Police closed the Temple Mount for a short time Sunday morning after dozens of Arabs hurled stones at Israeli police, injuring two of them, but the rest of the city is relatively calm.
Media reported that Arabs hurled firebombs and rocks at police in predominantly Arba neighborhoods Saturday night, but there has been no repeat of the larger scale chaos that followed the kidnap-murder of a Jerusalem Arab by six Israeli hoodlums two weeks ago.
The violence and vandalism closed down the Jerusalem Light Rail system used by Jews and Arabs in northern Jerusalem, but service now has been restored, much earlier than previous estimates. Damages amounted to several million dollars.
However, the rioting Arabs managed to inflict “collective punishment” on Arab neighborhoods, where the light rail does not stop. That mean that the large majority of Jerusalem Arabs, like most in Judea and Samaria, who simply want to work and raise a family in peace, without the shenanigans of a corrupt Palestinian Authority regime, have another reason to blame fellow Arabs and not Israel for their woes.
There are approximately 250,000 Arabs in Jerusalem and about 249,000 don’t riot. This a big problem for the media establishment, which wants to promote the myth that Israel is “occupying” Jerusalem and that the Arab citizens of Israel really would prefer to give up all of their benefits from the Israeli government and medical service for the right to be subjected to the corrupt regime ruin by Mahmoud Abbas.
Twenty years of Palestinian Authority incitement against Israel and American and European Union promotion of the idea of “occupation” have educated a large part of the younger generation to hate Israel, but not enough are buying the lie to support a rebellion.
There is not much Arab love for Israel, but when they see that the propaganda has made lives even more miserable for their friends in Judea, Gaza and Samaria, there is even less fondness for the alternative.