Interview. Historian, Vincent Lemire, who edited the book Jerusalem. History of a world city (Flammarion, 2016), is currently director of French research center in Jerusalem. He analyzes this outbreak of violence that began in the Old Town and reminds us of the crucial issue it represents.
Are these riots in Jerusalem and the mixed cities of Israel any different from those that break out sporadically?
Yes, clearly, we had not observed such a level of violence since the second Intifada (2000-2005). What is striking is both the intensity and the diversity of the places of confrontation, but also their interconnection.
Jerusalem first, with for weeks a victorious mobilization of Palestinian youth to defend the public spaces of the Damascus Gate and the Mosques Esplanade. The mixed Israeli towns then, with demonstrations organized by the Arab communities of Israel (20% of the population) in support of the Palestinians of Jerusalem, gatherings which turn to the confrontation with the Israeli extreme right, with scenes of lynching of unbearable violence.
Gaza finally, with what must be called a crude attempt at recovery on the part of Hamas, which, on Monday evening, chose to start a new war to return to the game, rather than to celebrate with dignity the victory of the Palestinians of Jerusalem.
The escalation could still continue, with possible clashes in the occupied West Bank or attacks prepared by the armed organizations of Fatah, with a military operation on the ground that seems to be taking shape on the Israeli side in Gaza, and with, let us not forget it. , Hezbollah in ambush on the northern front, which was the one we observed with the most attention in recent months.
But these chain reactions and this tendency to militarize the conflict should not obscure what was the trigger for the ongoing escalation: the return of Jerusalem to the heart of the mobilizations of Palestinian civil society.
How to explain that Jerusalem finds this position of centrality in the conflict?
By a triple return of the repressed: Jerusalem had been deliberately left aside during the Oslo process, because the negotiators considered that the situation there was inextricable. With the long parenthesis of the “peace process” now closed for good, Jerusalem is returning to the center of the concerns of both Palestinians and Israelis. And all the more so – another repressed truth – since the demographic battle does not turn to Israel’s advantage, contrary to what one might think: 40% of the population of Jerusalem today is Palestinian, against 25% in 1967.
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