Posts

Showing posts with the label Jerusalem

Jerusalem holy site clashes fuel fears of return to war

Image
  As we waited to see exactly what would happen, so was Israel’s prime minister. A right-wing nationalist himself, some of those here once supported Naftali Bennett. But not anymore. Angry chants on Wednesday told him to “go home”. “We came here because it’s the Passover holiday, to show that this city is ours, that it belongs to the nation of Israel,” said Matan, gripping the hand of his smallest child. “This is our city, our capital, our country.” The prevailing feeling was that as the leader of an ideologically diverse coalition, which includes an Arab Islamist party, Mr Bennett had sold out and failed to deal effectively with recent tensions in Jerusalem. A prominent banner declared his rival, the opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, to be “king”, and there were big cheers for far-right politician, Itamar Ben Gvir. He told me that Mr Bennett was being held back from doing the correct thing by his fragile government, which recently lost its parliamentary majority after one of h...

Jerusalem violence puts strain on Israel's coalition government

Image
  Clashes in Jerusalem that have stoked tensions during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan spread into Sunday, triggering 18 arrests and putting further strain on Israel’s coalition government. Israeli riot police faced off with fireworks-hurling Palestinians in the alleyways of the walled Old City after a visit by Jews to a disputed holy site. Several passengers on two buses were lightly wounded when stone-throwing Palestinians smashed the vehicles’ windows. And a small group of Jewish worshippers was attacked. Sunday’s confrontations were less violent than clashes at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound two days earlier, but they were enough to prompt a small but pivotal Arab party to review its membership in Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s ruling coalition, which no longer has a majority in parliament. The United Arab List – the first party drawn from the country’s 21 percent Arab minority to join an Israeli government – said it was suspending its government membership ove...