Seismic Sukkot

The Sukkot holiday has a charming, but relatively unassuming place in the rhythm of American Jewish life. Arriving on the heels of the much more commanding Days of Awe, and lacking the powerful seasonal connotations that accompany it in Israel (where the holiday portends, for example, the much-awaited first rains of the New Year - the "Yoreh"), America's "Feast of Booths" is typically an undramatic affair.

In Israel, Sukkot is different. On top of the Sukkot week's central role in the Israeli calendar (including national school vacation and a myriad of top-notch cultural events, such as the acclaimed Akko Fringe Theater Festival), the holiday has also become, over the last two decades, quite a seismic political time of year - with the ever-sensitive city of Jerusalem at its epicenter.

This year has been no exception, with tensions flaring dangerously on and around the disputed Temple Mount area (Har HaBayit, a.k.a. Al-Haram al-Sharif, "the Noble Sanctuary"), and elsewhere in the city, between Israeli police and Palestinian worshippers.

To be precise, this year's Sukkot tensions arrived ‘ahead of schedule' - during the morning before the eve of Yom Kippur - when approximately 150 Palestinian worshippers on the Mount's plaza surrounded and threw stones at a group of visitors accompanied by an Israeli security escort. Israeli police fired stun grenades and tear gas at the attackers. Nine officers and fifteen Palestinians were hurt; eight Palestinians were arrested.

The Temple Mount incident served as a spark, igniting almost two weeks of sporadic violence so far in various parts of East Jerusalem - including today. There are no signs yet of the tension abating.

Why did the violence begin? And why has it continued?

As has become painfully typical in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, the answers can be found in the noxious mixture created by mistrust, ill-will, and extremism on both sides.

Before relating to the events themselves, though, a few words of background are in order.
Although Israel took over East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967 and claims sovereignty over the Temple Mount, the Israeli government decided immediately after the war to leave effective control of the site in the hands of its Islamic trustees, the Waqf. Over the last 42 years, arrangements regarding visitation and prayer have been arrived at through an uneasy give-and-take between Israel and the Waqf, and the arrangements have varied based on the changing political circumstances.
(Those seeking a more detailed look at this complex issue might glance at "Jerusalem: a city and its future", by Marshall J. Breger and Ora Ahimeir, p. 273 ff.)
Now for the germinal Temple Mount violence on September 27: The Israel Police later revealed that the visitors to the compound were French tourists. The Palestinians, on the other hand, believed that they were a group of Jewish extremists, part of a larger group of some 200 that had assembled earlier outside the gates to the compound, possibly with the intention of entering. Although this group never managed to enter the complex, the Palestinians had been preparing for an Israeli take-over attempt at the holy site.

Why the intense suspicion?

Much of it is because of a small group called the "Temple Mount & Eretz Yisrael Faithful", founded in 1967 by Gershon Salomon, who remains its leader. The program of Salomon's group includes:

• "Liberating the Temple Mount from Arab (Islamic) occupation."
• Removing the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque.
• Building a Third Temple in their stead.

Author Gershom Gorenberg explains the group's impact: "For most Israelis, the extreme rightwing Jewish groups that want to build the Third Temple on the Mount are somewhere between insignificant and invisible, too strange to be worthy of notice. For Palestinians, the same groups are a looming threat to the Islamic shrines."

Over the years, the Temple Mount Faithful have been responsible for creating a series of provocations that have added fuel to the fire of Israeli-Palestinian (and Jewish-Moslem) hostility. Sukkot has been a favored time for the group, which traditionally stages well-advertised marches to and around the Temple Mount, with the declared intention of laying a cornerstone for their planned Third Temple.

Although the Israeli police has never allowed them to do so, their actions led to tragedy on October 8, 1990, when their first-ever cornerstone march caught the police insufficiently prepared. Fearful rumors regarding the Faithful's plan, combined with the gathering of thousands of Jews at the Wall for the traditional birkat hacohanim blessing, led to rioting by Moslem worshippers, who stoned the Jews there. Seventeen Palestinians were killed as Israeli forces moved to quell the riots.

The Faithful, of course, are not the only extremists in town, and the Palestinian side has made its own contribution to the current tension.

In particular, the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel (the movement's Southern Branch is much more moderate in tone) has been quick to stir up suspicion and fear, while at the same time pushing its own brand of exclusionism. Rejecting the Jewish people's ties to the holy site, a Northern Branch spokesman suggested this week that, "it is better for the Jews to save themselves time and look for what they call 'the Temple Mount' somewhere else."

In addition to the destructive roles being played by these groups, the recent tension cannot be seen in isolation from other worrying developments in East Jerusalem over the past several months:

• In July, permits for settlement construction at the "Shepherd's Hotel" in Sheikh Jarrah;
• A ceremony two days ago, marking the expansion of Israeli settlement in Jabel Mukaber;
• The annual Jerusalem march on October 6, which saw 70,000 participants pass alongside the Palestinian Silwan neighborhood, just beyond the Old City walls;
• Rumors of the imminent opening of a new tunnel between the Temple Mount and Silwan - a plan that has now been put on hold, apparently, due to American diplomatic intervention.

Unfortunately, Jerusalem does not lack for tinder able to set off the next major conflagration in the region. All sides - the US included - need to remember the lessons of fire prevention, and make sure to douse the current embers well.

Wishing everyone a peaceful Shabbat and a Hag Same'ach,
Ron Skolnik
Executive Director
Meretz USA