Intifada trigger

When Israel invaded and occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem in June of 1967, General Moshe Dayan, who led the Israeli forces into East Jerusalem, declared that “the Temple Mount is in our hands”.

That was Israel’s prime prize of the 1967 war.

When Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon walked into Al Haram Al Sharif compound on September 28, 2000, accompanied by hundreds of soldiers, he also declared that “the Temple Mount is in our hands”.

Sharon’s trespassing of the third holiest place in Islam triggered the second Intifada that ended up with nearly 5,000 Palestinians dead and many more thousands injured.

It should have dawned on Israel then, and now, that the holy places in East Jerusalem are a red line whose trespassing no Arab or Muslim nation would tolerate.

His Majesty King Abdullah has repeatedly warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to even think of changing the status quo at the holy sites in East Jerusalem.

Yet, despite of all these past and recent admonitions and warning signs, Israel went ahead with its designs by allowing Jewish zealots to march into Al Aqsa in a defiant and provocative manner.

It is no accident and should not be a surprise, therefore, if a third Palestinian Intifada starts after Israelis violated the sanctity of the Islamic holy places in East Jerusalem and suggested either sharing them or dividing them between Jews and Muslims.

A third Palestinian Intifada appears to have indeed begun, with casualties on both sides beginning to mount.

Nothing would stop the escalation of violence except the return to and observation of the status quo in East Jerusalem, in word and deed, followed by a speedy return to peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis, with the avowed aim of establishing a free, independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Anything short of that would trigger a wave of violence the likes of which the area has not seen before.