AMMAN —
During the Israeli forces’ storming of
Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday, a large number
of Palestinian worshippers were attacked, beaten up, and tear gassed. At least
50 Palestinians were injured, including women and elderly people, while no less
than 300 men were arrested.
اضافة اعلان
In an interview with
Jordan News, political
analyst Hasan Momani said that what happened on Friday was nothing new in the
Arab-Israeli setting, and that
Jerusalem and the religious side of the conflict
are crucial in this struggle.
The levels of escalation may fluctuate, he said, but
“what happened on Friday will certainly be repeated”.
As long as there is no political solution, and as
long as
Israel occupies Palestinian territories, there will always be Israeli
provocations, especially by Israeli far-right groups, Momani said.
“These attacks are aimed at altering the reality of
Muslim holy places, and are designed to achieve that goal,” he added.
He said that the issue of Jerusalem and its Islamic
sites is one of the reasons peace negotiations failed in the past, adding that
Israel has had a pattern of exploiting religious issues to undercut the
Palestinians for years.
The same can be said of a number of Palestinian
resistance groups as well, he said.
“Jerusalem and the fate of the holy sites generates
support and boosts popularity for these factions,” he said.
According to Momani, successive right-wing Israeli
governments have played a significant role in appeasing extremists by
increasing violations of Al-Aqsa over the past 15 years. This has also helped
Islamic resistance movements, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to gain
popularity among Palestinians as they presented themselves as defenders of
Al-Aqsa.
According to political analyst and commentator
Labib Kamhawi, there will be an attempt to reach calm in the holy city soon. But the
Israeli right-wing has emerged as a winner while the Palestinian Authority’s
position was weak, he said, adding that the position of Arab and Muslim
governments was even weaker.
Kamhawi said that the US did not want things to get
worse in Jerusalem because it is preoccupied with the Ukraine crisis.
“There was probably an American pressure on Israel,
not for the sake of the Palestinians, but to avoid opening a new front that
would distract America from focusing on the
Russian-Ukrainian conflict,” he
said.
According to Kamhawi, since it lost its thin
majority in the Knesset, the Israeli government is now a minority government.
“Therefore, it has allowed Friday’s storming of
Al-Aqsa in order to appease the right-wing, but it cannot escalate further
since this could worsen Israel’s internal crisis,” he added.
He also believed that what happened on Friday and
the days before was the result of a charged atmosphere that is the result of a
series of individual Palestinian attacks inside Israel.
“These lone wolf attacks have created an atmosphere
of tension and fear within the Israeli society, and that is why the
Israeli government had to retaliate in such a way by striking the Palestinian people,”
Kamhawi said.
Kamhawi believes Jordan’s reaction to these
transgressions was insufficient. He said that the Jordanian government had the
ability to take further measures, such as expelling the Israeli envoy or
threatening to cut relations between the two sides because Friday’s event was
an attack on Jordan as well.
Despite attempts by
Jordan News to contact
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its spokesperson was unavailable for comment.
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