palestinianliberator:

palestinianliberator:

I’m seeing a great deal of misunderstanding regarding the protests in Jerusalem right now.

People are oversimplifying it into simply a matter of “metal detectors”, and while they certainly are at the center of the issue, it’s much deeper than that.

If the metal detectors were a matter of “security”, why are they being installed at the entrance to Masjid al-Aqsa, where only Muslims will enter to pray at the Aqsa mosque, and not at the Dung Gate where the gunmen stormed through, or the Damascus gate, the main entrance to the Old City? If this was about “security”, why allow the entrance through which the two men stormed through to remain “insecure”?

If Palestinians are out to attack Israeli soldiers & police……..they’re going to do it outside of al-Aqsa grounds, as they have before….so it makes -zero- sense to only install the detectors there, other than to further control and limit Palestinian movement.

Further, the Old City in Hebron used to be a thriving district, full of tourists, shops and people. After an Israeli stormed the Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of the Patriarchs and massacred 30 innocent Palestinian worshippers….metal detectors were placed in the PALESTINIAN quarters. People protested, but ultimately they remained and that became the new status quo. Little by little, expanding outwards from those first few metal detectors at the Palestinian entrances, Israel installed more and more checkpoints, “security measures”, and queue lanes.

Today, the Old City of Hebron which was once thriving, full of people and businesses, and a major tourist attraction, now looks like this:

Israeli “security measures” continuously encroached more and more on the Palestinian areas, until they were shuttered and taken over by Israeli settlers.

Now it’s a ghost town, Palestinians can barely move around as we are stuck behind massive gates, checkpoints, and fences, while Israelis roam freely on what was once Palestinian land, living in homes stolen from Palestinians, something that all started with a couple of measly metal detectors meant for “security”.

If there’s one thing Israel is good at, it’s downplaying the severity of a situation they’re responsible for, and exaggerating incidents against them.

These “few metal detectors” in Jerusalem aren’t about security, they’re about giving Israel a foothold to expand their absolute control and domination of Palestinian movement and eventually take over the Palestinian district of the Old City as they have in Hebron.

Israelis have long desired to take over the area of Al-Aqsa Mosque/Temple Mount, and if history in Hebron and elsewhere is anything to go by, Palestinians are absolutely right to be outraged at Israel’s attempt to get their foot in the door with these metal detectors.

To visualize things a bit, here’s a map with some circles drawn around various entrances to the Old City and Al-Aqsa:

The gunmen entered the Old City through the Dung Gate, circled in blue at the bottom right of the image. They shot and killed two Israeli police right at the entrance to the gate, before proceeding up the street to the flat terrace of the Dome of the Rock, where they were shot and killed.

Circled in blue are all the entrances to the Old City of Jerusalem…none of which have metal detectors, including the entrance used by the gunmen.

The green circles are where the metal detectors are placed, at the entrances used by Muslims to access the Dome of the Rock and Masjid al-Aqsa.

So once again – if this was about security and protecting the lives of Israelis, why do all the main entrances remain insecure and without metal detectors? If this is about protecting Israelis, why is it that a site that is almost entirely Palestinian is the only place that has its entrance “secured” by metal detectors? It’s not like a Palestinian is going to run into the mosque and murder other Palestinians praying [like Baruch Goldstein did in Hebron when he stormed a mosque full of praying Palestinians~].

So again, these metal detectors are not at all about security, and are about Israeli control of Palestinian movement.