14 Chaos at Masjid al-Aqsa

Bearing witness to history can be dangerous and terrifying. It was Thursday, 28 September 2000, the day the hardline Zionist candidate Ariel Sharon was coming to visit the Masjid al-Aqsa. This part of the Old City is filled with ancient stone walls, narrow alleyways, and arches. Over the past few weeks, I had been taking photos, and here, I took a few more. When I developed the pictures and reviewed some of them, I could see and feel the tension and the power dynamics between the Israelis and Palestinians. In one picture, Israeli horses and police officers with tinted one-way sunglasses overpower Palestinian protesters. The power dynamics between victim and aggressor is clearly illustrated.

It seemed that the troops had multiplied in preparation for Sharon’s visit—there were hundreds of them standing on top of crumbling buildings and filling the streets. More than anything else, their presence indicated that Ariel Sharon, a former Israeli defense minister who had overseen the massacre of thousands of Palestinians, knew exactly what symbolic power was attached to the timing of his visit, and that he understood well how he stood to gain politically from provoking the Palestinians. The following day, 29 September, would mark Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish new year, which was a significant event for Orthodox Jews. The Likud Party that he had founded with another former prime minister and minister of defence, Menachem Begin, relied on the support of these hardline conservative voters, and he knew that visiting the Masjid al-Aqsa would be a show of force that would solidify their support for his party. He undoubtedly also knew that 2 October marked the start of Rajab, one of the four sacred months in Islam during which battles are prohibited, except in self-defence. The name of the month means “respect,” but it can also signal veneration, or fear and awe of God. Ariel Sharon wanted to make Palestinians fear and respect him, as if he were a god. The presence of heavily armed soldiers and police just before a month in which Muslims are to live peacefully was a deliberate provocation that emphasized “fear and awe” and contradicted his stated mission of peace.

I met Adnan outside the gates of the Old City. From there, we walked towards the Lion’s Gate, one of the main gates of Jerusalem, together. As we approached the Gate, I saw several journalists—one from Reuters news service, two Arabs, an Israeli, and one freelancer. They were all denied entry, even the Israeli. Having seen what was happening to the other journalists who had cameras with them, I was certain I would be denied entry as well. Fortunately, Adnan was quick and sharp and assessed the situation in an instant. He rushed up to me and took the camera. He quickly shot some photos of the action, and even managed to get me in some of the shots. I was glad that he had taken the initiative. Even if I couldn’t get further than this, I now had evidence to show my father, Uncle Yazan, Uncle Faisal and others back home that I had been there and wasn’t just showing them pictures that any tourist might have taken.

Some soldiers in a big blue van called Adnan and me over and frisked us. I was carrying my school bag. As one of the soldiers took it, he asked me, “What are you doing here? Why are you here?”

In that moment, I was terrified. There was too much happening and could not process it all. I wondered whether I too would be turned away like the Palestinians, or whether they would let me go. As scared as I was, I also did not want to sell out my people. I thought about how I had done that when I told people my name was Moe because I was embarrassed by my Arabic heritage. This time, I wanted to acknowledge my heritage. If anyone had a right to be afraid in this situation, it was Adnan and the other Palestinian youth. They knew these soldiers and they knew what they could and could not do, yet there Adnan was beside me, defiant as ever.

“I am a Canadian visiting Palestine, learning about my Palestinian heritage and teaching English at Al-Quds University,” I said when the soldiers asked me what I was doing there.

The Israeli soldier tried to speak to me in very broken Arabic, but I could not understand him, so I asked, “Can you speak English to me?”

Another soldier came up and stared at me. “Have you ever been to prison?”

I laughed and pointed to the passport his partner was holding. “You’ve got my passport. You can see I am Canadian. If I had been in prison, I probably wouldn’t be here now. Why do you ask?”

The soldier stared at me in silence for a while before waving me and Adnan through. They let me go. Lucky, unlucky, lucky—it was a game of chance. I must be many times blessed.

Slowly, we made our way towards the masjid with the crowd. As we approached Al-Aqsa, I could see Ali Jiddah. He couldn’t stop himself from being where the action was. All around me, the noise of conversation—in Hebrew, Arabic, English—was getting louder and more agitated.

Even if I wanted to enter the masjid, the was no chance of that happening. Right in front of me stood the biggest man I’d ever seen in my life, an Israeli soldier all dressed in black. I’m six foot two, but he was about five inches taller and around 350 pounds, solidly built and holding an assault rifle. As I moved away, the tension around me unravelled into chaos.

As Sharon arrived at the Masjid al-Aqsa, some people rushed up to the security line and started to throw stones, but the Israeli soldiers and bodyguards held tight. The crowd yelled at Sharon, shouting for him to stop the “instigating” and get out of the sacred Masjid al-Aqsa. Soldiers were shooting rubber bullets at the demonstrators. They were supposedly non-lethal bullets, but I knew enough to know that these “kinetic impact munitions” can cause bone fractures, internal-organ injury, permanent disability, and even death.

I saw two men being quickly bandaged up, the heavy gauze hanging limp in the air before it was wrapped tightly around their wounds, and then returning to the line. I saw an old man being clubbed on the head by a soldier. I could hear it crack on the man’s skull, it was so close. Amid the swinging clubs, the blood, the falling, people began to shout “Allahu Akbar!” Even in this wild scene, they were not yelling things like “Death to Israelis!” or “Die, stupid enemy!”—they just confirmed their allegiance to God. The phrase literally means “God is great!” and is used as a shocked expression or invocation, like saying “Oh my God!” The expression is also used to symbolize that fact that even though Palestinians are weaker now, we have God on our side. If we are overpowered by Israeli weapon-power, we will invoke the greatness of God who is bigger and larger than anyone to take back our rights. But here, in the midst of the protest, it sounded like a battle cry, and I knew how it would be misinterpreted on television.

Somewhere in the crowd, I could hear Ali Jiddah joining in with his strong voice, keeping others going when they were short of breath. I found myself saying “Allahu Akbar!” too, for only God could intervene in this chaos. Men and youths with rocks, chairs, and garbage cans—even school kids with backpacks and bags stuffed with books—were scrambling to find stones to throw. And around us the Israeli police were letting loose with rubber bullets and tear gas.

The screaming was getting more personal. “Murderer, murderer!” the Palestinians shouted and chanted, some of them pursuing Sharon down the Haram esh-Sharif.

“We will redeem the Haram with blood and fire!”

“Take that, take that—for Sabra and Shatila!”

On the other side, some Orthodox Jews were screaming, “Go back to Mecca!”

I could feel my asthma kicking in, so I pulled back. I covered my nose and mouth, but even so, I felt the asthma getting worse. I reached into my bag and pulled out my inhaler. I watched the events unfold from a distance while I waited for the medication to kick in. I could see two Israeli policemen being rushed away on stretchers. Nearby, Palestinian officials were protesting loudly about how they had been beaten on the head by police officers.

Abdulmalik Dahamshe, an Israel-Arab MP, joined the chanting crowd. “All the time Sharon wants to see more blood, more killing,” Dahamshe shouted.

My asthma felt more under control, so I rejoined the crowd. As we moved away from the masjid, my heart was pounding. More scuffles broke out between Jews and Arabs, and more soldiers were arriving to break up the fighting.

People seemed to know they could not keep it up, not here, not today. The demonstration fizzled out. Things died down. I found Adnan and got my camera back. We made our way to the city gates and left the Old City smouldering with tires and emotion behind.

When I left Edmonton, feeling the strong hugs of my family, I hadn’t expected to find myself in what would be called “the worst violence here for several years” on the news. Was it just a day of commotion, with some awful injuries, my asthma going overtime, and then everyone going back to their places? I walked around outside the Old City, looking for an Internet café where I could sit down and let the adrenalin work its way out of my body as I wrote down my thoughts.