During its long history, Wikipedia informs us, occupied Jerusalem has been attacked 52 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, besieged 23 times and destroyed twice.
Somehow, all that history seems all the more relevant now, given the events of this past week there. Nothing, in its long and multi-ethnic and multi-religious history, has ripped that occupied city asunder as the very notion now that it should alone be the Jewish capital of Israel. That is a step too far for all Palestinians and those who support their cause, for all who follow the Muslim faith, and for Christians who follow the teachings of either the Roman or eastern Orthodox streams.
Even, it seems, given the murders of at least 100 Palestinians and the deliberate shooting and injuring of many hundreds more on the very day the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu basked in the opening of the new United States embassy there, moderate Jews — and there is such a demographic — have had enough. To mark the occasion of embassy opening, the administrators of the occupied city renamed one traffic roundabout in the city after US President Donald Trump.
Guatemala followed suit in moving its embassy there too. The rest of the international community, quite rightly, have ignored the grievous error, one that deliberately rips up six decades of international agreements and diplomatic protocols.
A football team in the city that boasts of never having signed a Muslim player, changed its name to include Trump in its title — and so much then for Uefa rules prohibiting political displays or symbols.
If the history of the city is indeed so volatile, so ever-changing, so long, then these latest events are temporary. It is, after all, an eternal city — but one that belongs to no single heritage at the expense and ignorance of all others.
Last week, I sat in Kinsale, in Ireland, and watched the Eurovision Song Contest unfold. It’s a smaltzy and cheesy affair, so bad that it demands viewing. Israel won the contest, and now the 2019 edition of the contest will be hosted there.
If ever there was a case to boycott the event, this is it.
The gormless gloating of Israeli broadcasters will be too much to bear, no doubt broadcasting from the occupied city.
It will no doubt shun the military checkpoints that make it impossible for most Palestinians to move freely about their city. It will fail to tell the story of how olive trees that have stood for hundreds of years are cut down to antagonise Palestinian land holders. Wells that have provided sweet water to animals and quenched the thirst of Arabs have been tainted and soured on purpose. Homes of families with deep roots and long histories, walls that have stood for centuries, are suddenly now deemed illegal by the occupation administration in its endless and purely political quest for Jewification. Around the occupied city, concrete structures divide and separate Palestinians from their neighbours. That won’t make the Eurovision broadcast.
The modern tram that travels across the occupied city may make some of the promo shots, but it won’t feature the Palestinian districts that the tram divides but doesn’t service.
No doubt, too, the producers of the broadcast might like to feature the new and modern suburbs. It won’t say that these are colonies, carved out of lands and farms stolen from Palestinians who have been scattered to refugee camps or herded into the Gaza Strip — one of the most densely populated places on the planet, where people are easy pickings for the occupation forces and its ultra-modern weaponry supplied and funded by Washington.
When you look at any photo of the skyline of occupied Jerusalem, the historic structure of Al Haram Al Sharif catches your attention. If you are to believe the government of Israel — and few, if any should, given its murderous record, blatant lies, and purely Zionist myopic vision — it is a place that is only of significance to Jews. How insulting. How wrong. How ignorant. And how dismissive of the traditions of Muslims and Christians, too. The area, that also contains Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, is the third-holiest site in Islam. Given Israel’s illegal and immoral occupation and its annexation of East Jerusalem since 1967, Al Haram Al Sharif remains a flashpoint, one where the occupation forces lack tack, sensitivity, gravitas and any legitimate standing. It is an area that has been under siege in recent years, with access shut down and curtailed — actions that fly in the face of long-standing international agreements.
If I ever get to occupied Jerusalem — better still when it is the capital of a Palestinians state — I will get my first tattoo there. Tucked away, in between Jaffa Gate and New Gate on St Francis Street, I will locate Razzouk Tattoo, one of the oldest tattoo establishments in the world, one that has tattooing Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. It’s a custom that began 700 years ago, and Wassim Rassouk’s ancestors used to mark Coptic Christians with a small cross on the inside of their wrists to grant then access to churches. I would also walk the Via Dolorosa across the old city, where tradition says it is the route walked by Jesus as he carried his cross to his crucifixion two millennia ago.
And I would also visit the Al Buraq Wall — as a nod, too, to the Jewish history of the occupied city.
If that tormented history of sieges and occupations tells us anything, it is that triumphs are fleeting, and those who have occupied Jerusalem and claimed it purely as their own have come and gone. So too this current regime will pass. It has no moral footing to stand on anyway.
Occupied Jerusalem is a city of all. It is not Israel’s alone. To say as much is to be ignorant of history — and be bound to repeat its mistakes. Occupied Jerusalem belongs to all.
