Gareth O'Callaghan: Jerusalem at heart of long-running conflict between Israel and Palestine
Temple Mount, the location of sacred Jewish temples thousands of years ago, also known as Haram al-Sharif by Muslims. It’s considered one of the holiest sites in Judaism and Islam. Picture: AP/Mahmoud Illean
You can’t find Israel on a map of the Middle East in a Palestinian schoolbook.
It’s there but it’s just not acknowledged. Perhaps that doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has studied textbooks in societies that endure internal conflict.
My earliest introduction to the ethnic bloodshed and cultural differences of the Middle East was back in 1972. On September 5 that year, an event took place that would change the way the world viewed terrorism forever.
Just after 4am that morning, armed with Kalashnikov rifles and grenades, eight men in tracksuits scaled the perimeter fence at the Munich Olympics village, where participants from all over the world were staying while they competed in the games. It was a tall wire fence, nothing high-tech, erected to give the competitors privacy, and to keep out fans and autograph hunters.
No one, not even the German government, imagined that a group of Palestinian terrorists had planned to take Israeli athletes hostage. In return for their safety, they would demand the release of 236 prisoners: 234 in Israel and the two leaders of the West German Baader-Meinhof terrorist group. The men were part of a group called Black September, affiliated to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.
Almost 20 hours later, five hostage-takers were dead, as were 11 members of Israel’s Olympic team and a West German policeman.
The Munich massacre was different to previous hostage sieges for one reason:
The terrorists knew they would have a live television audience already watching the games, about to witness first-hand a live terrorist attack unfolding.
An audience of 900 million viewers watched the events unfold live, a third more than watched the Apollo 11 mission three years before.
The world was shocked at how the attackers took advantage of an event that had always been seen to promote peaceful participation. Bizarrely, the games continued, but the siege would overshadow the Munich Olympics, setting the stage for further violence that would make use of advanced live media technology to promote terrorism agendas, as we are witnessing right now.
A huge fenced wall separates Israel and Palestine these days, known as the West Bank Barrier. Its vertical slabs rise almost 30ft high, on top of which run horizontal lines of razor-sharp mesh wire. Its message to displaced Palestinians is clear: Stay out.
Most of the barrier falls far into West Bank territory, having forced almost 150 Palestinian communities off what was once their land and agricultural green spaces. Up to 15 days ago, Israel prided itself on the wall’s indestructibility, or so they believed. Then it happened, unexpectedly.
Israeli cyber-intelligence, considered the best in the world, never saw the attack coming, and its barbaric results have become possibly the greatest precipitator in decades of a threatened war that could outperform all previous wars, a battle that is off the scale.
Sadly, the history of the Israeli-Palestine conflict doesn’t leave much room for any realistic resolution. It’s a conflict that, despite numerous historic attempts at peace, has never reached a lasting settlement. As long as hate dominates, peace is an illusion without substance.
Gaza, at the heart of the conflict, is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. A narrow strip of land 25 miles long and seven miles wide sandwiched between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea. It’s inhabited by more than two million people, most of them forced out of their native land.
But there is another location even more closely linked to the age-old conflict that explains why the battle for territory is thicker than blood. That location is Jerusalem, known as God’s eternal city, and the soul of the Land of Israel.
Both Israel and Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capital city. Because of long fought-over entitlements, bloody conflicts to control the city have been waged for thousands of years. Israel refuses to share it.
In 1000 BC, King David conquered Jerusalem and made it the capital of the Jewish kingdom. Throughout its history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times.
It’s the third holiest city in the world, after Mecca and Medina, and home to many sites of major religious importance. Among them, a hilltop compound known as the Temple Mount, the location of sacred Jewish temples thousands of years ago, also known as Haram al-Sharif by Muslims. It’s considered one of the holiest sites in Judaism and Islam.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also close by, built on the site where most Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried, is the central tenet of the Christian faith.
Jerusalem holds the key to the possibility of any political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to the future of Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Muslim relations.
For a modern generation, the critical place that Gaza holds in the history of the Middle East must be difficult to make sense of, considering how complicated it has become over the years. In an effort to understand, we need to go back to June 1967, to what became known as the six-day war.
In a series of preventive strikes against Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israel took possession of the Sinai peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
The six-day war was a military success, unrivalled to this day, and seen as liberation for Israel’s claim of total authority over all of Jerusalem. Most Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in Gaza and along the West Bank, as well as in neighbouring Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. They want East Jerusalem returned to them as the capital of their state.
Neither they nor their descendants have been allowed by Israel to return to their homeland. Israel says such a move would overwhelm the country and threaten its existence as a Jewish state.
So what can’t the two sides agree on? Most contentious is the suggestion that a Palestinian state could be established alongside an Israeli state; and then there’s the major issue of whether or not the two sides should share Jerusalem.
Other reasons include the outcome of the Palestinian refugees: whether Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank should stay or be removed.
Hamas has always rejected the two-state solution. Gaza is ruled by Hamas, an Islamist militant group that is committed to the destruction of Israel, and is designated as a terrorist group by many western countries.
Hamas won in the last Palestinian elections in 2006, and seized control of Gaza the following year by ousting the rival Fatah movement of West Bank-based President Mahmoud Abbas. Many Palestinians, afraid to speak out for fear of kidnap or death, say Hamas does not represent their beliefs.
Iran is a key supporter of Hamas, as well as that of another regional enemy of Israel, the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.
Hezbollah has said it is ready to help when the time comes in the war between Israel and Hamas. Questions have been asked about Iran’s role in the recent October 7 attack. Iran denies any.
As Mary Robinson said on RTÉ News last week: “This is collective punishment against a whole population, many of whom don't support or don't like Hamas.”
Israel is unlikely to destroy Hamas, just as it couldn’t destroy the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Hamas evolved from what its insurgents saw as a lack of courage on the part of Yasser Arafat, and his dual role of fighter and peacemaker.
In the late 1980s, Israel turned its back on Hamas because Mossad believed they weren’t a threat to Israeli security, and instead focused their efforts on Yasser Arafat and the threat caused by the PLO. In doing so, Israel took its eye off the ball. It appears to have slipped up again.
The October 7 shock attack was a reminder of Hamas’ sole objective, namely to destroy the state of Israel. Many observers believe the intention behind the attack on innocent civilians was to force Israel to lash out. Hamas succeeded.
In the same way that live television coverage of the Munich Olympics massacre gave rise to new splinter groups who contributed to the Middle East’s tribulations, there is a real danger now that more schisms will follow, depending on how Israel continues to react to the rising levels of fury among Palestinians, which could result in further jihads and more anti-Semitic attacks.
Arafat often said: “Palestine is the cement that holds the Arab world together, or it is the explosive that blows it apart.”
While Gaza is once again the focus of an unprecedented attack on innocent civilian life, the real reason at the heart of the long-running conflict rests with a city situated 50 miles away, a spiritual home for worshippers of the three most embattled religions in history.
Peace and harmony demand non-negotiable respect for the religious freedom of everyone. Religious wars are not caused by the fact there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance that each religion shows for others.
