Palestinian Authority Slams Israeli Light Festival As ‘Judaizing’ Jerusalem

TEL AVIV – The Palestinian Authority has slammed the ongoing Jerusalem Festival of Light as an Israeli attempt to “Judaize” the city.

“What the occupation authorities call the International Light Festival in our occupied capital is nothing but another of the tools of Judaization that the occupation authorities are working to impose,” PA spokesperson Yusef al-Mahmoud said in a statement.

The week-long festival, which runs until Thursday, features more than 35 light installations projected on the Old City walls and surrounding buildings. This year the annual festival celebrates its tenth anniversary.

Mahmoud claimed the festival is a “destructive practice” by Israel to eliminate its “Arab and Palestinian” character.

“East Jerusalem,” he said, referring to the eastern sections of Jerusalem, is an “occupied Palestinian city that is recognized by more than 138 countries as the capital of Palestine. This, in addition to the fact that most historians, including Arabs, foreigners and some Israelis, recognize Jerusalem as an Arab city since the dawn of history.” There is no such city as East Jerusalem.

The theme of this year’s festival was togetherness, according to artistic director Gaston Zahr.

“It brings people together and to areas of the Old City they may not normally visit,” Zahr said.

Mahmoud charged Israel with seeking to “impose more dimness on the history and present of the holiest and most ancient Arab city.”

“The truth requires that the festival be called the Festival of Dimness and not the Festival of Light,” Mahmoud said. “The occupation is working to use all means, including the light and its aesthetics, to serve its black goals.”

Meanwhile, a senior official from the ruling Fatah party, Hatem Abdel-Qader, told the Palestinian Ma’an news agency that the festival’s goal was “forging the historical facts and presenting an Israeli narrative that contradicts the true narrative that emphasizes the Arab identity of Jerusalem.”

Abdel-Qader, who is from from eastern Jerusalem and once served as PA Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, said Israel’s Jerusalem moves “will not establish for it a history or a policy or a law in an Arab Islamic city that is the capital of the Palestinian state.”