Jerusalemite Armenians are under pressure from Israeli settlers to relinquish control of property in the Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City. In the battle for Jerusalem, many Armenians are adamant keeping the property out of the settlers’ grip.
Recent attacks on Christian and Muslim worshipers in Jerusalem reflect Israeli efforts to consolidate control over the holy city. “The occupation, through such policies, claims that Jerusalem is theirs,” Archbishop Atallah Hanna tells Mondoweiss.
Early Zionism sought to reform the “Ghetto Jew” into the secular Zionist militant. But now the new Israeli government not only wants to push society to the right, but to dismantle its secularism as well.
Israeli forces fired tear gas and sound bombs at Palestinians outside the al-Yusufiyah cemetery in occupied East Jerusalem on Friday, the latest escalation at the site, as Palestinians fight to save the cemetery from being destroyed to make way for an Israeli park.
Filmmaker Yuval Abraham was an eyewitness to the Israeli home demolitions in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher: “I can’t take it anymore. I’m suffocating from all this violence and the lives being destroyed. And everyone [in Israel] is oblivious, blathering about a Jewish state, don’t know Arabic and utterly blind to those other people. Everyone who keeps silent is complicit with this filth. They destroyed Ismail’s life tonight.”