Foreign Dispatch: Clashes in East Jerusalem

The pictures started coming out on the wires this morning while I was still finishing up yoga. I managed to get a few more Om Shanti’s in before I finished all the positive yogic stretching where I had been concentrating on gently loosening up my back

>> Listen to Courtney report from Israel today

It was flak jacket and helmet time. I headed out to a flashpoint in East Jerusalem. For me it’s always Murphy’s Law- if I don’t have ‘em on I’ll need ‘em and if I do I’ll feel a little foolish and won’t.

Rocks, hunks of concrete were flying. Definitely needed the helmet. The Israeli police and soldiers were not using live fire so the flak jacket wasn’t completely necessary but it does do a good job of protecting me from flying debris that could leave me a bit bruised and battered. It also had lots of pockets which I needed to keep my hand free and my equipment tucked away when running.

I shy away from clashes like these unless I feel they really represent the situation. Today I felt they did.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government insists on building more housing units in East Jerusalem. The Israeli government claims the land as its own; an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Tension has been building in East Jerusalem, today it exploded.

Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of its future state. Most international sentiment also agrees.

But there will be no US intermediary to-ing and fro-ing between both sides trying to resolve the issue. George Mitchell, the US special envoy has postponed his trip indefinitely, putting further strain on US Israeli relations.

The clashes stopped at five pm. Colleagues and I joked it was because the Palestinian teenagers’ parents must have come home from work or maybe it was time for dinner.

The day often ends like that here – no more bangs not really any whimpers just with the onset of rush hour traffic, a few streets left littered with stones and a harsh middle eastern sun setting over an ever present question mark of when, if and how will it ever be resolved.