Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike in Gaza on Tuesday.Credit:AP
The Israeli government,the surrounding Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority all desperately want the answer to be “no” – Israel because it would find little support from a left-leaning White House,let alone the rest of the world,for a big crackdown on Palestinians;the Arab governments because most of them want to do business with Israeli tech-makers,not get mired defending Palestinian rock-throwers;and the Palestinian leadership because it would expose just how little it controls the Palestinian street anymore.
But unlike the intifadas that began in 1987 and 2000,when Israel had someone to call to try to turn it off,there is no Palestinian on the other end of the phone – or,if there is,he’s a 15-year-old on his smartphone,swiping inspiration from TikTok,the video app often used by young Palestinians to challenge and encourage one another to confront Israelis.
Jack Khoury,an expert on the Arab dynamics of this conflict,put it wellin his analysis in Haaretz,writing that the engine of the Palestinian side of the protest “is the popular movement,” which is made up “mostly of the younger generation,which is not waiting for its political leadership – not the Palestinian Authority,nor Arab leaders in Israel or in the Gaza Strip. Over the past few days it has been reported that Hamas is trying to stoke the protest,but the Hamas leadership has no control over the events at all ... and so as the Israeli government sees it,there is no one address or person to turn to in order to hold a political discussion on the situation.”
But what sparked it all? The tinder was a collision of “sacred times” and “sacred territories,” Hebrew University religious philosopher Moshe Halbertal says,and then different actors threw matches to start a raging fire.
An Israeli police water cannon is deployed near the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem.Credit:AP
Specifically,this year’s Jerusalem Day – a national holiday commemorating the establishment of Israel’s control over East Jerusalem,the Old City and the Temple Mount in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war,thereby unifying East and West Jerusalem – was celebrated with prayer services at the Western Wall beginning Sunday night.
This Israeli sacred date roughly coincided with Muslims’ Laylat al-Qadr,or Night of Power,which fell this year on Saturday. It is considered not only the most sacred night of Ramadan but of the whole Islamic calendar. It commemorates the night when the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel and is marked by thousands of Muslims gathering at Al-Aqsa Mosque,near the Western Wall on the Temple Mount.