Spotlight: Jerusalem braces for "reunification" celebrations amid tensions as Ramadan nears

Jerusalem is bracing for an annual Jewish nationalist flag-bearing parade to mark Israel's 1967 capture of Arab East Jerusalem late Sunday, an event that could further instigate already months-long tensions between Israel and Palestinians.

Police were stepping up security for fear of clashes between Jewish marchers and Muslim as this year's parade is expected to concur with the opening prayer of the Muslim holy month of the Ramadan.

The so-called "flags parade" is the main event of Israel's "Jerusalem Day" with this year commemorating the 49th anniversary of the "reunification" of the east and west sides of the city. The marchers, predominantly right-wing nationalist-religious Jewish youths, walk from western Jerusalem via the Old City's Muslim Quarter en route to the Western Wall, in a demonstration of Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem.

This year's Jerusalem Day will coincide with the opening evening prayer of the Ramadan, the exact start can only be determined on Sunday after sunset by moon sighting committees of Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The committees will gather to look at the Crescent moon and based on their observation they will decide whether to start the holy fasting month on Sunday or Monday.

If the Ramadan is to start on Sunday night, dozens of thousands of Muslim worshipers will be on their way to observe the Ramadan pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque, while tens of thousands of Jews will march towards the Old City's Western Wall, just below the al-Aqsa mosque

The compound is Jerusalem's most sensitive religious site. It is the third holiest site to Muslims, who revere it as "the Noble Sanctuary," and the most sacred site for Jews, who know it as "the Temple Mount."

The celebrations come at a sensitive moment in Jewish-Arab relations in Jerusalem, an eight-month-long surge of Palestinian uprising, including knife, car-ramming, and shooting attacks. The unrest began amidst a campaign by Jewish ultranationalists who press for prayer rights at the flashpoint site.

Israel seized East Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast War, along with the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It later annexed East Jerusalem and declared it as part of its "eternal and indivisible capital," in a move that has never been recognized by the international community.

The Palestinians, who makes up more than third of the city's overall population, consider east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

According to the Palestinians and human rights groups, the flags parade is a magnate to ultranationalist activists, who pass through local neighborhood, chanting anti-Arab insults and vandalizing Palestinian property.

"They go through the Old City, shouting racist slogans, like, 'death to Arabs.' They harass people, beating people, vandalizing shops, forcing merchants to close their stores and barricade themselves inside their homes," said Jawad Salhab, a Palestinian from the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud, across from the Old City.

Betty Herschman, director of international relations and advocacy for the Israeli human right groups of Ir Amim ("City of Nations,") told Xinhua in an email comment that "alarming acts of violence and incitement" were documented in previous years.

He said these marchers usually bang on windows of residences, shouting vicious slogans, spitting, pushing and vandalizing of public and personal property.

In a last-minute effort to reroute the parade, Ir Amim and Amir Cheshin, former Arab affairs adviser to the mayor of Jerusalem, filed an emergency petition to the Supreme Court, to ban the parade through the Muslim Quarter to avoid violence.

The group said that finding an alternative route that bypasses the Muslim Quarter was particularly pressing this year due to "the extreme threat of violence posed by the conflict of parade and Ramadan dates during what is already a period of instability in the city."

The police moved up the time of the parade passing through the Muslim Quarter but according to Ir Amim the change is minor, and the two events are still expected to overlap.

A statement released by the police ahead of the parade urged the participants "to follow the instructions of the organizers, to act by the agreements, and to avoid any physical and verbal violence."

The police warned it will "show zero tolerance for any sign of physical violence and/or verbal abuses, and will act with any possible means against violators of public order and lawbreakers."

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that thousands of Jerusalem police, para-military Border Police, undercover police officers, and volunteers, have been deployed throughout the city to secure both events. Endit