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At first glance, the situation in Jerusalem seems clear: Arabs from East Jerusalem are resisting Israeli evictions.
But in the Middle East conflict, the first look is almost always wrong.
To understand the current images, one has to dive into history.
Jews had lived in the Shimon HaTzadik district for 2000 years. At the end of the 19th century, when Jerusalem belonged to the Ottoman Empire and the majority of the population was Jewish, many Yemeni Jews settled here. When Palestine experienced an upswing after 1918, a large amount of Arab immigration began. Incited by Hitler supporters and Grand Mufti al-Husseini, between 1936 and 1939 Arabs from the neighboring district of Sheikh Jarrah attacked the Jews in Shimon HaTzadik.
Instead of defending them, the British ordered their evacuation.
When Jordan occupied East Jerusalem in 1948, contrary to the resolution of the UN, the last Jews were given the alternative of flight or death.
Their property was confiscated and the name Shimon HaTzadik was erased.
In 1967, East Jerusalem was conquered by Israel in the Six Day War, and in 1980 the city was administratively reunified.
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And just as the property expropriated by the communists was returned in this country with German unification, Jews expropriated in Jerusalem are entitled to the return of their property.
For 20 years, the Jewish owners of four houses in Shimon HaTzadik have been trying legally to get their property back.
Israel's Supreme Court now agreed with them.
The result is violence because radical forces among the Palestinians still do not accept the idea that Jews and Arabs can peacefully divide the country.
One of them is Fatah, the chairman of which was elected President of the Palestinian Self-Government 16 years ago and has not let its people vote since then.
They include everyone who wants to torpedo the normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab states and who dream of ethnic cleansing of the whole of Israel based on the example of East Jerusalem.
One may ask whether the Israeli police are acting wisely; that there are extremists among the Israelis who also provoke moderate Arabs is unfortunately correct. But all calls for moderation seem mendacious unless they state the core of the problem: the desire of radical Arabs to keep the Arab quarters of Jerusalem “free of Jews”. Germany in particular cannot and must not approve this by silence.