Battle for Jerusalem: The conflict is almost unsolvable

Open outbreaks of violence between Palestinians and Israel occur with expected regularity.

The most recent war lasted twelve days and was the fourth in 13 years.

Obviously the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel has not been resolved.

It is true that peace agreements between individual Arab states have defused the Arab-Israeli conflict in recent decades. The last great battles were almost half a century ago. Since then, six Arab states have made peace with Israel, and more are likely to follow. But that does not end the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. Because the agreements serve the respective national interests, they do not apply to the Palestinians' hopes for a state of their own.

After the establishment of the State of Israel, the “liberation” of Palestine was the overriding theme that unites all Arabs for decades.

Pan-Arab solidarity, however, withered to lip service.

First, it and the hatred of Israel served to divert attention from one's own grievances;

then the Palestinian conflict became less important to those in power.

Lost interest

It started in 1978 with the Egyptian President Sadat, who was in Camp David about the return of the Sinai Peninsula.

Last autumn, commercial calculations were important for the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, while normalization with Israel paid off for Morocco in return for recognition of its rule over the Western Sahara.

No agreement contained pledges in favor of the Palestinians.

The rulers of the Arab world lost interest in the conflict because it is a story of missed opportunities.

Whether in the Oslo process in the 1990s or in 2003 with the plan of the then Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah: an agreement seemed to be within reach, but it was gambled away.

The result: the rulers, who had secretly made their peace with the State of Israel, were no longer willing to invest further political capital in the cause.

Under President Trump, who wanted to “solve” the conflict (in favor of Israel) with a “deal of the century”, the conflict returned as a pan-Arab, even pan-Islamic issue.

Because the deal not only dashed the Palestinians' hopes for a state.

What is more, he struck Jerusalem alone to Israel.

A just solution, however, must start at both levels of the conflict: The conflict over the country can be resolved pragmatically in negotiations, with the appropriate political will.

It is not easy, because the two competing identities, the Jewish and the Palestinian, are

linked

to the

country.

The other conflict, that of Jerusalem's holy place, can only be resolved if the Muslim religious authorities give their consent - and thus finally acknowledge Israel's right to exist.

As long as they refuse to allow non-Muslims to rule over the holy place, a solution to the conflict over the land would not last.

Who controls the holy place?

The latest round of violence began in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, which is sacred to both Jews and Muslims. For the Muslims the importance of the city is already expressed in its name: al-Quds, "the holy one"; Mecca only bears the nickname "the honored one". The Ascension, which Mohammad is said to have begun from the Temple Mount plateau, may be a pious legend for non-Muslims. For the Muslims, however, it connects Mecca and Jerusalem as the two theologically most important places of Islam.

Jerusalem mobilizes the Muslims emotionally more than the Israeli settlement building. When the Arab rulers became indifferent to the conflict, the Islamic Republic of Iran saw its chance and wrote the "liberation" of Jerusalem on its flags. Persian-Shiite Iran pours fuel on the fire, but is met with skepticism from many Sunni Muslims; even in Gaza, where Hamas is building rockets according to Iranian plans, but tries to evade the embrace of Tehran. This creates space for Turkey, which wants to be the protective power of the Sunni Muslims and advertises that the three monotheistic religions in the Ottoman Empire had unhindered access to their holy places in Jerusalem. The religious dimension of the Palestinian conflict gives Iran and Turkey the chance toto play a role as external actors in the Arab world.

The latest round of violence shows two things: Because of its religious dimension, the conflict extends far beyond Palestine. And as long as there is no solution for Jerusalem, it will continue, even if all Arab states should have made their peace with Israel. So far there has not even been a political will for a just solution to the “simpler” conflict over the country; The Arabs have a bad hand in the battle for Jerusalem, and living conditions in Gaza are catastrophic. It is only a matter of time before the next outbreak of violence occurs.