Brutal tactics against Palestinians by Israeli police, following visits to the Al Haram Al Sharif by radical right-wing Jews, will provoke anger and violence. It is no coincidence that this is happening immediately after the first meeting of the Palestinian unity government, since the Israelis will want to wreck any progress made by the Palestinians.
The crisis started when the Israelis permitted the provocative visits by Jews to the Al Haram Al Sharif, during the Jewish festival of Sukkot. This grave misuse of religion was further aggravated by the eager attendance of Moshe Feiglin, a serving minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, who has run a long campaign to assert Jewish right to visit the Al Haram Al Sharif. Even after the visit was allowed, the Israeli police made things worse by attacking the Muslims protesting at the Jewish incursion and locking them into the Al Aqsa Mosque after they had fled police retaliation and barricaded themselves inside Al Aqsa.
For centuries, it has been established practice that Muslims have sole access to the Al Haram Al Sharif, in order to pray at the two important Muslim sites — the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque. Outside the boundaries of the Al Haram Al Sharif, the Jews have prayed at the Al Buraq Wall, the only definite part of their temple still standing, even if it is the Herodian foundation stones for the whole complex rather than their actual former temple. Many deeply religious Jews argue that it is impious for them to go into the Al Haram Al Sharif and they are very definite that Jews should stay at the Al Buraq Wall.
This separation was accepted by all sides and was a proper and workable arrangement under which, both religions had respect and were able to practice their faiths with dignity and honour. It was a tragedy that the mutual agreement was deliberately destroyed by right-wing Israelis, of whom, the fanatic nationalist Arial Sharon was a leader, and whose provocative visit to the Al Haram Al Sharif in 2000 led directly to the second Intifada. Netanyahu’s government should stop letting Israeli fanatics set its agenda and it should revert to the traditional practice of not allowing Jews in Al Haram Al Sharif.
