Ramadan in Jerusalem: How a shining moment of serenity was lost

Jerusalem and Amman- Scenes diplomats had worked hard to avoid erupted this week: Israeli police clubbing Ramadan prayergoers, Israeli civilians being killed in the West Bank, viral clips of bound-and-tied Palestinians lying facedown in the venerated Al-Aqsa Mosque, barrages of rockets from Gaza and Lebanon being answered by Israeli airstrikes, access being restricted to Jerusalem holy sites.

The ongoing violence and police crackdowns have ripped up a fragile, hard-negotiated peace – brokered by the United States, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority – that initially allowed tens of thousands to pray and observe their holidays freely as Ramadan, Holy Week, and Passover were set to coincide.

Yet the strife was less a failure of the U.S.-led diplomacy, observers say, than it was the success of extremists and far-right instigators to fan the flames of distrust in a decades-old unsolved conflict.

“Well,” sighs an Arab diplomat close to the talks with Israel over Al-Aqsa access, “the extremists got what they wanted.”

Among the casualties of the rapid deterioration of calm in Israel and the Palestinian territories are the brief harmony enjoyed by followers of the three Abrahamic faiths in Jerusalem and the rare window of joy Ramadan gives to beleaguered Palestinian Muslims, especially in the area around Al-Aqsa, which they regard as a refuge.

As of Friday, behind-the-scenes diplomacy to restore order and facilitate the removal of many of the 2,300 Israeli police in and around Al-Aqsa, among Islam’s holiest sites, had largely failed, with the Israeli government focusing instead on its military response to the cross-border rocket fire.

Dialogue with the Israeli government has “practically been closed shut,” Jordanian sources say.

Friday prayers were held by 90,000 Muslim Jerusalemites without incident at Al-Aqsa, located in a walled, elevated compound revered by Jews as the Temple Mount. A handful of prayergoers cheered Hamas rockets and the West Bank killings.

The restrictions and recriminations ended several days of successful cooperation between Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian officials that facilitated the entry of tens of thousands of Christian and Muslim Palestinians daily from the West Bank (even some from Gaza) to Jerusalem to observe holidays and prayers – some of whom entered the Holy City for the first time in their lives.

………………………………..continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor