JERUSALEM—Following three days of violent clashes on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, an emergency meeting convened last night by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to consider changing the rules of engagement with rioters so as to permit security forces to open live fire on those throwing rocks or firebombs.
In a public statement, Netanyahu himself did not explicitly endorse the change but hinted that he favored it. "We intend to give tools to the police and soldiers to act very aggressively against those who throw rocks and petrol-bombs," he said. "The current situation is unacceptable to us. We are changing the policy."
He made the statement after visiting a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem where a resident was killed on the eve of the Rosh Hashanah holiday when his car was reportedly hit by rocks thrown by youths from a neighboring Arab village and crashed into a telephone pole.
At the emergency meeting, attended by security officials and ministers, Netanyahu said that "systemic changes" will be put in place "that will set a new standard of deterrence." Among these will be substantial minimum prison sentences for rock throwing—there have been calls for a minimum of several years—and heavy fines leveled against the families of youths convicted of throwing stones or firebombs. "I intend to massively increase fines against minors and their families to deter them," said Netanyahu. He said that Israel adheres to the status quo.
"Rock throwing is a form of attempted murder, and definitely firebombing is" said Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan.
Erdan has suggested in recent days that judges not be promoted if their records show an undue leniency in sentencing rock throwers.
"A judge needs to know there will be oversight," he said. However, Netanyahu appears to have squashed that move by expressing a preference for fixed minimum sentences. "I wouldn’t call it an intifada," said Erdan, "but there’s definitely been an increase in recent years of rock throwing and Molotov Cocktail attacks."
Dozens of rioters and 14 police were injured during the clashes on the Temple Mount, site of the ancient Jewish Temple and al-Aksa Mosque, third holiest site in Islam.
Although Arabs have de facto control of the Mount—granted them by then Defense Minister Moshe Dayan after the 1967 Six Day War—Israel claims sovereignty but limits its claims to permission for Jews, and other non-Muslims, to visit the site for a few hours, most days of the week. The status quo prevents Jews from praying on the Temple Mount.
With the approach of the Jewish High Holidays—Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—a larger number of Jewish visitors than usual, mainly religious Jews, have visited the Mount, eliciting warnings in Arab circles that the Jews were intending to change the status quo in their favor. Last Sunday, Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, one of the more hardline settler leaders, announced his intention—which he duly carried out—to pray on the Mount despite the regulations. He was accompanied by a group of right-wing activists. Clashes broke out shortly afterwards.
Tension, however, has been mounting for weeks. Groups of Arab women, generally middle aged or older, have begun making it a practice to harass Jewish visitors, particularly those wearing skullcaps. Police in turn blocked access by women during the hours that non-Muslims visit. This was later extended to men under 50.
Police on Tuesday staged an early morning raid on the mount and said they had found firebombs and stones prepared for use. Demonstrators, most of them youths, barricaded themselves in al-Aksa Mosque.
Videos posted on You Tube stirred protests in the Arab world. Jordan’s King Abdullah, warned that if the clashes with security forces continue Jordan will have to reexamine its relations with Israel. Jordan is the only Arab country, besides Egypt, to have diplomatic relations with Israel.