Israel cracks down on Palestinian stone-throwers

This article first appeared on The Media Line.

The death of an Israeli man in Jerusalem who lost control of his car after it was hit by a rock thrown by rioting Palestinians earlier this month, has sparked new efforts to crack down on stone-throwers.

“Stones and firebombs are deadly weapons; they kill and have killed,” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told his cabinet. “Therefore, in recent days we have changed the open-fire orders for police in Jerusalem. Already over the weekend they used the new measures under the new orders and immediately hit those throwing stones and firebombs. Today we will facilitate an additional expansion of the ability of the police to foil the throwing of stones and firebombs and we will continue to add forces in order to strike at rioters under a simple principle that we will begin to implement around and within its borders: Whoever tries to attack us, we will hurt him.”

Netanyahu said he is also advancing legislation to impose fines on the parents of minors who throw stones and firebombs. He also wants the courts to impose minimum sentences for stone throwing.

“We cannot accept the principle that in Jerusalem our capital, or in any part of the State of Israel, in the Galilee or in the Negev, that people will organize terrorism and begin to stone passing cars or throw stones and murder people,” he said. “This norm will not be established here; rather an opposite norm will – we will act against you and stop you, and we will punish you with the full force of the law.”

Tensions have been growing in Jerusalem over the past few weeks, and reached a peak over the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana, when police stormed a site that is holy to Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem’s Old City after they said they had intelligence that young men were planning to barricade themselves inside. The police action sparked clashes between young Palestinians and police throughout Jerusalem.

“There are extra police units – both border police and undercover units – throughout the area to both prevent and respond to any stone throwing incidents,” Jerusalem police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told The Media Line. “Over Rosh Hashana more than 150,000 people visited the Old City and we’re expecting the same numbers in the next few weeks. We have maneuvered a number of different units to make sure there’s enough security in Jerusalem.”

But some analysts say that Israel must take a broader approach to the tensions between Jews and Palestinians in Jerusalem. The population of Jerusalem is just over 800,000 and 36 percent of them are Palestinians. According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, three-quarters of all Palestinians live below the poverty line.

Only about 10-12 percent of Palestinians in east Jerusalem are citizens of Israel. While Israel originally offered Palestinians citizenship, most refused as they do not recognize Israeli control over east Jerusalem, which they say must be the capital of an eventual Palestinian state.

“Increasing penalties for stone-throwing and more policing will only be partially effective,” Kobi Michaeli, an expert on Palestinians at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) told The Media Line. “The whole approach should be integrative. This is a multi-dimensional challenge with a political, civilian and religious dimension.”

He said that most of the incitement to violence is coming from the Islamist Hamas, which controls Gaza, and the northern wing of the Islamic movement in Israel, both supported by Qatar. Israel should increase cooperation with Jordan which is in charge of the Waqf, the Muslim religious authorities which supervises the site that Jews call the Temple Mount and Palestinians, the Haram al-Sharif.

Beyond that, he said, Israel must do more to improve the quality of life for Palestinians in east Jerusalem including improving the infrastructure in Palestinian neighborhoods, building more classrooms, and improving the level of education in public schools there.

“We have to remember that there are 330,000 Palestinians in east Jerusalem and 99.9 percent of them are not taking part in this violence,” Michaeli said. “In fact they suffer from this violence. They do want to be harassed by the Israeli police or to see roadblocks and barriers in their neighborhoods. They want to improve their quality of life.”