Israel claims to defend “freedom of worship” in Jerusalem, even though his police have injured, in recent weeks, hundreds of people on the mosques esplanade, the third holy place of Islam. Such violence, which culminated during the month of Ramadan, have continued since, a sign that the tension is far from falling. It is therefore enlightening to return to almost two centuries of history of “freedom of worship” in the holy city, which open with the Egyptian occupation of Syria and Palestine, withdrawn from 1831 to 1840 in the authority of Constantinople.
Cairo then decides to break the Ottoman taboo on the opening of European consulates in Jerusalem, a breach in which Great Britain rushes, followed by Prussia and France, this supporting Catholic orders Faced with Orthodox institutions sometimes tempted by tsarist “protection”. This rivalry by interposed Church leads the Ottoman sultan to define in 1852 relations between the various cults, a status quo inscribed in 1856 in the Treaty of Paris, after the Crimean War, where France and Great Britain support the Empire Ottoman against Russia.
A written status quo, but disputed
The very term “status quo” means that it is a question of freezing the positions and privileges of the different parties, in order to prevent recurring litigation from leaving open crises, above all between the “protectors “Churches concerned. Jewish worship is freely guaranteed in the historic synagogues of the old town, while a modern city is developing extra-muros, with 40,000 Jews for 30,000 Arabs in 1914 on the set of Jerusalem. But the Ottoman leaders prohibit the access of the esplanade of the mosques to the Jewish faithful who see the “Mount of the Temple”, as well as the fixed installations are prohibited in front of the Western wall of this esplanade, wall called “lamentations”, Yet the fundamental place of Jewish piety. These provisions are included after the British conquest of Jerusalem, in 1917, in the name of the status quo, hence the rejection of the Zionist proposal for the Western Wall and part of the district known as “Maghrebians”, which it adjoins and limits access. Riots broke out in 1920 around this sacred perimeter, the most serious disorders extending in 1929 to the rest of Palestine.
The end of the British mandate led, in 1948, to the proclamation of the State of Israel and to the First War with its Arab neighbors. The fights for Jerusalem are ferocious and end in the division of the holy city between a Western sector, incorporated into Israel, and an oriental sector, including the old town and its holy places, occupied, then annexed by Jordan. The state of war continues between the two countries, despite the ceasefire, with looting and fire of the synagogues of East Jerusalem, hence the Jewish population has disappeared.
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