Israel: Riots test cohesion of Bennett’s coalition government

The coalition government of the Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett appears shocked after new wave of violence in the Mosque Square in Jerusalem.

Early Sunday morning, hundreds of Palestinian protesters began collecting stones in the Square before the arrival of Jewish believers at the site, the holiest site of Judaism and the third holiest site of Islam, according to the Israeli police.

Israeli police raided Mosque Square again to provoke clashes (snapshot above Reuters / Ammar Awad), as well as harsh criticism of the Muslim world.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 19 people had been injured, some of them by rubber bullets, two days after widespread clashes at the same site injured more than 150 people.

Late last night, the Israeli Arab party Raam suspended its support for the ruling coalition of Naftali Bennett, who managed to unite the parties of the Israeli right, left, center and, for the first time in the history of Israel, in June. , an Arab party to oust Benjamin Netanyahu.

Political consultation

“If the government continues the arbitrary measures” in the Mosque Square, “we will submit our collective resignation,” threatened the Raam party, which has four members in the 60-member coalition, one less than the parliamentary majority.

The suspension of Raam’s participation has no short-term consequences for the government of Naftali Bennett, because the work of the Knesset has been suspended until May 5, but it further weakens the government that lost its parliamentary majority a month ago with the departure of a right-wing MP.

Political sources in Jerusalem said that until the reopening of the parliament, the prime minister will try to calm the spirits and stabilize the coalition.

For his part, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party yesterday again called on right-wing lawmakers to leave the coalition government and form a “right-wing government” with the participation of the Orthodox Jewish parties and the far right.

“When the Jews can not walk safely to Jerusalem for Easter, there are right-wing MPs in the coalition who realize that the government has reached the end of its journey,” Likud said.

The issue of holy places

“Al-Aqsa is ours and the Jews have absolutely no right to this place,” said Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the political wing of Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip.

Since the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 during the Six Day War and its subsequent annexation, Jews have been able to access the Mosque Square for some hours, but not to pray.

Prayer is usually performed on the Tear Wall, although in recent years Orthodox Jews have been secretly going to pray in the Mosque Square, the Temple Mount in Jewish tradition.

Jordan, the site of the Mosque Square, yesterday blamed Israel for the new escalation of violence, and King Abdullah II called on the Jewish state to “put an end to the illegal and provocative measures leading to further escalation.”