Israel claims to defend the “ freedom of worship in Jerusalem, even though its police have injured hundreds of people there in the past few weeks on the esplanade of the Mosques, the third holiest site in Islam. Such violence, which peaked during the month of Ramadan, has continued since, a sign that the tension is far from easing. It is therefore enlightening to look back on almost two centuries of the history of the ” freedom of worship in the Holy City, which began with the Egyptian occupation of Syria and Palestine, removed from the authority of Constantinople from 1831 to 1840.
Cairo then decided to break the Ottoman taboo on the opening of European consulates in Jerusalem, a breach into which Great Britain rushed, followed by Prussia and France, the latter supporting the Catholic orders in the face of Orthodox institutions sometimes tempted by Tsarist “protection”. This rivalry by interposed Church led the Ottoman sultan to define in 1852 the relations between the different cults, a status quo inscribed in 1856 in the Treaty of Paris, after the Crimean War, where France and Great Britain supported the Empire. Ottoman against Russia.
A status quo written, but disputed
The very term “status quo” means that it is a question of freezing the positions and privileges of the various parties, in order to prevent recurring disputes from leading to open crises, above all between the ” protectors of the churches concerned. Jewish worship is freely guaranteed in the historic synagogues of the Old City, while a modern city is developing outside the walls, with 40,000 Jews for 30,000 Arabs in 1914 throughout Jerusalem. But the Ottoman leaders prohibited access to the esplanade of the Mosques to the Jewish faithful who saw it as the “Temple Mount”, just as fixed installations were prohibited in front of the western wall of this esplanade, the so-called “Lamentations” wall. yet a fundamental place of Jewish piety. These provisions were taken up again after the British conquest of Jerusalem in 1917, in the name of the status quo, hence the rejection of the Zionist proposal to acquire the Western Wall and part of the so-called “Maghreb” quarter, which adjoins and limits access. Riots broke out in 1920 around this sacred perimeter, with the most serious disturbances spreading in 1929 to the rest of Palestine.
The end of the British mandate led, in 1948, to the proclamation of the State of Israel and to the first war with its Arab neighbours. The fighting for Jerusalem is fierce and ends with the division of the Holy City between a western sector, incorporated into Israel, and an eastern sector, including the Old City and its holy places, occupied, then annexed by Jordan. The state of war continues between the two countries, despite the ceasefire, with looting and burning of the synagogues of East Jerusalem, from where the Jewish population has disappeared.
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