The celebration of the conquest of the Palestinian part of the city by the Hebrew state, in 1967, gave rise to verbal and physical violence that the government tried to minimize.
by
Jerusalem suffered an unprecedented surge of recent memory on Sunday May 29, during the celebration of the conquest of his eastern part by Israel in 1967. A “flags walk” through the Palestinian districts that the main officials of the Israeli government have presented despite the evidence as a popular and consensual festival, only tarnished by some extremists.
Under the protection of 3,000 police officers, some 70,000 people paraded in the old town, seeking to erase two previous ones. In 2020, the epidemic due to the Coronavirus had canceled this march. In 2021, the government then led by Benyamin Netanyahu had prohibited the crossing of the Arab districts. He feared that the city under tension for months would explode. Despite this decline, Hamas had pulled a salvo from roquettes over the holy city, opening eleven days of war in Gaza.
This year, the day begins with a crowd under the bridge which leads to the esplanade of the mosques – Le Mont du Temple for the Jews. Young people from all Israel and the West Bank colonies stack their backpacks under the gates. In their overwhelming majority, they do not live in Jerusalem and know their capital “reunified”. They want to go up to the Holy of Saints. This act, a challenge to the prohibition of large rabbis, normalizes from year to year. On Sunday, nearly 2,600 people went there. A record.
Some brandish Israeli flags on the esplanade. They pray and sing, while the police prohibit access to young Muslims and Palestinian journalists. The status quo, this arrangement supposed to reserve since 1967 the esplanade of the wall of lamentations at Jewish prayer and preserve the autonomy of the Holy Muslim places, shatters.
Men’s clusters governing in the streets of the old town, forming crowd over the hours. They are young, very young, and burst their testosterone by passing the door of Damascus, the north entrance. These are largely the scouts, the students of the Yeshivas and the preparation schools in the military service of the religious Zionist movement, which represents 12 % of the Israeli population.
The police prevent punctual violence, but they let strokes and flags against the storefronts of the shops. She struggles to intervene, when an Israeli brandishes a pistol against Palestinians at the top of Al-Wad Street. Then when another spray gas with pepper a Palestinian old woman, who raised his fist against him, while one of his comrades strikes her with the foot. A crescent-red stretcher evacuates this woman, under throwing bottles. Young people sing: “Death to the Arabs”, “[The Prophet] Muhammad is dead”, “that your village burns” and this refrain: “Shuaffat is on fire”, a reference to the murder of the Palestinian adolescent Mohammed Abou Khdeir , burned alive in 2014.
You have 45.67% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.