This week, Monday July 24th to Sunday July 30th, was almost entirely consumed by the needless drama about prayers at Al Aqsa mosque. The story so far: on Friday July 14th three Israeli Palestinians emerged from the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount compound and, with home-made weapons, shot dead two Israeli Druze police officers. Israel police quickly […]

“The Palestinians joined together and forgot about their differences and that’s how we won.” No-one disagrees with that – but total security can only be achieved by a country like N. Korea whose broken citizenry are the secret agents. In the last fortnight, Israel’s police had no means of crushing mass prayer as a form of civil disobedience

Whichever it is it seems chaotic. Yossie Verter shows that in the process of deciding to instal the metal-detector gates to Haram al-Sharif, and then to de-instal them, Netanyahu and most of his security cabinet have not been in control. They seem feeble and frightened at having lost the plot.

Daoud Kuttab dubs it a new movement. Dr Inas Abbad asks ‘How can we use this new model of Palestinian struggle more widely and achieve other victories against the occupation?’ She has joined the peaceful mass prayer protest and she and Kuttab love its spontaneity and that of those who bring food and water.

Those whose religion in Palestine/Israel advocates love, humility and respect for the holy places of all religions have won revered status in the Al Aqsa conflict. That notion of religion is unifying and security forces find it hard to find a justification for attacking them.

This is a rather anachronistic attack by Asa Winstanley on the Labour party of the 1950s when Israel was admired by the left as a socialist start-up and Palestine was not the cause célèbre it is today. His charge of ‘advocating genocide’ is not borne out.

The conservative JPost called it unique. The more pro-Palestinian +972 asked how the world missed a week of Palestinian civil disobedience. Answer – this key aspect was either not reported or did not excite comment despite breaking the usual linkage of Palestinians and violence.

Israeli police still arrest Palestinian kids throwing stones but their policing has been greatly expanded by tours of duty on Facebook. Lots more arrests for ‘incitement’. And what of all those right-wing Israelis spewing hatred of Palestinians asks Edo Konrad. Plus Al Jazeera responds to the PM’s attack.

The hitherto little-known regional co-operation minister Tzai Hanegbi has at last claimed the limelight by posting a promise of Nakba-like revenge on the ‘religiously ignorant masses’ of Palestinians. Report in +972.

There is only one issue on which the highly antagonistic US parties lay down their arms, and that is defending Israel. This is the unique role that Israel plays in US politics. It is left to the NGOs, here led by the ACLU, to raise questions about why Israel alone is let off Human rights criteria.

A large majority of Israeli Jews think PM Netanyahu was wrong to have given in to pressure – Palestinian and international – to remove the metal detectors outside the gate to Al Aqsa mosque. He will not suffer. G-d forbid the Left might claim a victory.

The Israel that is suffering hits to its reputation by the BDS movement is not the essentially European Israel of innovative start-ups and technological co-operation which PM Netanyahu works so hard to market to the rest of the world. Akiva Eldar says his gov’t is deluded if it thinks the occupation does no harm to Israel.

In Al Jazeera, Harry Hagopian reminds us of the history of Israeli incursions on the Noble Sanctuary and the now-withered panArab defence of the site. Plus Bibi blames Al Jazeera for incitement.

The Israeli government, taking for granted Palestinian disunity and random opposition, assumed it had a chance to chase Palestinians away from Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. Instead their actions produced a rare unity between Fatah and Hamas and a number of NGOs in an angry opposition to their attempts at control. The climbdown of the Security Cabinet may be too little too late.

Or when ethnic and religious cleansing are the same thing. Since 1967 the Al Aqsa compound and Western Wall in Jerusalem have become the most fought-over symbols of possession and control. Fighting a symbolic war causes fewer deaths than actual war but still has major consequences.

Dan Cohen, in Electronic Intifada, runs though the Israelis who see ‘Temple Mount’ as the acme of their identity. The discourse is rarely conducted in the language of democratic politics – equality, justice – and rarely of religion. It is a language of the tribal right to control.

From the massacre at Deir Yassin through the ‘de-development’ of Gaza to the trial of strength – security v. religious freedom – at the Al Aqsa mosque.

Israel’s Security Cabinet met on Thursday to decide whether or not to remove the metal detectors from the entrance to the holy compound. Shin Bet advised they should be removed. But Bibi was more worried about what his hard-right rivals would say than by what Palestinians would do.

Sarah Helm talks to Palestinians in Gaza city where levels of mental and physical disability are unbearably high especially as scant medical and social services shrink even more. They feel helpless and hopeless, controlled by three rigid forces, Hamas, the PA and the IDF.

Three comments on the violence outside Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. A despairing Chemi Shalev says ‘You know the tragedy can be avoided, but no one seems to care’; Al Jazeera – of course the security clamp-down is increasing resistance; Hamas leader Haniyeh calls on “all Palestinians, all Muslims and Arabs to assemble for Al-Aqsa and mass demonstrations following tomorrow’s [Friday] prayers.”