We Will Defuse The Jerusalem Situation With A Nice Provocative Gesture

By Ayman Odeh, Head, Joint Arab List

Tensions over the Haram al-Sharif  – that’s the so-called Temple Mount to those Jews – have only been increasing of late, so the responsible thing for political leaders to do right now is to de-escalate. The best way to accomplish that is a provocative act of defiance and assertion. So this week, all of us Arab Members of Knesset will march into the Al Aqsa compound and show those Jews who really owns the place. That ought to settle things once and for all, and bring calm.

That’s what this whole conflict is missing, after all: an uncompromising stance that denies the rights of the other side. All it should take to deter further violence is an expression of maximalist demands that leaves no room for anyone else. Once we do so, all the rioting will stop, and no one will be moved to further violence. We really should have thought of this sooner.

It will have to be a convincing move, one that includes even the avowed atheists Haneen Zoabi and Jamal Zahalka. The centrality of the Haram al-Sharif to Islam – and to Palestinans in general – is such that even non-practicing Muslims must be part of the gesture if it is to be provocative and decisive enough. We cannot leave it in the realm of the religious alone – the gesture must be demonstrative of an immovable front of outrage that none may withstand it. Such an expression of resolve will certainly quiet those who dare to disagree.

To show how committed we are to reducing tensions, we will even neglect all other pressing issues affecting Palestinian citizens of Israel: education, employment, housing, zoning, government allocations to local municipalities, development, health care, welfare, taxation, and general social policy. Those issues, which we MKs have the power to affect in some measure, might be of major concern to our constituency, but they pale in comparison to the immediate danger facing the Haram, and showing how determined we are to fight all who oppose us, in the process irrationally abandoning the very issues we were elected to advance, is a surefire way to defuse the volatile situation.

In so acting, we follow the precedent of great leaders of the past. Mufti Husseini defused the tension within Palestinian Arab society in the 1930’s and 40’s by not compromising on the necessity of bumping off rival leaders and clans, and maintaining political supremacy. His ally Adolph Hitler similarly pursued a de-escalation of gentile-Jewish tensions in occupied zones through uncompromising removal of the source of those tensions.

We of course seek the same thing.