Comment is free gives differing perspectives on east Jerusalem clashes
The last two weeks have seen sporadic clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in East Jerusalem. The violence has centred on the religious epicentre of Israel, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif. Whilst Israel took control of east Jerusalem in 1967, management of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif has remained in the hands of the Islamic Waqf authority. Therefore, while the site is holy to both sides, it is overseen on a day-to-day basis by the Muslim community.
Two opinion pieces on the Guardian's Comment is free website showcased contrasting views and, in some cases, demonstrated how the selective use of known facts could portray events in different lights.
The first article by Seth Freedman, published on Tuesday, offered the most comprehensive coverage of the situation. In ‘Peace must be made on Temple Mount’, Freedman described the area as ‘Judaism’s holiest site’ and ‘arguably, even more important to Jews than it is to Muslims’. In light of the violence meted out to non-Muslims attempting to visit the Temple Mount, Freedman criticised the Waqf’s ‘continued intransigence’, and stated that ‘for Palestinians to demand that Jews not be allowed to hold services on the Temple Mount, especially over the Rosh Hashana-Yom Kippur period, is a step too far, and demonstrates a level of intolerance that no Israeli should have to put up with.’
While Freedman’s article also criticised Israeli police ‘for stoking up tension’ and also ‘the more extreme elements of the Jewish worshippers’, the blame was primarily laid with the Palestinian authorities who had encouraged the violence. This is noteworthy, given that Freedman is a prominent critic of Israeli policies, and even states that the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is mainly the fault of 'Israel's succession of belligerent leaders'.
The following day, Comment is free ran ‘Jerusalem’s troublesome sheikh’ by Mick Dumper. In sharp contrast to Freedman, Dumper concentrated on unspecified ‘perceived threats to the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque’, and failed to mention that the area had any religious significance for Jews. He did, however, describe Raam Salah (the head of Israel’s Islamic movement) as ‘the pre-eminent Islamic defender of the contested site.’
No clarification was given as to what exactly was threatening this contested site, Instead, Dumper portrayed the Israelis as acting with impunity when it came to sites of worship in the city. He claimed that through 'activities such as house and land acquisitions, excavations, reconstructions, the establishment of temporary exclusion zones and the neutralisation of former Palestinian allies in agencies such as Unesco', they were 'undermining [...] the Islamic presence in the city’. To strengthen this suggestion, Dumper also raised 'the plans of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre to build a Museum of Tolerance partially covering an ancient Muslim cemetery'. This was evidence, as Salah put it, that 'They have raped our holy places in the name of tolerance'. That the museum would only be built on the part of the cemetery that was already underneath a pre-existing car park was omitted - as Just Journalism wrote about at the time here and here.
Aside from a reference to 'Israeli permission for maintenance work at the halls… granted to the Waqf authorities', readers would have been completely unaware from Dumper’s piece that despite it’s centrality to Judaism, the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif is run on a day-to-day basis by the Islamic Waqf. In fact, unlike Freedman’s article, readers would not have been made aware that Jews had any interest in the site whatsoever.
12 October 2009