Jerusalem, on a Knife's

Edge
Stabbing attacks and random acts of Palestinian terror have
brought the violence in Gaza and the West Bank into the heart of
Israel.

BY JONATHAN SCHANZER-NOVEMBER 10, 2014

This is not the Third Intifada. At least, it probably isn't. But

the persistent violence that has racked Jerusalem could certainly spark a
wider popular protest movement across the Palestinian territories. Call it
Jerusalem's Arab Awakening.
In recent weeks, the holy city has seemed to be on the edge of an
explosion. On Nov. 5, Ibrahim al-Akri killed an Israeli border guard and
wounded three when he drove his car into a crowd. Two weeks before,
Abdelrahman al-Shaludi killed a 3-month-old baby and a 22-year-

old woman and wounded at least six others in a similar vehicular attack.
The latter two perpetrators hailed from the East Jerusalem neighborhoods
of Shuafat and Silwan.
The violence only seems to be spreading. On Monday, Nov. 10, two Israelis
were killed by Palestinian men in separate stabbing attacks in the West
Bank and Tel Aviv. Last Friday, in the Lower Galilee town of Sakhnin, Israeli
police shot and killed a man wielding a knife, setting off protests and rockthrowing among Palestinian youth.
The Jerusalem attacks, which have taken place against the backdrop of
months of sporadic violence in East Jerusalem, mark a watershed moment
for the city's Arab community. This could be the first time since the Wailing
Wall riots of 1929 -- arguably the violent turning point in the PalestinianIsraeli conflict -- that Jerusalem is the epicenter of Palestinian unrest.
Since the Israelis conquered the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, it
has always been actors from these territories who have served as the
driving forces behind Palestinian unrest against Israel. For example, the first
spark for the First Intifada came from Gaza, after an Israel Defense Forces
vehicle collided with a truck full of Palestinian workers, killingfour. The
funerals led to mass protests, which soon swept across both territories.
The Second Intifada erupted after then opposition leader Ariel Sharon's tour
of the Temple Mount, the platform atop the ruins of the Jewish Second
Temple that is also home to Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The
uprising was even called the Al-Aqsa Intifada. However, the impetus for the
unrest came from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority leadership.
Prior to the outbreak of the intifada, Palestinian President Yasser
Arafat called young members from his Fatah faction "the new generals" and
threatened to "launch a new intifada" in order to establish an independent
Palestinian state. The Israelis went so far as tocorner Arafat in his

compound in Ramallah in a bid to quell the violence.

If anything, Jerusalem Arabs have traditionally stayed out of the fray. Much
of this likely has to do with the Arab businesses -- many in the Old City -that rise and fall based on tourism or are otherwise tied to the Israeli
economy. But mercantile interests don't explain everything: A surprising
poll released in 2011 indicated that some 40 percent of Jerusalem Arabs
preferred to live in Israel rather than a future Palestinian state; 85 percent
of Jerusalem Arabs also elected not to vote in the 2006 Palestinian
elections.
This desire not to rock the boat with Israel, however, may have run its
course. The first sign of trouble came right after the abduction and brutal
murder this summer of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian
resident of Shuafat, by three Israelis, two of whom had histories of mental
illness.
Before it could even be established whether the killing was motivated by
nationalism, Shuafat descended into utter chaos. Protesters threw rocks
and Molotov cocktails at border police while rioters destroyed the light-rail
station that passed through the heart of town.
Ever since, Shuafat has refused to die down. The unrest persisted
throughout this summer's Gaza war between Israel and the Palestinian
Islamist faction Hamas. As the death toll mounted and images of Gaza's
destruction appeared day after day on their television screens, other
Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods also erupted in protest, including Issawiya
and Abu Tor. The areas immediately surrounding the Old City also saw their
share of tire burning, rock throwing, and other forms of protest.
The Israel Police reported that between July and September, 740 individuals
were arrested in East Jerusalem for "disturbing the peace," and 246
indictments have been filed. Another report suggested that incidents of

violence against Jews living in East Jerusalem neighborhoods nearly doubled

from less than 200 in July 2013 to 360 in July 2014.
Meanwhile, the Temple Mount has become a flash point for conflict, adding
even more religious significance to the rising tensions. In August, hundreds
of Israelis ascended onto the platform on the Jewish holiday of Tisha B'Av,
which commemorates the destruction of the first and second Jewish
temples in Jerusalem. Angrily rejecting Jewish claims to the holy site,
masked Palestinians erupted in violence for two days straight, attacking
police with stones and firebombs. But it did not end there. In late
September, Palestinian youths shot firecrackers and threw stones at police
officers from the Temple Mount. That same month, the Kuwaiti foreign
minister made a high-profile visit to the holy site, where he affirmed
Palestinian and Arab claims to the contested holy site and echoed concerns
among many Palestinians that Jerusalem is undergoing a process of
"Judaization."
In an apparent attempt to buck this trend, Moataz Hijazi of East
Jerusalem shot Jewish activist Yehuda Glick at close range on Oct. 29,
leaving him in serious condition. Glick is a prominent opponent of the Israeli
law that prohibits Jews from praying on the Temple Mount, in part to prevent
exactly the kind of unrest we are seeing today. He argues that the Temple
Mount is, in fact, the holiest site of the Jewish people and that Jews should
be allowed to pray there.
Glick, who is recovering from his gunshot wounds, is not a lone voice.
Several Israeli lawmakers are pushing to lift the prohibitions against Jewish
prayer on the Temple Mount. One is Likud parliamentarian and Knesset
Deputy Speaker Moshe Feiglin, who took a tour of the Temple Mount with a
formidable security entourage on Nov. 2, soon after Glick's shooting.
Feiglin said that he sought to "change the reality" of the ban on Jewish

prayer at the site and argued that "the giving up of Israeli sovereignty on
the Temple Mount will lead to conceding Jerusalem and the whole country."
That a majority of Israelis may not agree with Glick and Feiglin is, at this
point, almost inconsequential. The Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem
continue to seethe, and now some of the Arab Israelis from Israel's north
are getting into the act. Dozens of protesters in Kafr Kanna this weekend
hurled stones at police, set tires ablaze, and blocked the road leading into
town after Israeli security forces shot a 20-year-old who reportedly tried to
stab an officer.
Muslim world leaders -- including the king of Jordan and the president of
Turkey -- are calling for Israel to take steps to restore calm. The Arab media
has let loose a barrage of scathing editorials and programs that have, once
again, put the Middle East on edge.
This regional tension has added another layer of complexity to Israel's
response to the Arab Jerusalem Awakening. Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu will likely need to tread lightly, taking care to ensure that anger
from the Arab world or even some of Israel's European partners does not
lead to diplomatic eruptions or Israeli isolation. At the same time, he will
need to take a hard line domestically -- acting swiftly and decisively against
those who carry out attacks against Israelis and reaffirming Israel's
sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, including the Arab neighborhoods.
For now, the violence seems to be spiraling out of anyone's ability to control
it. Some 30 Palestinians were injured on Nov. 7 after Israeli forces
responded to unrest in the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem. On Nov.
9, Israeli media reported that Palestinians from Bir Nabala, a town near
Jerusalem, drilled and hammered a large hole in a wall along a West Bank
highway. Meanwhile, a new YouTube video extolling the virtues of vehicular
assault against Israelis is going viral.

Israel is, of course, eager to contain this Jerusalem Arab Awakening before it
becomes a trigger for wider Palestinian unrest. But even if relative calm can
be restored, the recent disturbances portend a long-term challenge. That
challenge is perhaps best symbolized by Shuafat's light rail, which city
planners deliberately ran through the Arab neighborhood to foster
coexistence. It won't be easy to find a new route for the rail. Nor will it be
easy to rebuild trust among those who use it.