Jerusalem

Over 1,500 Israeli settlers led by Minister Ben-Gvir, storm Al-Aqsa Mosque

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Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ שי קנדלר

Storming the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been one of the Israeli occupation’s provocative policies towards the Palestinian people, exemplifying the fact that the end goal of the Zionist project is incompatible with any semblance of Palestinian sovereignty

In a new assault on sacred places within the occupied Palestinian capital of Al-Quds (Jerusalem), around 1,500 illegal Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Tuesday, August 13. The settlers were led by Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir , and Minister for the Development of the Periphery, the Negev and the Galilee Yitzhak Wasserlauf. The attack comes as Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza completes 10 months, and Israel’s continuous provocations have put the ceasefire talks in jeopardy.

The assault was not limited to storming the holy site as Jewish rituals were also performed there in commemoration of the Jews’ fast of Tisha B’Av. According to media reports, Palestinian worshipers were prevented from accessing Al-Aqsa compound during the incursion.

As per international conventions and agreements, including the Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty, only Muslims are allowed to pray within Al-Aqsa compound, also known as Al-Haram al-Sharif (the Arabic term for the Noble Sanctuary).

On July 24, Ben-Gvir declared the permission of Jewish prayers in the so-called “Temple Mount”, the Israeli alleged name for Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Speaking at a  Knesset conference, Ben Gavir stated then: “I was at the Temple Mount last week. I prayed at the Temple Mount and we are praying at the Temple Mount. I am in the political echelon, and the political echelon allows Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount.”

Jordan’s custodianship over Al-Aqsa mosque

In 1924, the Supreme Muslim Council, which was the highest Muslim body in charge of Muslims’ affairs in Mandatory Palestine, decided to assign Al-Hussein Bin Ali, the  grandfather of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, to be the custodian of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The custodianship over Al-Aqsa became a legacy of consecutive Hashemite Jordanian monarchs ever since even after Palestine was occupied by  Zionists in 1948, who then established their colonial state known today as Israel.

In 1994, the Israeli occupation signed a peace treaty with Jordan, which stipulated Israel’s recognition of Jordan’s role as custodian of Christian and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. However, Israeli officials, illegal settlers, and armed forces have recurrently committed flagrant violations in Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, despite the treaty.

Jordanian authorities generally issue condemnations against Israeli violations against Al-Aqsa and Muslim worshipers, who perform religious rituals there. Jordan’s last statement was published after the latest episode on Tuesday, August 13.

“The incursion, carried out under the protection of Israeli occupation forces, coincides with provocative actions by Israeli extremists and restrictions on worshippers’ access to the mosque. This act is a blatant violation of international law and the historical and legal status of Jerusalem and its sanctities, reflecting the Israeli government’s disregard for international laws and its obligations as the occupying power,” Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said on Tuesday.

The Ministry also reaffirmed that the Jordanian Ministry of Awqaf ( Endowments) and Islamic Affairs is the legal authority responsible for managing all affairs of Al-Haram al-Sharif compound and regulating access to it. Whereas the right of the State of Palestine to sovereignty over occupied Jerusalem was stressed by the Jordanian Ministry, which at the same time assured that Israel, as the occupying power, has no right or sovereignty over the city and its Islamic and Christian sanctities.

Al-Aqsa: a constant trigger point in the struggle against occupation

Al-Aqsa Mosque, in particular, and Al-Quds city in general are national constants that Palestinian have categorically refused to concede along with maintaining Palestinian refugees’ right of return, freeing Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, liberating Palestine, and ending the Israeli occupation. Therefore, any violations against Al-Aqsa or attempts to change the status quo have always fueled milestone events within the lengthy struggle of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation.

A report issued by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in January 2024, clarified that the Israeli assaults against Al-Aqsa were among the major factors that triggered Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in October 2023.

The report which is titled “Our Narrative…Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” explained that the operation was a necessary step, and that it was a natural reaction against Israel’s plans to eliminate the Palestinian cause, seize and/or Judaize Palestinian lands, and impose complete control over Al-Aqsa Mosque and other holy sites.

The year 2000 marked another milestone, when the second Intifada, also named Al-Aqsa Intifada, broke out after then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon,stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque compound escorted by more than 1,000 heavily armed Israeli police and army personnel.

Sharon’s assault on Al-Aqsa was preceded by other Israeli massacres in the holy site that left scores of Palestinians killed. In 1996, protests erupted across different parts of occupied Palestine after the Israeli occupation authorities opened a tunnel under Al-Aqsa western wall. The Israeli Occupation Forces clashed with protesters leaving 63 Palestinians killed and over 1,600 wounded.

Another bloody massacre took place in 1990, when an Israeli individual attempted to place the cornerstone for a temple inside Al-Aqsa mosque compound. The incident sparked demonstrations by Palestinians within the compound, which were suppressed by Israeli occupation forces’ gunfire, killing 21 Palestinians and wounding over one hundred others.

In 1982, Israeli soldier Harry Goldman stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and opened fire at worshipers and guards. Two Palestinians were killed in the incident and 60 others were wounded.

Christians in occupied Palestine, particularly in Jerusalem have also suffered from Israeli oppression and discriminatory acts. The year 2023 witnessed a “notable increase” in attacks against Christians and their property, according to Israeli media reports. Assaults committed by religious Jews on Christian symbols, churches, clergy, nuns, and pilgrims, were documented in videos, circulated widely and condemned by Palestinian Christian clergy and laypersons.

The Zionist entity has adopted an apartheid approach aiming at uprooting Palestinians, dispossessing their land, property, sacred sites, and even their culture and cuisine. However, even after 10 months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, it is apparent that resistance and resilience have been deeply entrenched in the Palestinian collective perception, and inherently rooted in their conscience.

Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingOver 1,500 Israeli settlers led by Minister Ben-Gvir, storm Al-Aqsa Mosque

Israeli police attack Communist Party’s Nazareth HQ on eve of May Day

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Original article by Zo HaDerekh republished from People’s World under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/

Activists with the Communist Party of Israel and Hadash made ceasefire and an end to occupation the central demands of their May Day 2024 actions. | Photo via Hadash

NAZARETH—Determined to derail a planned May Day rally centered on ceasefire and anti-occupation demands, heavily-armed police forces raided the office of the Nazareth branches of the Hadash coalition (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) and Communist Party of Israel (CPI) on Friday evening. April 26.

Israeli police raid the Nazareth branch office of Hadash, the Communist Party of Israel, and Zo Haderekh newspaper. This photo is a screengrab from a video taken by a member of Hadash during the raid. | @hadash.front via Instagram

When police stormed the building, activists from Hadash, the CPI, and the Young Communist League were involved in preparations for the central May Day demonstration being organized by Hadash and the CPI. At least two activists were arrested.

“We won’t let the fascists silence us!” declared Ofer Cassif, the CPI parliamentarian that the government has repeatedly attempted to suppress.

“Come to the demonstration, to raise a loud and clear voice against the criminal massacre in Gaza, against the ethnic cleansing of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, against the raging tide of fascism and in support of justice for all, before it’s too late!” he continued.

“The order of the day: Unite against fascism!”

Several rallies against the deadly war in Gaza and the occupation of the Palestinian territories will be held across Israel for May Day—in Tel Aviv, Nazareth, Kufr Yassif, Western Galilee, Jerusalem, and other locations.

This is the third assault on the branch in Nazareth in the past year. Police raided the office on Nov. 10, tearing down political posters and spray-painting over murals. “The Ben-Gvir police continues its political persecution and attempts to intimidate and silence the Arab public and other forces opposing the war,” Hadash said in a statement, referring to Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu’s national security minister.

“We will not put up with these provocations. We will continue to lead the joint Arab-Jewish struggle against fascism, war and persecution,” Hadash said.

A year ago, on April 28, 2023, just before the May Day demonstration in the city, in another raid police took down the red flags and the Palestinian flag at the Nazareth branch and arrested the secretary of the Communist Party in the city.

Original article by Zo HaDerekh republished from People’s World under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/

Continue ReadingIsraeli police attack Communist Party’s Nazareth HQ on eve of May Day

50 wounded and 350 arrested as Israeli police storm al-Aqsa mosque

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/50-wounded-and-350-arrested-israeli-police-storm-al-aqsa-mosque

ISRAELI police stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem today, firing stun grenades at Palestinians inside who responded by throwing stones and firecrackers.

Outside the mosque’s gate, police dispersed crowds of young men with stun grenades and rubber bullets.

People arrested and later released from the compound said police had burst in and attacked worshippers, using truncheons, rifles and even chairs to strike men, women and children, with video footage appearing to confirm their accounts.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/50-wounded-and-350-arrested-israeli-police-storm-al-aqsa-mosque

Continue Reading50 wounded and 350 arrested as Israeli police storm al-Aqsa mosque

Jerusalem Pogrom: Extremist Jewish Mobs injure 100 Palestinians, chanting “Death to Arabs”

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( Middle East Monitor ) – The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines a pogrom as “a mob attack, either approved or condoned by authorities, against the persons and property of a religious, racial, or national minority”.That is exactly what is happening today against the Palestinian people in Jerusalem.

Middle EastEye: “Hundreds of far-right Israeli activists chant “death to Arabs” in East Jerusalem”

Palestinians are not a minority in Palestine – the country that lies between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. But due to Israel’s apartheid regime that has ruled the country since 1948, the majority of Palestinians were expelled from the areas that today form so-called “Israel proper”, and which many Palestinians term “1948 Palestine”.

Due to a slow process of Israeli ethnic cleansing since then, Palestinians are no longer the majority in Jerusalem. But in recent weeks that process has sped up in that city, the historic capital of Palestine.

Some truly terrifying clips have been circulated online – including by credible journalists – showing rampaging mobs of mostly young Israeli men attacking Palestinians in Jerusalem and chanting “Death to the Arabs” (while being incited and led by mainstream Israeli political and religious leaders).

This is not a new phenomenon, but it has increased in recent weeks, partly due to a ruling by an Israeli court demanding new expulsions of Palestinian families from the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

The families have been until the start of May to leave their homes and hand them over to Israeli settlers.

These actions by the apartheid state of Israel have only encouraged the “Death to the Arabs” hate mobs. And therein lies the key to understating the essence of a pogrom.

https://twitter.com/TamaraINassar/status/1385321445006397446?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1385321445006397446%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.middleeastmonitor.com%2F20210423-israels-pogroms-in-jerusalem%2F

A pogrom is carried out by violent mobs, who are deemed in the discourse of the government and of the corporate media to be “extremists”. There is no doubt that these mobs are far-right Jewish-supremacist extremists by any objective definition.

France 24 English: “More than 100 Palestinians wounded in Jerusalem clashes

https://videopress.com/embed/EsIdDFSj?hd=1&loop=0&autoPlay=1&permalink=0

But they are not extremists in terms of the mainstream of Israeli political discourse and – crucially – of the actions of the racist state itself.

You can see this very clearly in a viral video clip that was circulated by the American anti-Zionist group, Jewish Voice for Peace.

https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/1384898285777952769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1384898285777952769%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.middleeastmonitor.com%2F20210423-israels-pogroms-in-jerusalem%2F

The clip was from a 2009 film about Sheikh Jarrah. But as JVP notes, it could easily have been filmed today. Expulsions of Palestinians by mobs of highly ideological religious Zionist fanatics are still frequently carried out, in the same way seen in the clip.

But the most telling part of the video is perhaps not so much the actions of the mob itself, but how they are endorsed and backed by the racist state.

You see the thugs of Israel’s highly-armed military “Border Police” force standing by and watching the takeover, making sure that the Palestinians are not able to defend themselves or their homes.

This is the very definition of a pogrom.

In the clip posted by JVP, Israeli settler leader Jonathan Yosef is shamelessly explicit about all this, saying: “We take house after house. All this area will be a Jewish neighbourhood … We are going to the next neighbourhood and after that we’ll go [to] more. Our dream [is] that all East Jerusalem will be like West Jerusalem. [A] Jewish capital of Israel.”

He then gives a far clearer, far more honest – and frankly more accurate – definition of Zionism than the lying dissimulators of liberal and “left-wing” Zionism ever could (with their nonsense about “Jewish self-determination” in a country which has never been exclusively Jewish):

“I see this as a continuation of the Zionist project. The return to Zion. Is it at the Arabs’ expense? Yes. But our government institutions were also built at the expense of Arabs who lived here. And so was the state itself,” he says.”

Everything Yosef said in this definition of Zionism is objectively true. The difference though, is that he thinks that such violent, racist extremism is good and praiseworthy, while I (and the vast majority of people around the world) reject it as a horrifying injustice.

Yosef is no marginal figure or merely some obscure wild-eyed extremist. As my colleague David Sheen reports, he sits on Jerusalem’s city council for Shas – a religious extremist party which also happens to have won the third highest number of seats in Israel’s parliament in the election last month.

But the Palestinians show no sign of backing down, lying down, giving up, or, – in the words of Zionism’s racist founder Theodor Herzl – allowing Israel to “spirit the penniless population across the border” of Palestine.

Middle East Monitor

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Continue ReadingJerusalem Pogrom: Extremist Jewish Mobs injure 100 Palestinians, chanting “Death to Arabs”