ISL statement, RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 05.05.2022
Like other imperialists when Israel says that X or Y happened you can never trust that it is true.
“The Israeli government has repeatedly said it is committed to the status quo. But footage of police turning a blind eye to Jewish worshipers has repeatedly cropped up in recent years, angering Muslims. [i] “The Jewish groups say they plan to wave the Israeli flag and sing Israel’s national anthem at the holy site in celebration of Independence Day” [ii]
“50% of Jewish Israelis support Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount, while 40% are against such prayer, according to a new poll by the Viterbi Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research of the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) published on Tuesday A larger majority of Likud, Religious Zionist, Yamina, New Hope and Yisrael Beytenu voters support Jewish prayer at the site, ranging between 65% to 75.5%.Most of the respondents who supported Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount stated that they did so because it would clarify the Jewish sovereignty at the site. Those against Jewish prayer at the site mostly stated that they were opposed because it could cause a severe response from the Islamic world” [iii] Not because it humiliates the Palestinians nor because it will lead to new clashes.
It is beyond a doubt that the decision of the Zionist government is aimed at encouraging the chauvinism of the Israeli Jews. It wants to prove to them that it is a true right-wing government. One of the questions to be asked is what will be the impact of this decision on Ra’am the Southern Islamist party that is a member of this government. Will it forced to quit the government and by this will bring the end to this right-wing government or stay in the coalition and be perceived as traitors to the Palestinians and Islam.
This decision brings to mind the events of 1929 that according to the Zionists false account was a Muslim pogrom against the Jews. It is false because pogroms are organized by the government not by oppressed people acting spontaneously against oppression. Al-Buraq Wall, known to Jews as the Wailing Wall, forms part of the western wall of the al-Aqsa mosque and is viewed by Muslims as a sacred site not to be bought or sold. For hundreds of years, it was under the control of the Muslims while Jews were permitted to pray there. At the end of the 1920s, a group of rabbis urged Jewish settler colonialists to gather at the wall to perform a public prayer. It was a place where the Zionists had been challenging Muslim control since the beginning of the Mandate, and especially since autumn 1928. [iv]
“On 15 August 1929, the Haganah and the Revisionist Bethar organized demonstrations at the Wall with Zionist flags and the Zionist national anthem, prompting counter protests by the Palestinians. The following week, several violent incidents between groups of Jews and Palestinian Arabs further fueled the tension. On 23 August, demonstrations after Friday prayers quickly turned violent and spread through Jerusalem’s Old City and then into the suburbs, leaving seventeen Jews dead. The following morning, the protest spread to Hebron, where an attack on the Jewish Quarter left more than sixty Jews dead and scores wounded. In the next few days, isolated clashes and attacks were noted in Haifa and Jaffa, and though the situation seemed to be calm by 27 and 28 August, on the afternoon of 29 August the protest erupted once again, this time in Safad. Some forty-five Jews were killed or wounded in Safad. At the same time Zionist settlers and the British armed forces killed Palestinians. —from 23 to 29 August— the official casualty counts listed 133 Jews killed and 339 wounded, mainly by Arab, and 116 Arabs killed and 232 wounded mainly by the British.
The British Authorities set up a commission of inquiry (the Shaw Commission) to inquire into the immediate causes that had led to the outbreak at al-Buraq / Western Wall disturbances, and to make recommendations as to the steps necessary to avoid a recurrence. The Commission submitted its report in March 1930.It said the fundamental cause, without which in our opinion disturbances either would not have occurred or would have been little more than a local riot, is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future. The origin and growth of this feeling are discussed on pages 150 to 153 of Chapter XIII. The feeling as it exists today is based on the twofold fear of the Arabs that by Jewish immigration and land purchase they may be deprived of their livelihood and in time pass under the political domination of the Jews.
In our opinion the immediate causes of the outbreak were:
a) The long series of incidents connected with the Wailing Wall which began on the Jewish Day of Atonement in September, 1928, and ended with the Moslem demonstration on the 16th of August, 1929. These must be regarded as a whole, but the incident among them which in our view most contributed to the outbreak was the Jewish demonstration at the Wailing Wall on the 15th of August, 1929. Next in importance we put the activities of the Society for the Protection of the Moslem Holy Places and, in a less degree, of the Pro-Wailing Wall Committee.
b) Exciting and intemperate articles which appeared in some Arabic papers, in one Hebrew daily paper and in a Jewish weekly paper published in English.
c) Propaganda among the less-educated Arab people of a character calculated to incite them.
d) The enlargement of the Jewish Agency.
e) The inadequacy of the military forces and of the reliable police available
f) The belief, due largely to a feeling of uncertainty as to policy, that the decisions of the Palestine Government could be influenced by political considerations.
RECOMMENDATIONS
We would preface this summary by stating that we attach the highest importance to our first recommendation that His Majesty’s Government should consider the advisability of issuing a clear statement of policy, the value of which would be greatly enhanced if it dealt with the points which we set out in paragraph 46 (b) below. Our recommendations in regard to the immigration and land questions are largely based on the assumption that in their definition of policy His Majesty’s Government will clearly state that the rights and position of non-Jewish communities in Palestine are to be fully safeguarded” [v]
In 1967 the Zionist army occupied East Jerusalem including the Western Wall and the al Aqsa Mosques. It turned the Al-Buraq Wall / Western Wall to Zionist state property and a few times the Zionist state provoked the Palestinians over the issue of the Al Aqsa. The most known one was in 2000 when Sharon, protected by the police, entered the Mosques compound. A Palestinian uprising, known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, erupted in 2000 following the visit to the compound by right-wing politician Ariel Sharon. He later became Israel’s prime minister.
Returning to the clashes in the Mosques compound of today, “Per their recent custom, they began rioting and throwing objects from within while causing damage to the mosque and desecrating it,” a police statement said… Palestinian witnesses said there was no sign of stone-throwing initially and that the scuffles broke out after officers went to arrest a Palestinian for chanting “Allah-u Akbar” (God is greatest) at the Jewish visitors.” [vi]
“The group of the ultra- right Zionists that The Jerusalem Post joined, as well as a number of other groups that visited the site on Thursday, repeatedly refused to listen to police instructions and sang prayers and the Israeli national anthem, Hatikva, despite repeated requests by officers to follow police regulations that forbid noticeable prayer and any national symbol. Some activists also succeeded in waving Israeli flags at the site before being quickly removed by police”. [vii]
The ultra- right Zionists have realized that the police instructions are not being enforced and are encouraged to further provoke the Palestinians. The ultra- right movement in Israel is growing. They are seeking to destroy the Mosques and replace them with a Jewish third temple. This cannot be accomplished without a new ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Most North African and Arab Israelis want to keep the Palestinians as cheap labor under occupation as they understand that a new ethnic cleansing will push the Arab Jews to the same position they were before 1967 at the lowest step of the class pyramid. Thus, what we see today in Israel is the contradiction between ideological aspiration for Zionist sovereignty over the Mosques and building the third Jewish temple and on the other hand class interest of the Arab Jews of keeping the Palestinians as the main source of cheap labor. This contradiction can be changed if Israel will find enough cheap labor as guest workers which is possible in the new economic situation following the war in the Ukraine. Meanwhile we see a government that is encouraging the ultra-right aspiration while pretending to keep the status quo. This will continue as long as the Zionist apartheid state will exist.
The semi-Zionist reformists like Hadash argue that the program of one Palestinian socialist state from the river to the sea will lead to another mass ethnic cleansing. However even to get a mini-Palestinian state along -side Israel, requires a revolution. For this revolution to win it must be part of a victorious Arab revolution. Why a victorious Arab revolution will agree to a Zionist state on 80% of Palestine? What Hadash really says is do not fight for a revolution which means accept your oppression.
Down with the Zionist apartheid state!
For a Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnote:
[i] https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-warns-israel-playing-with-fire-as-temple-mount-groups-plan-thursday-visit/
[ii] Ibid
[iii] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-705879
[iv] Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem: Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), chapter 3.
[v] https://www.paljourneys.org/en/timeline/historictext/21720/report-shaw-commission-al-buraq-western-wall-disturbances-august-1929
[vi] www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-israeli-police-clash-as-temple-mount-reopens-to-jewish-visitors/
[vii] https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-705904