Gaza Fighting Has Nothing To Do With The Sheikh Jarrah Controversy

By Bassem Eid

As a Palestinian living in Jerusalem, I can only blame Hamas. The fanatics who rule over Gaza with an iron fist cannot resist the opportunity to stir up anti-Jewish violence for their own political gain. If innocent Jews and Muslims die in the process, all the better for them.

The pretext for the latest missile barrage is the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, where a long-running legal dispute was scheduled for a court hearing. It is the kind of situation that would be handled by a local municipal court in any other country and there would be no public interest.

After Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas canceled highly anticipated elections, Hamas saw an opportunity it could not pass up and exploited the Sheikh Jarrah situation. They are encouraging Palestinian youth to throw their lives away by hurling rocks at police.

Hamas-led riots outside of the Al Aqsa Mosque prove that Israeli police are not at fault for preventing Muslims from praying. Hamas has incited mobs and provoked violence with the intention of framing Israel for ethnic cleansing.

It is important to remember that Hamas’ penchant for murder is almost matched by their blundering incompetence, which is partly the reason one out of every three of their rockets crashes into Gaza, where the only possible victims are Palestinian.

This dispute is about Hamas seeing a chance to seize the narrative and increase its own influence and control over Palestinians in Jerusalem. In the coming days, Jews and Muslims are both likely to die because Hamas saw a political upside in violence.

The writer is a veteran Palestinian human rights activist living in Israel.

(Times of Israel)