InfoAnda - Riots expose well of fear beneath Jerusalem's Old City

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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Asia Pacific World Riots expose well of fear beneath Jerusalem's Old City AFP - Saturday, March 27 Send IM Story Print Israeli riot police keep position in the Arab east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amud on March 12 during clashes with Palestinian stone throwers. The riots that shook Jerusalem this month were sparked by mere rumours, but tensions remain high in the narrow alleys of the Old City and could erupt again, confounding US-led peace efforts. JERUSALEM (AFP) - – The riots that shook Jerusalem this month were sparked by mere rumours, but tensions remain high in the narrow alleys of the Old City and could erupt again, confounding US-led peace efforts. The trigger for the March 16 troubles, the worst unrest to hit the Holy City in years, was the opening of a rebuilt 17th-century synagogue and rumours that it was part of a plan by Jewish extremists to destroy the famed Al-Aqsa mosque. But the anger that fueled the unrest had been brewing for months, as Jewish settlers have pressed into dense Arab neighbourhoods and the Israeli government has defied international pressure to freeze construction in occupied territory. "Cumulative pressures on the Palestinian population of east Jerusalem, particularly in and around the Old City, raised the level of tension," says Daniel Seidemann, the head of Ir Amim, an Israeli group that promotes coexistence in Jerusalem. "When tensions become high and suspicions run rampant even innocent events take on a sinister look." Several hundred metres (yards) separate the rebuilt Hurva synagogue from Al-Aqsa, but rumours swirl in the labyrinthine alleys in between, where scattered Jewish settlements have sprouted throughout the mostly Arab ancient quarter and police maintain a heavy presence. Muslims are highly sensitive to any perceived change in the status quo of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third-holiest site in Islam. Jews revere the same sprawling esplanade because it was the site of their Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Fringe groups have vowed to build a third Temple on the site to fulfill Biblical prophecy, and for Ishaq al-Qawasmeh, a soft-spoken home appraiser born and raised in the Old City, the threat is real. "If I lose a son, if he is martyred, I can have another ... But there is only one Al-Aqsa. It's a red line," he says. Like many Palestinians, he is convinced the opening of the synagogue is part of a plot against Al-Aqsa already set in motion with the digging of a secret maze of underground tunnels throughout the city. "There is a Jerusalem above the ground and a Jerusalem under the ground," Qawasmeh says. "There is a vast network of tunnels and the goal is Al-Aqsa." Israel has long dismissed such allegations as conspiracy theories or outright incitement, insisting that none of the many archaeological digs throughout the Old City encroach on the compound. But that hasn't convinced the Al-Zorba family, whose home is sandwiched between the outer wall of the sanctuary and Ohel Yitzak, another recently rebuilt synagogue, funded by the Jewish-American millionaire Irving Moskowitz, an influential patron of hardline settlements across east Jerusalem. "I've seen it with my own eyes. They are digging a tunnel under the synagogue next to my house," says Alaa al-Zorba. "They want to enter Al-Aqsa because they are extremists." His mother Salwa points out cracks in the freshly plastered walls of their home, which she says are caused by the digging. "Four years ago we had the ceiling and the walls repaired and within a year the cracks appeared again. The water comes in when it rains," she says. "At night we can hear them digging under the house. It gets very loud." The Israeli Antiquities Authority said the digging beneath the synagogue, a 19th-century structure rebuilt in 2008, is part of archaeological excavation and that it was not aware of any damage to the Al-Zorba house. Israel accused Palestinian leaders of inciting the March 16 unrest, and as hundreds of youths took to the streets, burning tyres and hurling stones at police, Palestinian officials of all political stripes stoked the anger with harsh public statements. Hamas in Gaza called for a popular uprising. For Palestinians the synagogue is part of a larger settlement enterprise steadily expanding across mostly Arab east Jerusalem, seized by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed in a move not recognised by any other government. To the north of the Old City, several Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood have been expelled from their homes by settlers who claim the land was owned by Jews before Israel's creation in 1948. Israel recently gave final approval for the construction of 20 settler apartments in the same neighbourhood, another project funded by Moskowitz. To the south, 88 Palestinian homes in the Silwan neighbourhood built without Israeli permits have been under demolition orders since 2005 and are now threatened by a controversial urban development scheme. Farther out, most of the 200,000 Jewish residents of east Jerusalem live in massive settlements with apartment blocks and shopping malls. Some 270,000 Arabs live in east Jerusalem. Israel's controversial separation barrier meanwhile snakes across a hillside just above the Old City, carving off Arab villages and neighbourhoods and completing what for the Palestinians is a panorama of encroachment. Israel views all of Jerusalem as its "eternal and indivisible" capital while Palestinians see the eastern part as the capital of their promised state. A few days before the riots erupted Israel had announced the construction of 1,600 new settler homes in the Ramat Shlomo neighbourhood, infuriating the Palestinian Authority and igniting a diplomatic row with Washington. But the riots did not erupt until the opening of the synagogue, perhaps because announcements of planned settlements have become so commonplace in east Jerusalem that the Al-Aqsa mosque has become something of a last stand. "Palestine is Jerusalem and Jerusalem is Al-Aqsa," says Alaa al-Zorba, as an Israeli police patrol passes in front of his grocery shop in the heart of the Old City. 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