Hamas and Islamic Jihad hastened to ignite the fire, and the video uploaded to social media revealed differences in religion, age and culture in Palestinian society. • Now, in light of the events, there are fears that the event will return the site to the days when it was used for incitement against Jews.
Thousands of Palestinians protested last Friday over the "desecration of Islamic shrines."
Nabi Musa Mosque complex
Photography:
Reuters
It happened about three weeks ago, on a Saturday night in the Judean Desert, in the heart of the wilderness, near the Nabi Musa Mosque, the burial place of Moses according to ancient Muslim traditions.
Ten miles south of Jericho.
Young people from East Jerusalem making their way to Jerusalem heard echoes of loud music from the main road.
They followed the noise, reached the sacred compound and peeked inside: many dozens of men and women, some say hundreds, danced there in Western attire under the baton of DJ Sama 'Abd al-Hadi, the Palestinian Authority's most famous electronic music anchor.
According to one version, quite a bit of alcohol was also spilled there.
Naked - contrary to rumors - was not in Nabi Musa, but in traditional Palestinian terms, the attire was quite permissive.
The uninvited guests snapped a snapshot of the event and rushed to upload photos and videos to social media.
Within a short time the shabbab arrived;
Groups of young people from East Jerusalem armed with planks, batons and explosives.
They dispersed the event with threats, insults and loud shouts, claiming that the dancing at the venue was desecrating the mosque.
The party participants, Christians and Muslims from Bethlehem, Ramallah and East Jerusalem, scattered everywhere.
The next day, at noon, the presence was already purely Muslim.
Hundreds of believers came to Nabi Musa and held a mass prayer there.
The furniture used by the khan (guest house) in the compound - furniture on which the celebrants had sat the night before - was taken out into the open plaza and set on fire.
The compound that "gets dirty", "purifies" again with strong water hoses.
Al-Hadi herself was arrested by the Palestinian Authority on charges of desecration.
She was later released on bail.
The 29-year-old, who is considered the pioneer of techno and underground in Arab society, who produced "Boiler Rum Palestine" about two years ago (which received 6 million views on YouTube), tried in vain to explain to the Palestinian police that she was staying with a permit from the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism.
The office, it turns out, authorized Sama, in order for a well-known local DJ, to hold three filming days in Nabi Musa, a "Palestinian heritage site."
At the same time, there were additional recordings, lasting four hours each, at other regional heritage sites, and not just in Nabi Musa, by some of the DJs considered in the Middle East.
Palestinian Prime Minister expressed "anger and disgust". A video released from the party
Hamas and Islamic Jihad jumped on the event in Nabi Musa as the culmination of much looting, and Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Eshtiya was heard apologizing when he expressed "anger and disgust" from what happened in the mosque.
The PA's endowment minister denied that a permit was issued for a "disco" in the mosque, and Jericho explained that approval was granted for the promotion of tourism, but that it was used for other purposes.
A reflection of the in-depth streams of
videos of young men and women in their twenties and thirties, moving at a westerly pace in pants and tank tops, flooded dormant demons of religious gaps, age gaps and cultural gaps within Palestinian society.
They also greatly increased the tension, which exists anyway, between Christians and Muslims in the PA territories, after accusations were spread on the networks that young Christians were the ones who led the "desecration of the mosque" party. The event, it turned out in retrospect, took place within the walled dome complex. , But some distance from the prayer areas and the grave marker, closer to the Khan and the guest rooms. Despite this, for a whole week, the PA headlines pushed events that preoccupy Palestinians on weekdays, and social media and the media dealt with the seemingly marginal event: the Palestinian youth dance party at the religious site .
But that was not the end of the story: Nabi Musa, known in the last century as a nationalist Arab center and as a center of incitement against the British, Jews and the Zionist movement, returned at one point to the days that peace-seekers seek to forget.
The events of 1943 and other harassment of pre-state Jews in the country often began in Nabi Musa. The infamous Haj Amin al-Husseini also, before being appointed Mufti, began his career as an instigator in Nabi Musa. The nationalist and hostile atmosphere of the Jews of the country was felt. For many years, especially during the pilgrimage week to Nabi Musa, in the spring season.
In recent weeks it seems as if Nabi Musa has returned decades in the time tunnel. On the first Friday after the incident, thousands of Palestinians gathered in Nabi Musa to protest the "desecration of Islamic shrines," but their protests soon escalated into calls for incitement against Israel and the Jews, and the party turned into a "Zionist plot." Again the familiar cries were heard in Nabi Musa in the form of: "Khyber Khyber Ya Yehud, Jaish Muhammad Sa-Yaud" which means: Remember the battle of Khyber, Jews (a battle in which Jews were killed in front of Muhammad's followers, in the beginning), Muhammad's army will return. And also: "Khyber Khyber Ya Yehud, but Palestine is destined", which means: (Remember) Khi
"Yaver Khyber, Jews, we will return to Palestine."
One week ago, in an attempt to prevent further escalation, Israel stopped buses from Hebron that were making their way to Nabi Musa, fearing that their stay there would develop into serious disturbances.
Such restrictions are not exceptional in the history of the site loaded.
As early as 1937, following the Great Arab Revolt, the British banned the traditional pilgrimage to the site.
Even during the Jordanian period, the Hashemite Kingdom restricted the celebrations at the site for many years, and so did Israel, when from time to time it prevented the compound managers, the Waqf members in Jerusalem, from holding mass events there.
Her arrest acted like a boomerang.
DJ Sama 'Abd al-Hadi // Photo: AFP
Khaled Abu
Toema
, a senior journalist and research fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public and State Affairs and the Gatesstone Institute, says the PA's conduct following the party in Nabi Musa is no less submissive to groups Islamists affiliated with Hamas and the Hezb al-Tahrir movement, he said, were "a reflection of deep currents in the PA; Ramallah and Bethlehem and to some extent Nablus with a more liberal population versus religious Hebron and Jenin and Tulkarm, which are strongholds of Islamist conservatives." The PA's response indicates the intensity of the panic, in the face of the storm that Hamas has at its core;
In the face of the accusation that the authority itself is allegedly desecrating mosques, after one of its offices approved the incident there. "
Abu Tauma testified that al-Hadi's arrest acted like a boomerang:" No wonder she was released so quickly.
In a short time, more than 100,000 people from all over the world signed an online petition demanding its release, including international organizations, senior musicians and owners of music companies.
"The fact that the European Union has previously invested 5 million euros in Nabi Musa has increased the embarrassment in the PA. The commission of inquiry set up by the Palestinian prime minister to investigate the events of Nabi Musa," Abu Tauma said, "closed the matter quickly. The Ministry of Tourism was responsible for approving The incident. For the Ministry of Endowments, for not placing a guard on the site and for the DJ, for not taking into account the feelings of the Muslims and violating the corona's instructions. "
Michael Milstein // Photo: Tomer Shalom
Alienation from the discourse The
writer and journalist Danny Rubinstein, a member of Ben-Gurion University and one of the oldest researchers in Palestinian society, views the event that caused the storm in Nabi Musa from a slightly different perspective.
In Rubinstein's eyes, the heated discourse surrounding the DJ party embodies "the decline of Palestinian nationalism, somewhat similar to the decline of Arab nationalism," he says.
"Nabi Musa, a place that has always made headlines against the background of the national conflict, is making headlines against the background of intra-cultural conflict within Palestinian society. Many of my generation," says Rubinstein (83), "remember Nabi Musa from Yitzhak Shemi's memorable book, ' Revenge of the Patriarchs - a book from the beginning of the century, which describes a bloody confrontation between the people of Nablus and the people of Hebron over the primacy of honoring the Prophet, and suddenly this site is at the center of a debate between religious conservatism and seemingly unresponsive liberalism between Palestinian society and leadership. His old self is very alienated, and now it is not only in the field of nationalism, but also in the field of culture. "
Michael Milstein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center and author of the book "The Green Revolution - The Social Portrait of the Hamas Movement," also believes that the events of Nabi Musa are not an episode, but a reflection of changes and deep tensions in the Palestinian system.
"Evidence of a deep gap," as he puts it, "between the older generation and the younger generation, twenty-plus years old."
The young Palestinians, Milstein is impressed, "unlike their parents, are tired of ideologies and slogans of struggle, which in the past motivated the Palestinian public and which for a long time did not yield significant national achievements.
" The event, Milstein says, "largely testifies to two parallel worlds in the Palestinian system. , Or as many young Palestinians describe it: 'We live in one wadi and the parents and leadership generation live in another wadi'.
On the one hand, "he explains," there is the older generation, which adheres to traditional social and cultural values and preaches continued sacrifice for a national struggle whose end date is unclear;
And on the other hand - members of the younger generation, although deeply national-conscious, but for the most part follow the world of brands and show alienation from the discourse and political forces.
Young people from Ramallah, "says Milstein," expressed the contrast between the existence of the generations in the Palestinian system in words that say a lot: Ramallah, they say, has become a big coffee shop ... We no longer see pictures of martyrs or political slogans as we have seen in the past ... most people Unable to name four ministers or four members of the PLO or the Fatah Central Committee.
Khaled Abu Touma // Photo: Dudi Vaknin
Against the background of the events in Nabi Musa, the Waqf now seeks to renew the mass custom of pilgrimage to the mosque established by the Mamluk Sultan Beavers in Nabi Musa in 1268. The pilgrimage to the site was set in ancient times, not coincidentally , In an attempt to produce a counterweight to the pilgrimages of the Christians during this period.
In days gone by, on the first day of the festivities, a long convoy left the Temple Mount through the Lions Gate towards Nabi Musa, and so on each of the following days of the week.
On Thursday when everything returned to Jerusalem and the next day, the flags of the Dome of the Rock and the Prophet Muhammad al-Aqsa were carried to the Dome of the Rock and buried there under the rock.
More than once, as mentioned, the religious events in Nabi Musa ended in riots of a nationalist nature.
This year, Israel and the PA are expected to once again limit the celebrations in Nabi Musa, in an attempt to prevent the place's violent history from repeating itself.