DEFCON Jerusalem
The holy city is on edge as violence and religious tension test its social fabric
Tension in Jerusalem has reached new heights after the attempted assassination of Yehudah Glick and the subsequent killing of the suspect in the assassination. Jerusalem is the No. 1 story across all the Friday morning papers, with each speculating about the city’s future.
“High tension in Jerusalem,” reads the headline of Israel Hayom. Inside, it gives a round-up of the latest developments, including Fatah’s declaration of a “Day of Rage” in response to Thursday’s closure of the Temple Mount by police. The closure has been lifted for Friday prayers (for women of all ages and men over 50), but thousands of police will still be deployed around the city to prevent rioting.
Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino urged calm from both sides, saying, “Everyone’s goal here is to calm the situation and return to normal. I request of everyone, without exception, including all community leaders and politicians: This is not the time to make statements.”
Not a politician, Israel Hayom columnist Hami Shein writes, “The struggle today in Jerusalem is about the Jews’ right to live in security and peace in their nation-state.” Shein lays the blame for the spiraling tension squarely on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
“Mahmoud Abbas, the chief instigator, is more dangerous than Yasser Arafat. He wants to set fire to Jerusalem in order to focus attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
For Shein, the only way out of the current situation is to stay the course: Keep building in Jerusalem, including East Jerusalem, and give Jews the right to pray on the Temple Mount.
Over in the more left-leaning Yedioth Ahronoth, the paper covers the death of Mu’taz Hijazi, the suspected attacker of Yehudah Glick. “Within 8 hours the assassin was assassinated,” reads the article headline, and the paper describes Hijazi as a former security prisoner who still somehow got a job at the restaurant at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, which hosted the conference Wednesday where Glick was attacked.
The paper offers some unanswered questions about Hijazi and the assassination attempt, such as, “How was a security prisoner, who was held in solitary confinement and attacked other prisoners, able to get a handgun?” and “Did the police or the Shin Bet [Israel’s internal security service] have any warnings about a possible attack against Glick?”
The paper also includes an update on Glick’s condition, saying that he has improved a bit, but is not out of danger yet. Glick’s brother, Dr. Yitzhak Glick, said, “I’m asking the Israeli public to pray with us that he will survive this.”
Haaretz takes a look at a new phenomenon coming out of East Jerusalem: the lone terrorist. The paper writes that since 2008, when things were quiet in the West Bank, “Israelification” in East Jerusalem brought development and money, but also renewed a sense of Palestinian national identity. The recent terror attacks in Jerusalem have all (apparently) come from lone terrorists not organized by any terror group. The paper writes that this is problematic for police, who have developed methods to deal with stone-throwers and organized terror groups, but not with lone terrorists.
The editorial in Haaretz tackles the “Temple Mount bomb” and argues against changing the status quo on the holy site to allow Jews to pray there. Over the past two years, the paper notes, both the police and the Shin Bet have warned that changing the status quo would be dangerous, but many politicians in Israel have not heeded the warning.
By pushing for a change in the status quo, politicians may push the national conflict with the Palestinians toward “a religious realm.”
It concludes: “Violence and stubbornly defiant messages will not help. Only diplomatic solutions that also take into account Palestinian and Muslim sensitivities will.”
Diplomatic dustups
While the front pages are preoccupied with Jerusalem, inside the papers there are plenty of diplomatic crises to go around. Israel Hayom reports on Sweden’s recognition of a Palestinian state on Thursday and the barbs traded back and forth between Stockholm and Jerusalem.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman responded to the recognition by recalling Israel’s ambassador to Sweden and saying, “Sweden needs to understand that relationships in the Middle East are more complex than the self-assembled furniture from Ikea.”
And just when you thought all the “chickenshit” from earlier in the week was cleaned up, US Secretary of State John Kerry also apologized for the anonymous comments in the now-infamous article in The Atlantic. Yedioth reports that Kerry called the comments “shameful and disgraceful.”
Kerry’s comments come after the White House also distanced itself from the comments, which appeared in an article on Tuesday. Yedioth reports that some members of Congress are upset, such as Congressman Pete Olson of Texas, who wants Obama to personally call Netanyahu and apologize.
While the US is trying to clear the air, Haaretz reports that an anonymous IDF source is criticizing the American-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq and Syria. “The US, Canada, and France are now on the same side as Hezbollah, Iran and Syria,” the officer worries.
The military source said that while there was an increased Iranian presence in Syria, neither Syria nor Iran has any desire to start a war with Israel. At the same time, the officer warns, while Israel’s deterrence in the north hasn’t disappeared, it may not be decisive in preventing a future conflict.
