As youngsters took to the streets, Mr Netanyahu authorized live fire against stone-throwers in Jerusalem, and minimum four-year jail sentences for those arrested.
Predictably, violence has not calmed but spiralled. On Saturday night a Palestinian youth stabbed to death two Jewish settlers who had been visiting the Western Wall, near Al Aqsa.
Israel has described such incidents as "lone-wolf attacks." In truth, these unpredictable outbursts of violence are the inevitable result of the orphaned status of Palestinians in Jerusalem.
Israel responded with another unprecedented move. Palestinians were banned from the Old City for the following 48 hours unless they lived or worked there. Israel's track record suggests this will soon become the new norm.
Netanyahu also approved fast-track demolitions of Palestinian homes, more soldiers in Jerusalem and even tighter restrictions at Al Aqsa.
So where is this heading?
Doubtless Netanyahu is in part proving his credentials to an ever more religious and intolerant Israeli public. After Saturday's deaths, Jewish mobs once again patrolled Jerusalem's streets seeking vengeance.
But he is also cynically exploiting western fears to reinvent the David and Goliath story. He hopes the words "Islamic terrorism" -- conjuring up ISIL's threats to religious freedom -- will scotch western sympathy for Palestinian youths facing armed soldiers. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, warned in his speech to the UN last week that Israeli measures were "aimed at imposing a new reality and dividing Haram Al Sharif temporally."
These are not idle fears. In 1994 Israel capitalized on a horrific massacre of Palestinians perpetrated by a Jewish settler at the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron to justify dividing it. Today, Jews have prayer rights at the site, enforced by Israeli guns, and central Hebron has been turned into a ghost town -- much as Jerusalem's Old City looks since the weekend ban on entry for Palestinians.
Most Palestinians fear an Israeli-engineered spiral of violence will be used to impose a similar division at Al Aqsa. There is little Mr Abbas can do. His Palestinian Authority is barred from Jerusalem and committed to helping Israeli security elsewhere. Like the Muslim world, he watches helplessly from afar.
Which is why Palestinian youths will continue reaching for the humble stone, exerting what little power they have against a modern Goliath.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
