Jerusalem Day March Passes Through Muslim Quarter With Less Violence and Racism Than Past Years
Image by Getty Images
The Jerusalem Day flag march in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City took off in relative calm on Sunday evening, following earlier concerns of friction between Jewish revelers and local Arab residents. No altercations were reported, and a few Muslim-owned shops on Hagai Street, a main thoroughfare in the Old City, remained opened.
However, a few participants were heard shouting chants such as “the Temple will be built, the [Al-Aqsa] mosque will be burned,” and ”Mohammed is dead.”
Participants in the flag march arrived at the march’s starting point early evening on Sunday, a few hours after attempts to reroute the marchers away from the Old City’s Muslim Quarter in a bid to lower tensions failed.
Thousands of marchers were set to pass through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter between 6:00 and 6:15 P.M., as part of celebrations commemorating the capture of the city’s eastern sector in the 1967 Mideast war.
The annual march is typically attended by tens of thousands of religious Zionist youth and is usually a source of tension in the Old City. In previous marches, racist insults were hurled by marchers at Arabs and instances of vandalism were reported.
Per a court-ratified agreement between the state and the parade’s organizers, the march will start 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. This was meant to ensure that no Jewish marchers are present in the Muslim Quarter if Ramadan begins on Sunday.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
