Jerusalem suffered an outpouring of hatred unprecedented in recent memory, Sunday, May 29, during the celebration of the conquest of its eastern part by Israel in 1967. A “flag march” through Palestinian neighborhoods that the main Israeli government officials have presented despite the evidence as a popular and consensual party, tarnished only by a few extremists.
Under the protection of 3,000 police, some 70,000 people marched through the Old City, seeking to erase two precedents. In 2020, the epidemic due to the coronavirus had canceled this march. In 2021, the government then led by Benyamin Netanyahu banned the crossing of Arab neighborhoods. He feared that the city under tension for months would explode. Despite this setback, Hamas fired a salvo of rockets at the Holy City, opening eleven days of war in Gaza.
This year, the day begins with a gathering under the bridge that leads to the Esplanade of the Mosques – the Temple Mount for the Jews. Young people from all over Israel and the West Bank settlements pile their backpacks under the railings. The overwhelming majority of them do not live in Jerusalem and know little about their “reunified” capital. They want to go up to the holy of holies. This act, a challenge to the prohibition of the great rabbis, is normalized from year to year. On Sunday, nearly 2,600 people went there. A record.
Some wave Israeli flags on the esplanade. They pray and sing, while the police deny access to young Muslims and Palestinian journalists. The status quo, this arrangement supposed to reserve since 1967 the esplanade of the Wailing Wall for Jewish prayer and to preserve the autonomy of Muslim holy places, is shattered.
Clusters of men scatter in the streets of the Old City, forming crowds as the hours go by. They are young, very young, and burst their testosterone as they pass through the Damascus Gate, the northern entrance. These are largely the scouts, students of yeshivas and schools of preparation for military service of the religious Zionist movement, which represents 12% of the Israeli population.
The police prevent occasional violence, but they allow the beating of sticks and flags against the shop fronts. She struggles to intervene when an Israeli brandishes a gun against Palestinians at the top of Al-Wad Street. Then when another sprinkles pepper spray on an old Palestinian woman, who raises her fist against him, while one of his comrades kicks her. A stretcher from the Red Crescent evacuates this woman, under jets of bottles. Young people sing: “Death to the Arabs”« [le Prophète] Muhammad is dead “Let your village burn” and this chorus: “Shuaffat is on fire”a reference to the murder of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abou Khdeir, who was burned alive in 2014.
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