Police enter Jerusalem holy site

[WhiteTara]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8541428.stm

Israeli police have clashed with Palestinian protesters at the Jerusalem compound housing one of the Islam's holiest sites, the al-Aqsa mosque.

Police say they went into the compound to disperse some 20 masked protesters throwing stones at foreign tourists.

The Islamic body which oversees administration of the area disputes the police account of events.

This is the latest in a series of clashes amid high tensions over religious sites in the past week.

The Jerusalem compound also contains the Western Wall, a sacred site for Jews.

Clashes broke out in the West Bank town of Hebron on Friday over Israel's decision to list two disputed shrines as heritage sites.

More

It has been a horror throughout my adult life to watch what has happened to the Palestinian people. Remember when the Israelis led by Sharon came into the mosque with their boots on? It seems it's all about degradation and humiliation with slow, inexorable genocide as the result.

[shergald]

1. Yes, as with another Likud PM, Sharon, Netanyahu has been provocative.

Indeed, through a series of announcements, Netanyahu has virtually closed the door on a sovereign Palestinian state, and now is intentionally egging on the Palestinians with an announcement about Jewish heritage sites in the Palestinian territories, which are also Muslim sites. It is one thing after another, all of which will eventually make Bibi famous for taking Israel into Apartheid.

There is no other place for him to go, except to stall the inevitable with superfluous talks.

If the Palestinians react with another Intifada, they will be decimated and the death tolls will exceed those of the second Intifada, or the massacre of Lebanon in 1982 when more than 20,000 mostly civilian Lebanese were killed.

[WhiteTara]

2. this is one of the most tragic of places

on the planet. Even more so than Darfur imho.

[oberliner]

4. 300,000 civilians have be killed in Darfur

To say nothing of the sexual violence that has impacted so many there.

I really do not believe there is any comparison.

[WhiteTara]

5. the Palestinians have been under seige since

1947. It has gotten worse every year.

Darfur is truly hell on earth and the systemic rape and murder of women is horrifying. In no way do I mean to diminish the terror there; but, in Palestine we have been watching slow genocide for decades.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. No, actually, you haven't been watching any kind of genocide.

Ethnic cleansing arguably - the Naqba certainly qualifies, and arguably Israel's subsequent policies have an element of it in them. But accusing Israel of genocide, slow or otherwise, is just silly, as is trying to compare the situation in Palestine (high hundreds or low thousands of innocent civilians killed in the past 10 years, out of a population in the low millions) with Darfur (mid hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians killed in the past 10 years, out of a population in the millions, plus a much higher ratio of horrific injury/rape/displacement etc to death).

[WhiteTara]

9. ethnic cleansing

is a code for genocide.

[proteus_lives]

11. Slow genocide?

:eyes:

Then why does the population keep rising?

BTW, you know who has also been under siege since 1948? Israel.

[shergald]

3. Sharon's visit to the Islamic site was calculated to create havoc.

It's purpose was indeed to start a revolt among Palestinians, which led to the second Intifada. For Palestinians, Sharon was known for his complicity in the masacres in the Sabra and Shantilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982. Those deaths raised the total death toll for Sharon's invasion of Lebanon to over 20,000, and yes, most were southern Shiite civilians and the toll included hundreds of children. I'd show you the pictures, but they are not permitted here.

The massacres inspired the creation of Hezbollah as a militant organization, which has since acted as Lebanon's military barrier in the south, as seen during Israel's 2006 invasion when Israeli military forces were fought to a standstill.

[WhiteTara]

6. I worked in a news station at the time and saw

the raw feeds. The images are still burned into my retinas.

I see this as another provocation from the Israelis.

[sabbat hunter]

10. The violence of the 2nd intifanda

started before Sharon visited the temple mount.

Sharon visited the Temple mount on Sept 28. However violence by the Palestinians under the order of Arafat started on September 13, 2000. (civilian and military attacks)

Furthermore Sharon's visit to the Temple mount was ok'd by the PA.

[Douglas Carpenter]

12. AP Report from 27 Sept 2000. Palestinian officials try to stop Sharon vist

Palestinians say opposition tour of holy site could cause bloodshed
September 27, 2000
Web posted at: 9:41 PM EDT (0141 GMT)

"JERUSALEM (AP) -- Palestinians leaders warned Wednesday that if Israel's hard-line opposition leader goes ahead with his tour of Islamic holy sites on a disputed hilltop in Jerusalem, it could spark bloody battles between Jews and Arabs.

Likud leader Ariel Sharon plans to enter the hill early Thursday morning to reinforce Israel's claim of sovereignty there. In Israel-Palestinian negotiations, both sides claim the hill. Jews call it the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest place, where the biblical Jewish Temples stood. A Muslim shrine and mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, are built over the Temple ruins. "

snip:"Sharon's visit would be a political demonstration, said Likud spokesman Ofir Akounis. "We are visiting the Temple Mount to show that under a Likud government it will remain under Israeli sovereignty," Akounis said. "

snip:"In a statement, the Palestinian Information Ministry called on the Israeli government "to prevent this provocative visit, to avoid a new massacre of Palestinians."

Rajoub told reporters, "If, God forbid, something happens in Jerusalem, it will spread throughout the territories and I think there will also be a reaction in the Arab world and the Muslim world."

Furthermore, the Mitchell Report concludes that the Palestinian leadership and US did urge prohibiting the Sharon visit

In late September 2000, Israeli, Palestinian, and other officials received reports that Member of the Knesset (now Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon was planning a visit to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Palestinian and U.S. officials urged then Prime Minister Ehud Barak to prohibit the visit.3† Mr. Barak told us that he believed the visit was intended to be an internal political act directed against him by a political opponent, and he declined to prohibit it."

this from footnote # 3. When informed of the planned visit, Ambassador Dennis Ross (President Clinton’s Middle East Envoy) said that he told Israeli Minister of Interior Shlomo Ben-Ami, “I can think of a lot of bad ideas, but I can’t think of a worse one.” See Jane Perlez, “US Envoy Recalls the Day Pandora’s Box Wouldn’t Shut,” The New York Times, January 29, 2001."

just a few interesting comments from the Mitchell Report:

"The Sharon visit did not cause the “Al-Aqsa Intifada.” But it was poorly timed and the provocative effect should have been foreseen; indeed it was foreseen by those who urged that the visit be prohibited. More significant were the events that followed: the decision of the Israeli police on September 29 to use lethal means against the Palestinian demonstrators; and the subsequent failure, as noted above, of either party to exercise restraint."

"Divergent Perspectives: During the last seven months, these views have hardened into divergent realities. Each side views the other as having acted in bad faith; as having turned the optimism of Oslo into the suffering and grief of victims and their loved ones. In their statements and actions, each side demonstrates a perspective that fails to recognize any truth in the perspective of the other."

>snip

In their submissions, the parties traded allegations about the motivation and degree of control exercised by the other. However, we were provided with no persuasive evidence that the Sharon visit was anything other than an internal political act; neither were we provided with persuasive evidence that the PA planned the uprising.

Accordingly, we have no basis on which to conclude that there was a deliberate plan by the PA to initiate a campaign of violence at the first opportunity; or to conclude that there was a deliberate plan by the GOI to respond with lethal force.

However, there is also no evidence on which to conclude that the PA made a consistent effort to contain the demonstrations and control the violence once it began; or that the GOI made a consistent effort to use non-lethal means to control demonstrations of unarmed Palestinians.

Amid rising anger, fear, and mistrust, each side assumed the worst about the other and acted accordingly. The Sharon visit did not cause the "al-Aqsa Initifada." But it was poorly timed and the provocative effect should have been foreseen; indeed it was foreseen by those who urged that the visit be prohibited.

More significant were the events that followed: the decision of the Israeli police on 29 September to use lethal means against the Palestinian demonstrators; and the subsequent failure, as noted above, of either party to exercise restraint.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2001/israel_and_the_palestinians/key_documents/1632064.stm

_______________

Here is a report of the events of that day by b'tselem on a PDF file. I think it is quite balanced and certainly not one-sided.


link:

http://www.btselem.org/Download/200009_Temple_Mount_Eng.rtf

.

IDF Commander: Israeli Forces played a major role in provoking the Second Intifada:

Collision course

By Yotam Feldman

"From his home on the Upper Galilee road between Safed and Rosh Pina, as Brigadier General (res.) Zvika Fogel looks out over Lake Kinneret, the Gaza Strip seems a distant memory. But four years after Fogel retired from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Gaza continues to preoccupy him. He became chief of staff of Southern Command headquarters in February 2000, and in the past few years he has reflected a great deal on the actions he and his fellow officers carried out in the months that preceded the eruption of the second intifada, at the end of September 2000. His conclusion: the IDF created an irreversible situation that led to a confrontation with the Palestinians.

Fogel analyzes - in military present tense - the developments in the months that preceded the eruption of the second intifada. "The conceptual sequence is that we are creating the conditions for a confrontation by the very fact of our preparations," (IDF General) Fogel says. "It is clear to everyone that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We want to decide which event would foment the explosion. All we have to do is say what will launch it and then behave as we have planned."

Even if that was not the Palestinians' intention?

"Exactly."

Was the course the IDF embarked on a one-way street?

"I am afraid that I have to say yes. I don't see a situation in which, in July-August, someone says, 'Dismantle the forward posts, we are going back to joint patrols.' People would have looked at you like you were tipsy." "

link to full article:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=936744

.

[Taitertots]

8. The only genocide where their population increases exponentially

That is as incorrect as calling the Hamas rockets genocide.