destroy the Mosque.

What I cannot explain is the decision this morning by Palestinian youths who had been granted access to Al-Asqa to start attacking Israeli police with fireworks. That of course forced Israel to close Al-Asqa again because people were simply being put in danger. As for the run-over terror attack at a bus stop which killed a Muslim (Druze) Israeli police officer later in the day I can only see that strengthening calls for more apartheid between Jews and Muslims on Israeli public transport.

So in summary this is one of those situations where I can talk to you for hours about what the problem is and what has caused it. However I can't for the life of me offer any solutions to it. Hopefully though Obama will have learnt his lesson and in the future will think very long and hard before referring to any Israeli or Palestinian leader as a "Chickensh*t."

20:30 on 5/11/14 (UK date).