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14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 MAY 2021 Carlo Aldrovandi is Assistant Professor in International Peace Studies, Trinity College Dublin Carlo Aldrovandi OPINION MIDDLE EAST Jerusalem: the politics behind the latest explosion of violence THE recent violence at the al-Aqsa mosque/Temple Mount area and in the Old City of Jerusalem has spiralled into something bigger and more dangerous. Clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters at the weekend have left hundreds injured. Tensions rose further on Monday and Tuesday after Is- raeli airstrikes launched in retaliation for Hamas rocket attacks killed 35 people, in- cluding 12 children, in Gaza City. This latest episode cannot be attributed to a single cause. It should rather be con- nected to a broader landscape of desta- bilising factors whose cumulative weight led to the current crisis after months of incubation. A chain reaction was nevertheless trig- gered by ongoing attempts to evict Pales- tinian families living for generations in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. A legal battle is being waged be- tween the Palestinian residents and Na- halat Shimon – a settler organisation tied to the Zionist movement in Israel which is trying to alter east Jerusalem's demo- graphics in favour of a Jewish population. Support towards the Sheikh Jarrah fam- ilies instantly came from several Palestin- ian constituencies, including an unprece- dented number of Arab citizens of Israel from Umm al-Fahm and Jaffa. At the same time, thousands started demonstrating at Damascus Gate which in recent weeks has become east Jerusalem's "Tahrir Square" – the centre of Egypt's 2011 "Arab Spring" revolution. Many of the protesters were Muslim worshippers who came together at the gate after having attended prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque. It is worth noting that the crisis unfolded during the final days in the holy month of Ramadan: the climax of the Islamic calen- dar but also the most volatile time of the year in Jerusalem. On Friday May 7 alone, some 200 Palestinians were seriously in- jured and many more were arrested fol- lowing fierce confrontations with the Is- raeli police. Israeli police were aggressive in their attempts to curb demonstrations, which soon backfired with an with an expansion of Palestinian protests across Jerusalem, the West Bank and many Arab villages in central and northern Israel. Turmoil on both sides Inability to contain violence in Jerusa- lem and other occupied territories is part- ly a result of internal issues with both the Palestinian leadership and the Israeli gov- ernment. On the Palestinian side, there is a power struggle taking place between Hamas and the president of the Palestin- ian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas deliberately heightened tension with Isra- el by firing rockets from Gaza as a prop- aganda strategy to build political capital at Abbas' expense. He, in turn, has post- poned elections to the Palestinian Legis- lative Council for fear of losing ground against his Islamist rivals. Israeli politics, meanwhile, has reached a debilitating impasse after four general elections failed to establish a workable government. This has had severe ramifi- cations for the handling of the crisis. And it's important not to underestimate – as Israel's security chiefs obviously have – the disastrous consequences that COV- ID-19 has had on east Jerusalem, leaving all too many young Palestinians unem- ployed and even more hopelessly alienated from their respective political leaderships. The young Palestinians demonstrating on the steps of Damascus Gate, the streets of the Old City and al-Aqsa are not animat- ed by their parents' ideologies, but mostly a sense of anger, revulsion and frustration. Provocation and counter-provocation With such soaring tensions and politi- cal dysfunction on both sides, the situa- tion appeared likely to spin out of control during the flag march scheduled on Jeru- salem Day. That event takes place annu- ally to commemorate the reunification of Jerusalem by Israel after the six-day war in 1967. In recent times, with the growing influ- ence of the settler movement within the Netanyahu government and Israeli socie- ty, the parade has become a cornerstone in the national consciousness of many re- ligious Zionists. Every year, before reach- ing the celebrations at the Western Wall Plaza, hundreds of young Israelis make their way from Sheikh Jarrah, pause at Damascus Gate and then continue along Al-Wad street – the main artery in the Muslim Quarter in the Old City. During the march, young Israelis wave their national flags defiantly and chant patriotic songs. Meanwhile Palestinians watch the procession from behind the se- curity fences that the Israeli police forces put in place especially for the occasion. The way this celebration cuts across their everyday spaces is felt by most Pal- estinians as a blatant provocation and a painful reminder of the humiliation Isra- el inflicted on their national aspirations in June 1967. Not only did the Six-Day War mean large-scale Palestinian dispos- session, it also established Israeli control over al-Quds (Jerusalem's Arabic name) and al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam and a primary symbol of Palestin- ian identity. On Sunday night thousands of Palestin- ians barricaded themselves in the mosque with stones and Molotov cocktails in an- ticipation of the Jerusalem Day Parade. According to the Palestinian Red Cres- cent, clashes between Israeli police forces and the demonstrators, which inevitably unfolded at al-Aqsa on Monday morn- ing, left another 300 Palestinians wound- ed. That prompted an Israeli decision to prevent Jews from entering the al-Aqsa mosque/Temple Mount area during Jeru- salem Day. Sensing quite how dangerous it would be to allow a march to follow the route through some of the Palestinian popula- tion's most symbolically important spaces – and, with Jerusalem already on a knife edge – the Israeli authorities announced that the flag march could go ahead but rerouted its course away from the Damas- cus Gate and the Muslim Quarter. The Israeli High Court of Justice also deferred the hearings on the planned evictions of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah that had been scheduled for Jerusalem Day. But these attempts to de-escalate appear to have been too little and too late. As we now know, Hamas made the decision to fire rockets at west Jerusalem and south- ern Israel, and the Israeli Defense Force retaliated with air strikes, killing 25 peo- ple. Once more, Jerusalem is ablaze, with potentially dire consequences for the sta- bility of the whole region. TheConversation.eu Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City are reported to have killed 25 people on May 10 2021