TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/102290/1022008.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6KB | 124 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 40

THE MIDDLE EAST

Anatomy of a Tragedy


Who's to blame for the Jerusalem clash?

By JON D. HULL/JERUSALEM -- With reporting by Jamil Hamad/
Jerusalem


    Arabs and Israelis have been battling each other for so many
years that it no longer seems to matter much who throws the
first punch on any given day. To the aggressor, violence is
always a form of retaliation or self-defense. Consider what
happened last week on the Temple Mount.


    The Israeli police version. At 10:30 a.m., as more than
15,000 Jews gathered at the Western Wall for prayers
celebrating the Sukkoth festival, they were ambushed by a mob
of 3,000 Palestinians positioned on the Temple Mount above,
hurling rocks at the rate of nearly 300 a minute.
Simultaneously, Palestinians attacked and burned a police post
on the Temple grounds and stoned a nearby yeshiva. When police
responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, the Palestinians
locked the doors to the Temple Mount.

    Fearing for the lives of those police trapped inside, the
security forces, who initially numbered only 45, smashed
through the gates and charged the rioters. Vastly outnumbered
and exposed to a deadly hail of stones, the police resorted to
live ammunition. Said police commissioner Yaacov Terner: "Their
lives were in real danger. They had no other way but to respond
the way they did." As further proof that the riot was
premeditated, Israelis note that Palestinian leader Faisal
Husseini -- later jailed for incitement -- was in the crowd.


    The Palestinian version. That morning, Faisal Husseini and
a few thousand other Palestinians had gathered on the Temple
Mount to defend the Islamic shrine from a group of
ultra-nationalist Jews, called the Temple Mount Faithful, that
planned to lay a cornerstone on the site to prepare for a third
Jewish temple. Despite an Israeli court order banning the group
from the site, Muslims were unnerved. As rumors spread that the
Jewish radicals were approaching, Palestinians began shouting
slogans. When police replied with tear gas, Palestinians
retaliated with stones. The police then charged onto the Temple
Mount, went berserk and gunned down Palestinians at close
range. (Arab doctors later announced that one victim was shot
14 times). "They were shooting people from ten meters away,"
said Ala Abu Bakr, 17, who was shot in the arm and the back.
Abu Bakr crawled into al-Aqsa mosque, where he and other
Palestinians lay for nearly two hours before being rescued.


    When the police finally gained control of the Temple Mount
at 1 p.m., 19 Palestinians lay dead or dying from bullet
wounds, and another 140 were wounded. Said Abu Darwish, who
witnessed the clashes, "I saw the soldiers deliberately aiming
at the chests and heads of the Palestinians." At least six
Israeli policemen and more than two dozen Jewish worshipers
were also hurt.

    "It was terrifying," said David Metzger, a tourist from New
York who was praying at the Wall. "Stones were coming out of
the sky and everybody panicked. I could have easily been
killed."

    Religion offers one obvious explanation for the bloody
clash. Muslims call the Temple Mount al-Haram al-Sharif, or
Noble Sanctuary. It is home to both the Dome of the Rock and
al-Aqsa mosque and is Islam's third holiest site after Mecca
and Medina. To Jews, it is the sacred spot where Solomon's
Temple and later the Second Temple once stood. The adjacent
Western Wall, a retaining wall from the Second Temple, is the
holiest site in Judaism.

    That accounts for the explosive emotions, but not the tragic
consequences. Here's why it happened:

    Palestinian activists have been eager to help Saddam Hussein
link his annexation of Kuwait with the Israeli occupation of
the West Bank and Gaza by escalating the uprising in the
occupied territories. Although Palestinians could not have
anticipated how deadly the Israeli reaction would be, and it
remains unclear just who attacked first, evidence strongly
suggests that they were looking for a fight. The Temple Mount
Faithful, which never entered the site, offered the perfect
pretext to mobilize the masses, while the Jewish holiday
provided a headline-grabbing backdrop for a demonstration.

    They could not have done it without the Israeli police.
Despite warnings by the Shin Bet, the nation's domestic
security service, and the unusual presence of thousands of
Palestinians on the Temple Mount on a Jewish holiday, the
police inexplicably failed to deploy adequate reinforcements.
(Police Minister Ronni Milo lamely explained that  his forces
mistakenly believed the riot would start at 3 a.m. that
morning.) Said Yossi Sarid, a left-wing Knesset member: "There
is no doubt that had the police prepared for this, this riot
would have been prevented."

    The claim that deadly force was used as a last resort -- and
used 19 times -- is also unconvincing. While rocks can kill,
Israel has had nearly three years of experience handling stone
throwers. Certainly, there is no excuse for being caught off
guard at a place so rich in religious symbolism for both sides.
Nor can Israel claim that the police had no other options. When
massive rioting spread throughout the West Bank, the Gaza Strip
and among Israeli-Arab towns later in the week, better-prepared
soldiers exercised far more restraint despite the salvos of
stones.