“Gaza burns”: the most ultra-Israel celebrates its strength in Jerusalem

Religious nationalism, a movement that in Israel has unprecedented political and social weight and that fights to colonize Palestine with a rifle in one hand and the Bible in the other, exhibits its strength every spring with a massive march to the Wailing Wall . It is Jerusalem Day, the celebration of the conquest of the Palestinian part of the city in the Six-Day War of 1967 with a rally that, for three years, has received permission to cross the Muslim quarter, forcing the closure of all the houses and shops of the neighbors, who discover them the next day full of racist, Islamophobic and ultra-nationalist stickers. On this occasion, the police have reported the arrest of 18 protesters, including several teenagers, and at least five of them for attacking journalists.

It’s their day and they know it. And, furthermore, Israel increasingly resembles them and less like its founders. Or, as one of the attendees, Lirón, 26, summed up: “It’s more Jerusalem and less Tel Aviv. Less liberal and secular and more in our way, that of God and Jerusalem.”

The atmosphere is a mixture of euphoria, provocation and “here I am and this is mine” that was summarized before the crowd, from a platform next to the Western Wall, by its most popular representative, the Minister of Internal Security, Itamar Ben Gvir: “ Jerusalem is ours, the gate of Damascus [que da acceso al barrio musulmán] it’s ours. The Temple Mount is ours.” It is the name in Hebrew of the place where the ancient Jewish temple was located, destroyed by the Romans two millennia ago in retaliation for the Jewish revolt and which today is the Esplanade of the Mosques. Building the Third Temple there one day is the growing obsession of religious nationalism, increasingly the idea most present in slogans and t-shirts.

This year, Gaza is more present, among those who come from fighting there and those who sing “Gaza burns” or “We don’t want Mohamed in Shayaia.” The speeches become a way to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring the war in the Strip to the end, which everyone here experiences as a religious conflict, and launch another against the Shiite militia party Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The messages coincide in one idea. It doesn’t matter Gaza or Jerusalem. It’s the same fight. “The Hamas monsters called their massacre the Al Aqsa Flood. They know perfectly well that everything started here,” says the other great ultra figure, the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, from the podium, welcomed between dances like a rock star.

Ben Gvir appeals to his prime minister. “From here, from Jerusalem, where it all began, I tell the Government: go to war in Hezbollah, create a security strip between the Galilee and southern Lebanon, let our fighters and heroes win.”

Israel is, in a way, another Israel since the Hamas attack on October 7, but some rites from other years are repeated. The usual chants, for example: “Death to the Arabs”, “An Arab is a son of a bitch; a Jew, a soul” or “Muhammad is dead”… Journalists are once again the enemy and dozens of teenagers throw water bottles at them.

On the way to the Western Wall, along the street that normally has the most life in the entire old city and today is occupied by a wave of Israeli flags, a teenager writes the word “whore” on the door of a shop. Others harass a Palestinian who tries to reach her house escorted by the police. The average age is low, in an example of how youth guides the country towards the most radical right. Past and present connect on many stickers with the phrase “Kahane was right.” He is the murdered rabbi who defended the expulsion of the Palestinians and whose party Israel ended up outlawing due to the racism of his ideas. This Wednesday his face and slogans were seen on many t-shirts.

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