After violence took hold of Jerusalem at the beginning of October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charged that the fault lay with the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Islamic movement of northern Israel. He accused them of inciting attacks against Israelis, and spurring demonstrations across the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza that have led to the killings of Palestinian protesters.
Many of his own citizens do not believe him. The 20-percent Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel believe that it is the Israeli government, and not the Palestinian leadership, that is responsible for the outbreak of hostilities, according to a survey published by the Haifa-based think tank Mada al-Carmel.
“The results of the survey indicate that the Arab public in Israel holds the Israel government responsible for the recent events,” said Dr. Ameed Saabneh, director of the Mada Survey Research unit. “The results also clearly indicate a sense of fear among the Arab population about violence by Israeli security services or the Jewish public, leading to an increased separation between the two communities.”
In a study conducted two weeks ago from a sample of 307 adults who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, 78 percent found the “Israeli government responsible for the recent outbreak of violence.” Within that group, 26 percent said Israel is attempting to divide access to al-Aqsa mosque compound between Muslim worshipers and Jewish-Israelis, a change of the status quo in the compound.
Five years ago the number of Jewish visitors to the Noble Sanctuary hovered around 200 to 300 annually. They walked through the holy sites complex that houses the Dome of the Rock, the al-Aqsa mosque and that is the location of two destroyed ancient Jewish synagogues. But with increased organization from Jewish groups that coordinate tours of the faithful, the number of Jewish visitors has catapulted to more than 10,000 per year.
Muslims still represent the majority of pilgrims, with around three million worshipers per year.
The holy plaza is considered one of the most sacred sites in Islam, but is also increasingly revered by Jews who hope to change Israel’s status quo agreement with the Jordanian caretakers to allow Jewish prayer, which is now forbidden. The presence of Jewish worshipers at the holy basin has been a factor in Palestinian protests in Jerusalem and across Israel. During the past month Israeli police arrested more than 200 Palestinian citizens of Israel during protests, according to Majd Kayyal from the legal rights group Adalah.
Fearing reprisal attacks
A majority of those polled said they felt unsafe following an announcement by Jerusalem’s mayor Nir Barkat that Israelis should arm themselves and participate in stopping attacks against Israelis. In three separate instances this month, Israeli civilians shot or killed three people –an Eritrean national, an Israeli Jew, and a Palestinian citizen of Israel–and Israeli police later said the individuals were not attackers and had been targeted by “mistake.”
The Palestinian government has also criticized Israel for using live-fire in nearly 30 alleged attempted stabbings by Palestinians during the last month. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated the Israeli police carried out “extrajudicial killings” of the Palestinian attackers. Palestinians have circulated the same assertion over social media with a series of videos of some of the killings of Palestinian attackers, in which it appears that the individuals no longer posed a threat at the time of their shootings.
As a result of the quickness-to-fire, survey responses show that 66 percent of Palestinian citizens of Israel feel “a high degree of insecurity,” fearing an Israeli could mistake them for an attempted attacker and shoot and kill them.
In order to ensure their personal safety, 70 percent of Israeli Palestinians said they have limited the amount of time they spend inside of Jewish Israeli cities and towns. Forty three-percent said they feared a revenge attack by a Jewish extremist inside of an Arab town in Israel.
In the first week of October the Palestinian government reported a record number of 117 settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, reflecting a sharp increase of violence carried out by Jewish extremists against Palestinians concurrent to the wave of attacks in Jerusalem.
How long is the world going to pretend it takes Israel’s version of the violence, and not confront the government with the truth? How long can the world keep believing that an occupier, aided and supported by the US, one of the world’s top weapons manufacturers, and a ruthless army, are all victims of occupied, unarmed civilians, who bully by throwing stones?
Netanyahu and his extremist government is primarily to be blamed for the violence going on every day. No two words about it. It is in the occupiers hands, the ones that control and keep the Palestinian people in open prisons, that must take responsibility for every death that happens. One cannot blame prisoners for the miserable conditions in a prison, and for revolting.
Netanyahu is a despicable man who lies, manipulates, and does not hesitate to show his people what a he-man he is, by setting his troops on unarmed civilians, and encourages the Jewish terrorists to kill, attack, and terrorize Palestinians, and burn and destroy their property.
If the zionists do not like the stones and knives, end the damn occupation and stop the land
theft. Or does Netanyahu like the status quo too much to let go of the illegal settlements, and taking over the terrirories. Netanyahu’s perpetual wars with his neighbors also gives him the opportunity to be Israel’s leader, and besides Sarah loves to be the lady who could have been FLOTUS.
Is the Israeli public changing its views at all over the last few years, especially in relation to the current tensions?
So… Imams in mosques and Palestinian leaders incite against Jews and call for the spilling of Jewish blood based on lies about the Temple Mount, and jihadists start stabbing innocent people just for being Jewish.
And who’s to blame for that? Israel! This is just like blaming a rape victim for being raped.
Mahmoud Abbas said this:
“We bless you, we bless the Murabitin, we bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah. Al-Aqsa is ours, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is ours, and they [Jews] have no right to defile them with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem.”
Is Israel to blame for this, too?
The recent wave of terror attacks against Israeli civilians is the direct result of incitement by radical Islamist and terrorist elements, calling on Palestinian youth to murder Jews. The incitement is based on lies against Israel, in particular regarding the status quo on the Temple Mount. Even if the status quo was broken, would that justify stabbing innocent people? Would any sane person stab innocent people because of this? No. This is no more than jihad.
“two destroyed ancient Jewish synagogues”
I didn’t realize until now that the holy temple was just another synagogue. How much does Hamas pay you to write this propaganda dribble? “Destroyed ancient synagogues”? That you openly attempt to pass this off as journalism speaks to the ignorance of your readership.
“The presence of Jewish worshipers at the holy basin has been a factor in Palestinian protests in Jerusalem and across Israel …”
Despite claims it is seeking to calm tensions in Jerusalem, Israel is intensifying activities to encircle the al-Aqsa mosque and strengthen its control over the holy site, a group of Israeli archaeologists warned last week. ….But the archaeologists say the most pressing threats to the mosque, located on a raised plaza above the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, will be invisible to the cameras.
They accuse Israel of making rapid changes to the physical landscape around al-Aqsa to obscure the area’s Islamic character and create an ever-more arduous “obstacle course” for worshippers.
“The big picture is that Israel is weakening the Muslim and Palestinian presence there so that Israeli Jews can believe they are the true owners of the site,” said Yonathan Mizrachi, head of Emek Shaveh, an organisation of Israeli archaeologists opposed to the use of archaeology for political ends…..Various Israeli archaeological activities, he said, had almost completed Israel’s encirclement of the al-Aqsa compound, isolating it from Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem. –
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-s-encirclement-al-aqsa-nearly-complete-699242536