'Call it an intifada, call it a popular uprising'

Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters carrying Fatah flags following a rally on November 2, 2014 at the Qalandia checkpoint north of Jerusalem. Photo by Issam Rimawi/Flash90

Israel must quell this third intifada immediately

Analysis: The attacks in Jerusalem, which receive Abbas’ blessing, illustrate the need for Israel to separate the two populations in the capital, and give up the pretence of happy cohabitation between Jews and Arabs.

By Ron Ben-Yishai, Opinion, Ynet news
November 06.2014

Wednesday’s two hit-and-run terrorist attacks were carried out in the framework of efforts by Palestinian Islamist elements to affect a change in their favour in the status quo on the Temple Mount, and to prevent the Judaization of Jerusalem.

Unlike in the previous intifadas, however, the violence this time doesn’t appear to be orchestrated by the terror organizations; instead, the mood that is being stirred up in the streets is offering religious inspiration to individuals acting on their own – so-called local initiatives.

These attacks, however, are not planned initiatives; they are fired-up passions that are being translated into acts of violence carried out not in keeping with orders or instruction from an organized entity, but in keeping with the passions of the attacker, who chooses the location, the means and the method himself. And thus the high number of hit-and-run attacks, which can be readily carried out by residents of the united Jerusalem, where Jews and Arabs live among one another.

One should note an important fact: The attacks in Jerusalem, in contrast to the violence throughout Judea and Samaria, receive Mahmoud Abbas’ explicit blessing. The Palestinian Authority leader uses the alleged danger posed to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a means of promoting his political strategy, which is aimed at achieving international recognition of a Palestinian state in line with the 1967 borders and the partitioning of Jerusalem in a manner that affords Palestinian control of the so-called Holy Basin.

The third component making up the fuel vapours in Jerusalem is the provocation on the part of activists from the radical, nationalist right or the nationalist-religious camp. Under the guise of a demand – in itself legitimate – to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, these extremists are fanning the fires among the Palestinians and giving them an opportunity to prove that the Temple Mount is supposedly in danger. They are doing so intentionally.

The Jewish extremists are trying to spark a widespread conflagration that will prompt the army and police into expelling all Muslims from the Temple Mount area and eliminating the opposition to Jewish settlement activity in Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. This demand is being accompanied by a second one that isn’t voiced out loud: “Deal with them with a firm hand” – or in other words, kill Arab rioters.

Israel’s government, which wants to prove that it preserves freedom of worship in united Jerusalem, and doesn’t want a widespread conflagration that would mobilize the entire Muslim world against us, has relayed explicit instructions both to the Israel Police and the Israel Defense Forces to avoid killing Palestinian rioters – despite the fact that the rioters are doing all they can to drag the IDF into killing and, thereby, creating a few more martyrs to help spark a large regional flare-up.

Palestinians riot in Shuafat. Photo by Getty Images

The leaderships of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, along with Salafi organizations in the Gaza Strip and those that exist underground in the West Bank, are only hoping for corpses and funerals – just like the right-wing extremists, who are hoping for a war to end all wars, from which the IDF and Israel at large will emerge victorious in the conflict with the Muslim world, and gone, too, will be the vision of two states for two peoples.

It’s hard to believe, but hiding behind the hit-and-run attack, which appears to have been the act of a man driven insane by religion, are the diabolical strategies, theological in essence, of Palestinian and Jewish extremists.

This is the essence of the third intifada, which we are currently experiencing. Jerusalem’s harsh and violent clashes, which are claiming lives, are overshadowing the Palestinians’ modus operandi in Judea and Samaria, which exists but is not yet claiming lives. This method of operation is expressed in attempts to deploy small IEDs, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, and attempted knife attacks on security forces.

Why then are the flames burning so high in Jerusalem, whereas we barely hear anything about events in the West Bank? The reason is that Jews and Palestinians don’t come into direct contact with one another in the West Bank – aside from on the roads.

Another reason: Mahmoud Abbas’ security forces operate throughout the West Bank and prevent flare-ups. This is exactly what the IDF and Shin Bet security service do, and they are always stationed in potential hot spots. The Israel Police’s combat operations in Jerusalem take place under much tougher conditions, in an urban area where they are exposed, in which it is easy to organize a terror attack, and where there’s nothing that comes between the attackers and their victims. And the Palestinian Islamists – constantly fired-up, not only by Hamas and the other Islamist terror groups, but also by Abbas – take full advantage of this fact.

Such circumstances require an effort, first and foremost, to affect a separation between Jews and Palestinians, in Jerusalem . Yes, the Jerusalem we insist on saying is united, and yet is actually home to active conflict between Jews and Arabs. There’s a need at this point in time to set up roadblocks and checkpoints, particularly around the seam line areas; this will prevent or hinder cars and extremists from both sides from coming into contact with one another.

Israeli border police officers stand guard at the scene a day after a car ramming attack, in Jerusalem, Nov. 6, 2014.  Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told VOA on Thursday more than a thousand extra officers have been deployed in and around Jerusalem.

“And also yesterday evening in joint coordination with the municipality, we set up concrete blocks at the majority of the entrances to the light rail stops in order to prevent vehicles from pounding into innocent civilians on the sidewalk,” Rosenfeld said.

There’s a need now to stop the pretence of volatile freedom of worship on and around the Temple Mount, and thus soothe the passions somewhat. These measures must be explained to both the Palestinians and the Israelis.

After the fires have died down, additional measures can be implemented to keep things quiet in the long term. Yes, an iron first is required right now to maintain security in Jerusalem; but it must be used wisely, so that the efforts to douse the fires don’t cause a bigger blaze.

We need to recognize the fact that many Palestinians have more than one motive to kill Jews, apart from the religious one. Wednesday’s attacker, too, was probably acting under the influence of a family member, who was previously detained in Israel and released as part of the Gilad Shalit deal. When personal motives are boosted by religious fervor, it is very difficult to apprehend or identify the perpetrator. This combination, by the way, is the secret of Islamic State’s success, and the motivation for its savagery.

Wednesday’s hit-and-run incident is also proof that all those who opposed the deal to release the terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit on the grounds that the move would undermine the security of Israel’s citizens were right.

Now, however, is not the time for protests and long-term conclusions. Now is the time to quell the third intifada before it gets out of control; and to this end, Israel’s security forces and the Americans must pressure Abbas into stopping to try to take advantage of this flare-up for his own purposes.

Israeli police stand over Palestinians they have arrested at a demonstration against restrictions placed on Muslim men accessing the Aqsa Mosque, October 15, 2014. Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org

The battle over Jerusalem’s sovereignty

Analysis: All the Palestinian factions, without exception, have created a combined front aimed at shaking off the Israeli control of Jerusalem. In order to stop PA’s encouragement of violence, Israel can either resume peace talks or use more force.

By Alex Fishman, Ynet news
November 06, 2014

Call it an intifada, call it a popular uprising, call it serious riots. The semantics won’t change the fact that there is a bitter and violent battle taking place here over the sovereignty in Jerusalem.

All the Palestinian factions, without exception, have created a combined front aimed at shaking off the Israeli control of Jerusalem.

Every sector on this front has its own immediate interest. Hamas encourages violence in Jerusalem in order to maintain its status in the national struggle and cover up the paralysis it was struck with along the borders in Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority sees the violence in Jerusalem as a key political tool in the diplomatic intifada it is waging against Israel on the international front. Since Operation Protective Edge, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly announced that he will do everything in his power to present Palestine neither as an authority nor as an entity, but as a “state under occupation.” The images of fire in the city of Jerusalem, which focus the world’s attention, are classic images of occupation.

The Palestinians are also making more and more use of terminology taken from the Nazi occupation of the big cities of Europe in order to encourage the loathing towards Israel on the European street.

As the flames in Jerusalem rise higher, an increasing number of countries will gladly rush to unilaterally recognize the occupied Palestinian state. Sweden was the first one and all the rest are on their way – until the international mass is recruited to impose a diplomatic solution on Israel.

Moreover, when Jerusalem is on fire, Abbas makes the following clear to Israel: In a place where we – the PA – are not present, you are incapable of controlling the population. If we’re not in Jerusalem, you get embroiled in violence. The moment we decide to stop the coordination with your security organizations in the West Bank, you will get into trouble there as well.

But Israel continues to disregard him.

When Abbas announced several weeks ago that he plans to downgrade his ties with Israel to a minimum and hand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the keys, his intention wasn’t to dismantle the PA, as Israeli officials interpreted and chuckled. What he meant was that the PA would no longer serve as a tool in Netanyahu’s hands to control the West Bank’s Arab residents.

He fulfilled this promise of his in Jerusalem. The PA is letting Israel rack its brains there. It’s true that the Palestinians in Jerusalem are suffering and getting arrested, but as far as the PA is concerned, it’s part of the struggle and it’s worthwhile. It’s not that the PA isn’t intervening. On the contrary, it’s inciting and fanning the flames.

Palestinians in Jerusalem protesting against Israeli restrictions on their freedom of movement on Friday October 31, 2014. Photo by Muammar Awad / APA images

In Israel, the political foolishness is disguised with a show of patriotism. Someone, for example, decided several days ago to close the Temple Mount. This fell into Abbas’ hands like a ripe fruit: Why he would have paid for us to close the emotionally charged area, fight with the Jordanians, irritate Israel’s Arabs and ignite the Islamic world.

And after all that, we still don’t understand why the Jordanians recalled their ambassador to Israel. “How could they do this to us on the day an Israeli is murdered by a Palestinian in the heart of Jerusalem?” the Israeli citizen asks himself. “What happened to the Jordanians? Have they decided to encourage the murder of Israelis?”

The answer has nothing to do with the murder. No one told the public that only recently, Netanyahu promised Jordan’s King Abdullah that he would work to quell the situation in Jerusalem. The king had every reason to believe that Netanyahu would do everything in his power to prevent provocations from the people under his control.

Patrols by armed police have increased. Photo by Getty Images.

Only several hours had passed since he made the promise, and members of the prime minister’s coalition already began making provocative statements about violating the status quo on the Temple Mount, and even went up there ostentatiously, which led to a flare-up and closure of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Jordanians said the prime minister was not a man of his word, and that the Israelis only understood sanctions and force, and announced that they were recalling the ambassador, thereby supporting the instigation and incitement on the Palestinian side.

In order to calm the situation in Jerusalem, Israel must first and foremost make it not worthwhile for the Palestinian Authority to encourage the continuation of violence in Jerusalem. This can be achieved in two ways. The first is opening a door to renewed peace negotiations, and there is no chance of this happening in the current political constellation.

The second way is using more force, which Israel knows how to do very well: Roadblocks in Jerusalem, preventing Palestinians from crossing into Israel from the West Bank, harassment at the roadblocks, more arrests, searches, making economic decisions which will negatively affect the PA, imposing a closure on certain areas and bringing in more forces, more police and more Shin Bet officers in order to make the residents’ life miserable. Why we are champions in using force.

In order to protect the pick-up stops and light rail stations, the operational sages decided within hours Wednesday to bring back the concrete blocks. This will surely be followed by the recommendations to create a separation – at a cost of tens of millions of shekels – between the road level and the train level, perhaps even place an armed steel rail in front of the stations to make it impossible for a vehicle to deviate and hit passengers.

These are more or less the solutions Israel knows how to create in these situations. And if they don’t make this decision now – they will surely do it after the next terror attack.