Jewish nationalists can march through Muslim quarter, Old City, court rules

The youth celebrate the seizing of Jerusalem with the ‘dance of flags’, May 2010. Photo by Gili Yaari, photoshelter.com

Israeli High Court authorizes Jerusalem Day march

Despite objections, the Israeli High Court has authorized right-wing activists to hold the annual Jerusalem Day Flag Parade.

By Akiva Eldar, trans. Sandy Bloom, Al Monitor / Israel Pulse
May 13, 2015

A little more than a month has passed since the High Court of Justice rejected the argument that the law limiting the right to boycott organizations operating in the occupied territories harms the right of freedom of demonstration. The justices ruled that, in this case, the interest of the state takes precedence over freedom of expression, thus upholding the law against those boycotting settlements.

The same court rejected on May 11 the plea of the nongovernmental organization Ir Amim and Gadi Gvaryahu, the chairman of the Tag Meir grass-roots organization*, to change the route of the Jerusalem Day Flag Parade planned for May 17 and forbid the marchers from entering the Muslim Quarter. The verdict is full of flowery phrases denouncing violence.

The justices, headed by Vice President Elyakim Rubinstein, resolutely declared that there is “zero room for tolerance for those provoking violence, verbally or physically.” The justices even added, “Clear and uncompromised enforcement will be in place.” But the High Court of Justice, the same court accused by the right of “left-wing inclinations,” refused to offer assistance to the thousands of residents and merchants in the Muslim Quarter. Isn’t freedom of expression an important value in a democratic society? It is hard to understand why the justices believe that the police will succeed this year in restraining the marchers, when they failed in earlier years in the same location and by using the exact same methods. How will its policemen pursue lawbreakers in the crowded alleyways and stop the thousands of rioters among the crowd? Evidently, the Jerusalem district commander has the answers.

Members of the NGO Tag Meir: Tommy Hassoun, Ramzi Hassoun, and Gadi Gavryahu

There is no other parade like this in Israel: not in terms of its scope — 50,000-90,000 participants according to police estimates of recent years — and not in terms of its flagrancy. Tens of thousands of young adults and teenagers, mostly members of the religious Zionist community, march from the center of the west of the city to the heart of East Jerusalem. They celebrate — according to the Hebrew calendar — the day of the liberation/occupation of the east part of the city, holding it over the annexed/occupied residents.

In all fairness, not all the marchers exhibit racist and hooligan-type behavior, but it is hard to count the number of displays of enmity and racism that occur on the Jewish “holiday” that will reach its jubilee anniversary in 2017. Year after year, the same sights are repeated: the pounding on the locked doors of the Palestinian merchant stores, the cries of hatred, incitement and degradation such as “Muhammad is dead,” “May your village be burned down” and “Death to the Arabs.”

Vanguard of the religious right – an Israeli youth flies his flag in the Muslim quarter of the Old City. Photo by Reuters.

The merchants, who are forced by the police to stay off the streets for fear of their safety, watch the scenes and hear the voices behind the shutters of their locked homes. These scenes captured on film were submitted this week to the court.

Perhaps the justices’ verdict is for the best. To a large extent, the story of Jerusalem Day is the story of Jerusalem. A story that is worthy of being told. The Flag Parade began as the private initiative of the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva (a rabbinical college founded by the leader of the central stream of religious Zionism, Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook) on the first anniversary of the “reunification of the city.” The nightly march of the yeshiva students to the Western Wall Plaza, accompanied by singing and dancing, exemplified their unique perspective: that the military victory of the 1967 war is a sign of religious redemption. Over the years, students from other yeshivas joined them and the event was later held during daylight hours, to allow more celebrants to participate in the march.

Rabbi Yehuda Hazani, from the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva and one of the heads of the Gush Emunim settlement movement and the Committee on Behalf of the Prisoners of the Jewish Underground, is viewed as the founder of the march in its present format. Hazani, who was killed in an accident in 1992, turned the event into a national celebration. In fact, educational institutions funded by the state bused their students to it. Thus, by influencing the public consciousness, the settlers have succeeded in firmly fixing the view that their political stance is ostensibly shared by the public domain. Second, they deepen their physical control in the heart of Arab neighborhoods in the Old City and the adjacent neighborhoods in the Holy Basin.

A week ago, about 20 settlers entered another house in the Silwan neighborhood that touches the walls of the Old City. After years of struggle by members of the Ateret Cohanim organization, in the middle of the night settlers managed to enter the home of Abu Nab; this is close to “Beit Yonatan” and “Beit Dvash” that are already in their hands. The response of the Jerusalem municipality to the nocturnal operation was instructive indeed: “Jews have the right [to] live anywhere they choose in the world, especially in Jerusalem. … The Jerusalem municipality and Israeli police aren’t involved in the case. No warrant was imposed on the Arab residents. This is a civilian issue that has nothing to do with the authorities.”

Then there was the case of the Sabag and Hamad families from Sheikh Jarrah that was discussed May 13 in the Jerusalem District Court; that, too, was certainly viewed as purely a private or legal issue. The court does not consider the evacuation of Palestinians from the homes in which they have lived since 1956, and the transfer of these homes to Jews, a political matter. However, this kind of “population transfer” is viewed as a sensitive diplomatic issue in the international arena. But experience shows us that aside from the traditional choir of protests, “the world” will not lift a finger on behalf of the women, men, children and elderly who were evicted.