Jordan, Turkey, and the Internecine Palestinian Fight for Jerusalem

Due in part to the anomalous legal status of eastern Jerusalem’s Arab residents, the area has its own internal politics. Hamas, Fatah, and two Islamist parties—the Israeli-Arab Islamic Movement and Hizb ut-Tahrir—all vie for influence, while both Jordan and Turkey attempt to flex their muscles from abroad. In a detailed analysis, Pinhas Inbari explains:

Because no political force [in eastern Jerusalem] is strong enough to mobilize rallies and demonstrations in the streets or is interested in doing so, most of the public activity occurs at the plaza of the mosques on the Temple Mount where the dynamic political forces are the Islamist movements. Specifically, the Islamic force that can muster impressive rallies under its flag and symbols is an international movement known as the Islamic Liberation Party, or Hizb ut-Tahrir, which to a large extent is the most significant actor on the Mount. . . .

From Jordan’s standpoint, its status in the mosque plaza remains essential because the Hashemite dynasty’s prestige lies in its role as protector of the mosques. . . . Israel has a great interest in preserving the status quo and safeguarding Jordan’s status as embodied in the peace agreements with it. Hence, the Waqf administration [responsible for the Islamic holy sites on the Temple Mount], which is linked with Jordan, is the only address Israel recognizes in the east of the city.

A special danger looms for Jordan, however, because of Turkey’s involvement, which, in turn, is made possible by the aggressive involvement in east Jerusalem of Raed Salah’s Islamic Movement. . . . Salah and [his fellow Islamist] Akrima Sabri were the conduit through which Turkey penetrated east Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa plaza. . . . The Turkish activity ignores Israel but is mainly anti-Jordanian. . . .

This situation has posed a crisis between Jordan and the PA. . . . Jordanian sources say that the PA is promoting Tahrir, [which has also taken a pro-Turkish stance] in order to weaken Hamas.

Read more at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

More about: Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Movement, Israel & Zionism, Jordan, Temple Mount, Turkey

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society