Occupied Jerusalem- On the 24th anniversary of the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Palestine is witnessing the longest war in its history since the beginning of the conflict, starting from the defense of Al-Aqsa Mosque as well, but the details of the morning of September 28, 2000 are still stuck in the memory of Jerusalemites when the leader of the Israeli opposition at the time, Ariel Sharon, stormed the squares of the blessed Al-Aqsa. With the protection of two thousand Israeli soldiers.
On the day following the storming, which fell on Friday, confrontations broke out between worshipers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the occupation forces, which opened fire on them. Seven Palestinians were martyred within hours, and dozens were injured. The confrontations with stones quickly spread from Jerusalem to all contact points in the Palestinian territories.
During the five years of the Intifada, 4,412 citizens were martyred, and about 49,000 were wounded, while 1,100 Israelis, including 300 soldiers, were killed, and about 4,500 others were wounded.
On the 24th anniversary of the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Tel Aviv Tribune Net interviewed Jerusalem affairs researcher Ziad Ibhais by phone from the Jordanian capital, who confirmed that the Israeli occupation seeks to control this holy site in order to achieve religious replacement there, and that the forces of the national and religious right will take advantage of the imminent Jewish holiday season to renew its aggression against Al Aqsa Blessed.
Below is the text of the dialogue:
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When he stormed Al-Aqsa, did Sharon realize the essence of the dispute between the Zionist project and the will of the Palestinians?
Yes, he was aware that Al-Aqsa Mosque embodies the essence of the dispute between the Zionist project, with its abolitionist colonial nature, and the will of the Palestinian people to survive and resist based on a solid identity and a broad regional and global reach. So he wanted to say that Al-Aqsa is not one of the issues that can be settled, and that it has now become pure Israeli territory. His occupation, as an introduction to a set of his statements that he believed in about canceling the right of return and imposing the appropriate settlement for Israel unilaterally.
This actually paved the way for him to become prime minister later, and for him to assume the responsibility of waging the confrontation that he launched with his own hands, without prior appreciation of the repercussions that his intrusion might have.
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How was religious Zionism created and what are its goals for Al-Aqsa Mosque?
The Zionist project began under the leadership of an elite that wanted Zionism to be the Jewish version of Western secular nationalism, with its colonialism and abolitionist tendencies, and to produce itself on the land of Palestine in this manner in order to maintain Western patronage of it through its identification with the Western elite and its ideology, and these forces that falsely call themselves The “Zionist Left” is, in fact, secular, liberal Zionist forces.
With the start of the Zionist settlement migration, the experience produced another, more extreme version, which retained its apparent secular national dimension but derived the definition of Jewish nationalism from the biblical text as the founding text of the Jewish people. This elite was embodied by the Vladomir Jabotinsky movement in the Zionist Organization and then by Menachem Begin in the “Herut” party, that is, “Freedom” after the establishment of the Zionist entity.
Sharon later came to gather around him a broader bloc from the political spectrum, turning it into the “Likud” party, meaning “the Rally.” Today, this continuous Zionist shift toward the right and toward greater adherence to Jewish religious elements continues to produce another trend, which is “religious Zionism.”
This movement believes that Zionism is a national and religious movement at the same time, and that it must establish a homeland for the Jewish people and fulfill in it the will of God for His people, by imposing the pure Jewish spirit and eliminating all non-Jews from this land, and by establishing the Temple in the place of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and imposing legislation. Torah, and this trend is the leading trend in Zionist society today.
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How did the outlook towards Al-Aqsa Mosque change with the shift of forces from secular Zionism to nationalism and then religious?
Just as Sharon was the link that transformed Begin’s minority into a majority, he was also the link in the Al-Aqsa Mosque file, leading the transformation of the liberal secular Zionist nationalist forces into right-wing nationalist forces, leading to the religious Zionism that succeeded him.
At the same time, he was the link between the policy of “controlling Al-Aqsa Mosque” adopted by the secular nationalist forces, which limited their goal in Al-Aqsa to placing it under the control of the occupation police, so that he presented in its place the idea of “sovereignty over Al-Aqsa Mosque” as the vision of the secular nationalist right regarding the mosque. Ultimately, it ends with the idea of “religious replacement of Al-Aqsa Mosque” by turning it into a temple, which is presented by religious Zionism today.
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This transformation led to the ignition of the confrontation from the gate of Al-Aqsa Mosque. So if we take a look at the most prominent stations of the confrontation?
The successive Zionist move towards adopting the most extreme statements and closest to employing the biblical text in the colonial project necessarily meant an escalation of danger and aggression against Al-Aqsa Mosque, and an escalation of efforts to defend it, which in turn was not delayed, and was translated into uprisings, uprisings, wars, and in the experience of the organized Rabat from the occupied territories in 1948.
If the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000 was the third stage of confrontation against Al-Aqsa after the Al-Aqsa massacre in 1990 and the Tunnel Gift in 1996, it was followed by 7 subsequent stations, starting with the experience of the youth movement in Jerusalem and the retreats it took part in in 2013, the Gift of Knives (Jerusalem) in 2015, and the Gift of Lions’ Gate in 2017. Bab al-Rahma in 2019.
In addition to the successive attacks, the Battle of Saif al-Quds in 2021, the Battle of Itikaf in Ramadan 1444 AH/2023, then the Al-Aqsa Flood War on October 7, 2023, and all of this included the organized Rabat experience between 1996 and the ban of the Islamic movement inside Palestine in 2015.
In short, as the aggression against Al-Aqsa Mosque escalated, efforts to defend it and protect its identity escalated, in which the dear and precious Palestinian people were presented, as a battle for existence.
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Focusing on the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, in what context does it come specifically?
The flood of Al-Aqsa comes to confront the culmination of the idea of abolition and religious replacement in the mosque. The occupation, starting in 2017 – in which former US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in both parts – was clear that it was heading towards resolving all fronts, and the religious resolution in Al-Aqsa is one of them.
He wanted to impose the conversion of Al-Aqsa into a shared holy site in any way, in preparation for its later conversion into a Jewish holy site, as the issue of sharing is temporary in the current Zionist mind.
This flood came to culminate the idea of rejecting and confronting this decision from the gate of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and to say that this decision will not pass because there is resistance and a people standing in its face. The issue of the Al-Aqsa flood did not come only because Al-Aqsa is sacred despite the importance of that, but to say that its Judaization will not pass just as it will not pass. Canceling the right of return, erasing us from our land, and displacing us, just as the attempt to Jewish state and end any Arab-Islamic (Palestinian) presence will not pass, nor will normalization with abroad be achieved on the basis of annexing the Arabs (Palestinians) to the Zionist entity as it is the master and leader in this region.
This flood also came to say that we are fighting an existential war and that the gateway to the flood battle is Al-Aqsa Al-Sharif. In return, the Zionist entity responded with all its forces, including the religious Zionist movement and the Likud, by adhering to the idea of decisiveness on all fronts.
He re-translated the decision into the form of genocide in Gaza, displacement in the West Bank, a decision in the Blessed Al-Aqsa, and an end to the presence of UNRWA and the right of return.
The occupation adheres to the idea of decisiveness as the theory of the current war and that it must withdraw on all fronts, and this is what makes it go to Lebanon now, the West Bank and various places, and Al-Aqsa embodies the idea of this decisiveness and also embodies its impossibility, because every time it was able to summon new forces and new resistance. You prevent him, and I think he will remain so despite all this and will be able to prevent the decision again.
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We are approaching the longest Jewish holiday season, which will occur for the first time during the war, so how do you read the scene?
Yes, on the 24th anniversary of the Intifada, the season of aggression is renewed. Many of the previous uprising stations were launched in September and October of the Gregorian year to coincide with the long Jewish holiday season, which consists of 4 holidays, including “the Hebrew New Year, Atonement, the Throne, and the Seal of the Torah.”
The forces of the nationalist Zionist right and the forces of religious Zionism have turned these holidays into the season of the most severe aggression against Al-Aqsa Mosque. As a result, with the presence of the will to resist and confront it, it has turned into a season of “Al-Aqsa revolutions,” which are revolutions that are likely to be renewed today with the continuing upward trend of the existential threat facing Al-Aqsa.