News Release

“Jerusalem Uprising”?

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Maram Humaid of Al Jazeera reports: “This is an open war against unarmed people. Israeli forces are showering Palestinian worshipers inside Al-Aqsa mosque with gas bombs and stun grenades.”

MAZIN QUMSIYEH, mazin@qumsiyeh.org, Skype: mbqumsiyeh
Qumsiyeh has been on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke, and Yale Universities. He is now a professor at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. His books include Popular Resistance in Palestine and Sharing the Land of Canaan. He is founding director of the Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability.

He said Sunday night of what he termed the “Jerusalem uprising” — it “started with Israeli racists chanting ‘death to Arabs‘ in Jerusalem and progressed as Israeli authorities insisted on going ahead with more ethnic cleansing in the Shaikh Jarrah neighborhood (considered a crime against humanity by international law) and progressed as the same racist authorities denied rights of native Christians and Muslims to have access to their holy sites in Jerusalem over Easter and Ramadan. As usual the mainstream Western media were silent or if they covered events, tried to equate oppressor with oppressed (colonial settlers with native people). The Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas continued to organize with Israel against resistance. … Other governments were spineless (giving pointless verbal declarations while supporting the oppressor in practical ways) so the local people acted and resisted the encroachment. … [Some] 205 were injured (several shot in the eyes, two losing both eyes).”

He notes that Monday “will be pivotal” as Zionist forces “‘celebrate’ their occupation of Jerusalem. … Next week we commemorate the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which is still ongoing).”

In a statement on Sunday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan “encouraged the Israeli government to pursue appropriate measures to ensure calm during Jerusalem Day commemorations” on Monday, effectively greenlighting the commemorations to go on.

See: “Israeli Man Trying to Take Over Palestinian Home Says ‘If I Don’t Steal It, Someone Else’ Will’” from CommonDreams.