The recent tensions in east Jerusalem, caused by a decision by Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, to open a makeshift office in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood evoke a strong sense of déjà vu.
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We have been here before, not too long ago, actually, and we know how things will unfold: with agitation toward the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, through escalation and potential conflict, to a lull.
We know this because the police made the same bed for itself last year when, just around the same time, tensions began simmering in Jerusalem, eventually erupting in the form of the May riots.
The Jewish residents of the neighborhoods near Sheikh Jarrah were the victims of ongoing harassment by their Arab neighbors and then, too, the police were nowhere to be found and neither was any sense of deterrence.
When Ben-Gvir set up a presence in Sheikh Jarrah last year, it sparked a political commotion but from a security outlook, as far as the Jewish residents were concerned – it proved successful: then-PM Benjamin Netanyahu pleaded with him to remove the office but Ben-Gvir complied only in the wake of significant police activity on the premises.
After he left, the police continued to boost their presence and protect the Jewish residents, thus temporarily preventing the harassment they suffered.
However, it is a common misconception that the leader of Otzma Yehudit is responsible for tensions on the Temple Mount, which escalated into Hamas rocket fire on Jerusalem, and triggered Operation Guardian of the Walls.
The security escalation was a Hamas interest, as the terrorist group controlling the Gaza Strip sought to create a new balance of power vis-à-vis Israel. Hamas failed, but had the police recognized their own weakness, they could have been able to extinguish the flames in east Jerusalem before they turned into a full-fledged conflagration.
A year later, it seems that we have learned nothing.
Trouble begins, as always, with the "guests" – in this case, radical leftists on the Arabs' side and right-wing extremists on the Jews' side. Were reality left solely to the devices of the local residents – Jews and Arabs both – it is doubtful we would be seeing a rerun of the same tensions and budding escalation, with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad again threatening vengeance.
When the police take on the management of the conflict in the area beyond pinpoint operations; when stoning incidents are taken as seriously at terrorist attacks, and when the police do more than conduct weapon raids - peace will return to these neighborhoods, as it will to other mixed cities like Lod and Acre, where police conduct is similar.
When the police make sure to keep outside provocateurs – Arabs and Jews alike – away, there is a better chance of achieving sustainable peace and quiet.
The police know how to do their job, but they need the political echelon and top brass to grant them the necessary leeway.
Public Security Minister Omer Barlev is ideologically hostile to the settlers, but if he weighs only the professional considerations, he will realize that the sooner he gets his hands on the external agitators on both sides, the sooner sovereignty and peace will return to the heart of Jerusalem.
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