The Callous-tinian Pause

As is their custom, Palestinian Arabs are calling for a “day of rage” because of what might possibly come out of the Trump Administration this week regarding a proposed peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinians had called for a similar day of “mass protests” when the Trump Administration said that Israeli settlements are not inconsistent with the law in November 2019. At that time, various PA officials made statements about their position of a “rejection and condemnation of the Israeli-American settlement enterprise that aims to eliminate the Palestinian cause,” and that they reject “Zionist and American hostile policy… [that are designed to] liquidate the Palestinian cause.”

The Palestinians similarly called for a “day of rage” in March 2018 after Trump moved the US embassy in Israel to its capital city of Jerusalem. Palestinian officials said they “will continue to protest against this decision and the plan to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, as well as attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause.” There were “days of rage” when Israel put metal detectors on Jerusalem’s Jewish Temple Mount after Arabs killed a few people on the holy site.

What is this “Palestinian cause” that is threatened by Jews living alongside Arabs in the West Bank as they do in Israel, and which cannot stand to have the US embassy in Jerusalem? Why do Palestinians hold days of rage when Jews visit the Temple Mount or Israel shows any signs of controlling the site? Why launch this latest “day of rage” before even hearing Trump’s peace plan and stating “[t]he Palestinian leadership, with the support of our people, will fail attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause”?

Do Palestinians believe that they will expel all Jews from the Old City of Jerusalem just as the Jordanians did in 1949? Is the “Palestinian cause” designed to deny Jews their presence, rights and dignity to live, visit and pray at Judaism’s holiest site? Was the Arab happiness about Obama’s endorsement of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 about expunging the history of Jews in Jerusalem and rolling back the “Judaization” of the city?

It would appear that the “Palestinian Cause” has much less to do with the rights of Palestinians than denying the rights of Jews. Its goal is to reintroduce the 18-year ban on Jews which Arabs introduced and enforced during that window of their control of Jerusalem from 1949 to 1967: the “Callous-tinian Pause.”

Jerusalem’s Old City pre-1949, with the Tiferet Yisrael and Hurva Synagogues,
both destroyed by Arab armies.