Quiet Friday

Double security blockade at the
Palm Plaza and another further on at
the stairs of Damascus Gate today

Today Friday was super tense. The police closed off the Muslim Quarter at 4am. They were expecting big trouble. Last night there were fire fights in the surrounding villages of Ras el Amud, Silwan, Wadi Joz and the Mt. of Olives. We could hear stun grenades being fired all through the night. So this morning's clamp down was draconian. Damascus Gate had double security blockades!!! When entering Damascus Gate from New Gate/Notre Dame, you're stopped by the first blockade at the Palm Plaza ... a blockade so long it stretched from the Central Bus Station down to the City Walls. If you succeeded in passing through this block, then there was a more stringent blockade at the top of the stairs leading down to Damascus Gate. The entire stretch of East Jerusalem was closed off. All the alleys and streets in the Muslim Quarter were also blocked by police and soldiers. With all these plus the massive military presence in the streets, there were no violence or rioting in the Old City. But clashes took place outside of it - in the surrounding villages and in the Territories especially in Ramallah, Kalandia, Bethlehem, Hebron. Even right now there are sporadic explosions from the Wadi Joz (Kidron Valley) and Ras el Amud area. But at least here in the Old City there is calm ... and I can get a quiet night's sleep.

Pickling olives at home

The govt. is getting panicky over the rising tension and violence and the PM has finally called for calm and promised to keep the status quo - meaning jews are not allowed to pray in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound. The Chief Rabbi himself took the rare step of publicly calling the stop of jews entering the compound as it is against jewish halachic law = the Temple once stood there and since no one today knows where the Holy of Holies was built 2000 years ago, there would be the danger of someone walking over its foundations thus defiling God's holiest sanctuary. In fact the Chief Rabbi publicly repeated the halachic prohibition that any jew who enters the mosque area is punishable by death. This has always been the majority halachic view upheld by a vast majority of rabbis. But the modern zionist rabbis reject this view and continue to instigate jews to enter the mosque and pray.

Anyway my feet were very swollen today; and walking was a torture. Every step was like walking on needles. Hope this goes away by tomorrow after a good night's sleep.