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Analysts say that the city of Jerusalem played a major role in keeping the Palestinian issue alive in the hearts of Muslims around the world, and that it also prompted Western activists to move in defense of Palestinian rights instead of opposing them.

Majed Al-Zeer, CEO of the European-Palestinian Council for Political Relations, emphasized that the city’s cultural dimension is “strategic in crystallizing the religious identity of the world’s Muslims, which constitutes an important incentive to link Muslims to the issue of Jerusalem in all its political, religious and cultural dimensions.”

Al-Zeer said - during his participation in the window from Jerusalem - that the city “played a role in keeping the issue alive, because it has both Islamic and Christian dimensions, which makes it permanently present in the souls of all those who adhere to their religion.”

Permanent drive

Jerusalem has also been a constant driver for the Muslims of the world, according to Al-Zeer, who said that there were more than 10,000 demonstrations around the world that were linked to the city, adding that this identity presence of the city “fuels the issue and helped it stay alive.”

Even when the resistance links itself to Jerusalem, it alerts Muslims to the importance of the city, Al-Zeer says, adding, "We are facing a situation that will be the basis for restoring the rights of Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike."

Over the years, “Jerusalem and the uprisings happening around it have become an educational incubator for Western generations who did not know or visit Palestine, and pushed them to visit it and get to know the city and transformed them from opposing the Palestinian cause to defending it and establishing European organizations to defend it,” according to Al-Zeer.

Even politicians, no matter how negligent they are against Palestine, cannot harm Jerusalem or neglect it and its sanctities, according to the CEO of the European-Palestinian Council for Political Relations.

Al-Zeer added, "Today, there are many Western activists and institutions that have begun to discuss how to defend Jerusalem and the rights of the Palestinians there. They have turned into an influential force that drives the madness of the occupying state, which is trying to pursue these activists and criminalize them."

Al-Zeer stressed that the Western political mind "is aware of the importance of Jerusalem and the religious factor in it, which alerted them to the importance of Muslims gathering there during the month of Ramadan, and the possibility that this may entail in confronting the occupation's violations."

Over the years, Jerusalemites have tried to confront the continuous Israeli attempts to change the city’s identity, by introducing the new Palestinian generations to the city’s heritage and its cultural and religious heritage, says Jerusalemite visual artist Abdul Jalil Al-Razem.

Al-Razem said that the culture of the city of Jerusalem is of great importance, noting that the residents of the city and the Old City "implanted in the souls of Jerusalemites the issue of the city's identity and the preservation of its cultural, religious and popular heritage."

Al-Razem praised the “Stone Loggia” project, which includes models of historical landmarks in the city that are toured around West Bank cities to be presented to school students who cannot reach Jerusalem.

On the sixth day of the holy month of Ramadan, thousands of worshipers flocked to Al-Aqsa Mosque despite the tightening of security restrictions and the heavy deployment of the occupation police in the Old City, which conducted extensive searches at the doors of the mosque.

Source: Al Jazeera