The latest round of fighting in the Gaza Strip claimed dozens of lives. Its end leaves us at an explosive time as we look toward Jerusalem Day.
Since the events of May 2021, the ultra-nationalist Jerusalem Day Flag March, marking Israel’s 1967 capture of east Jerusalem and reunification of the city, has become a reprehensible event for the wider Palestinian public. In 2021, the parade organizers insisted on marching through Damascus Gate and the Muslim Quarter, the heart of Palestinian Jerusalem, even as tensions were rapidly rising.
The police had cordoned off the Damascus Gate plaza from traditional Ramadan break-fast festivities, while there were numerous incidents of blatant Israeli violations of the status quo on the Temple Mount, and Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah faced an imminent threat of evictions from their homes. The Palestinian public as a whole united around protecting their communal and symbolic space in Jerusalem.
What happens next?
What happened next is well known: the police’s decision to reroute the Flag March was made too late, as marchers were already on their way to Damascus Gate. Rockets were fired at Jerusalem from the Gaza Strip, another Israeli military operation was launched, and riots broke out across Israel’s mixed cities.
Since then, the centrality of the Flag Parade and what it symbolizes has been established in the Palestinian consciousness and was an emphasis in the ceasefire negotiations this past week. Even though a truce was eventually reached without a clear promise regarding the route of the parade, there is no doubt that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Ramallah and eastern Jerusalem will be watching closely to see what will happen this week in Jerusalem.
The Israeli government, for its part, must stand by its own stipulation that “quiet will be met with quiet” and reroute the Flag Parade from Damascus Gate and the Muslim Quarter; the stakes are too high. But it is doubtful whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will uphold his end of the bargain.
In light of the beleaguered prime minister’s conduct in previous situations and following his deliberate exclusion of firebrand ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich from his latest war cabinet, there is a great concern that the two ministers will now demand restitution and Jerusalem will be sacrificed on the altar of coalition stability once again.
IN PREVIOUS years, the police maintained a small margin of discretion regarding the nature and route of the volatile Flag Parade. Such discretion led to the sensible decision, in 2021, to reroute the parade in order to lower tensions in the city, even though it came too late. This year, the police’s margin of discretion has been reduced to zero, due to Ben-Gvir’s oversight of the agency.
Along with Smotrich, the two politicians are among the figures most identified with the Flag Parade and every year they arrive in an orchestrated and well-publicized performance. Neither Ben-Gvir nor Smotrich would be willing to give up at this stage, especially after their humiliation last week.
Now ostensibly responsible for keeping the calm, Ben-Gvir will therefore play the two roles that he knows best: the arsonist who fans the flames of hatred and incitement, and also the one who is responsible for dousing the fire, presumably with more buckets of fuel.
The Flag Parade has been at the center of controversy for many years because of its increasingly violent and racist atmosphere. My colleagues and I document the parade each year. Our reporting has shown that hateful and vengeful songs – which have always been present, but previously few and far between – have become anthems of the parade.
The now ubiquitous chants of “May your village burn,” “Death to the Arabs”, and “Muhammad is dead,” alongside a rousing chorus of the infamous “Remember Me/Zochreini Na” from Judges 12:28 have become an inextricable part of the parade. Some marchers have been recorded harassing Palestinians and damaging their property, while residents of the Muslim Quarter are locked in their homes and prevented from walking the streets by order of the police.
But this year’s Jerusalem Day Flag Parade is not merely more of the same. After settlers descended on the Palestinian village of Huwara earlier this year and set the village ablaze, we have come to understand that it is a very thin line between songs of vengeance and acts of vengeance.
At the parade’s core lies an ideology that Palestinians ought to be humiliated and pushed to their limit; they should be reminded at every moment that they live in an occupied city where they have no authority and no place; every reaction by Palestinians must be exploited to justify increased use of force and establish more facts on the ground.
This is why the parade organizers and their sponsors insist on the route going through Damascus Gate and the Muslim Quarter. And if necessary, may our city burn just to prove it.
The situation we find ourselves in this week is no less precarious than it was two years ago in the summer of 2021. When Netanyahu states that “quiet will be met with quiet,” the burden of proof falls no less on Israel.
The responsible decision to reroute the Jerusalem Day Flag Parade from marching through Damascus Gate and the Muslim Quarter needs to be made now and not at the last minute, and not based on the whims of extremist politicians.
The writer is the executive director of Ir Amim.