Author: KPSC

Israel’s politicians promote religion and intolerance.

Special Report: Six Days of War, 50 Years of Occupation / The Economist
May 20, 2017

“I am not so concerned about security and more concerned about what happens in Israel. This issue divides us. It creates hate and chauvinism. I don’t want Israel to become hell.”
— Israel Harel, a veteran of the Israeli settler movement

THE SIGN AT the entrance is clear: “According to Torah Law entering the Temple Mount area is strictly forbidden due to the holiness of the site.” Rabbinical tradition holds that Jews may not set foot on any part of the esplanade atop Jerusalem’s holiest site. Once the location of the Jewish temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD, the area has for centuries been a Muslim compound comprising the al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock. Because the location of the Holy of Holies (the inner sanctum of the former temple) is unknown, say the rabbis, ritually impure Jews might accidentally enter and defile it. These days Jews mostly pray outside, at the base of the retaining wall, known as the Western Wall, or Kotel.

Nonetheless, Jewish zealots venture into the al-Aqsa compound almost every day, ostensibly as tourists. The police let them jump the queue of foreigners and form a protective cordon as they perambulate the Dome of the Rock, amid curses from Muslim worshippers. Sometimes they stand silently, gazing at it longingly. They are filmed by the police, who are supposed to ensure that they do not attempt to pray. One trick is to address God while pretending to speak on a mobile phone.

Continue reading “Right v. Far Right: Politics in Israel No Longer Offers Much of a Choice”

A guide to the ABC of the conflict.

Special Report: Six Days of War, 50 Years of Occupation / The Economist
May 20, 2017

Between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean, the overall number of Palestinians has more or less caught up with the number of Jews: about 6.5m for each. Palestinian statisticians say Arabs will equal Jews by the end of the year; Israeli demographers reckon the high birth rate among the ultra-Orthodox will keep Jews just ahead.

THE SIX-DAY WAR increased Israel’s territory threefold. The “borders of Auschwitz” were gone; the vulnerable nine-mile narrow waist acquired a thick cuirass with the mountains of the West Bank. Israel soon annexed East Jerusalem with some surrounding land; it did the same with the Golan Heights in 1981. Elsewhere, it left the status of the occupied territories undefined, waiting for a peace that never came even as Jews settled there.

After the Yom Kippur war of 1973, when Israel was caught off-guard by Egypt and Syria, America mediated a limited “disengagement” in Sinai and the Golan. In 1979 Israel agreed to give back all of Sinai under a peace treaty with Egypt.

The Oslo accord of 1993 set out a five-year period of Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It left the hardest issues — borders, settlements, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees — to be sorted out later. The interim arrangements created a crazy quilt of territories: in Area A, the main Palestinian cities, the Palestinian Authority was given full civil and security control; in Area B, mostly taking in Palestinian villages, it had civil-affairs and some law-and-order powers, but Israel retained ultimate security control; in Area C, the biggest zone, encompassing settlements, access roads, nature reserves and so on, Israel kept full control (see map).

Continue reading “Peace, Or in Pieces? How the 1967 War Changed the Shape of Israel”