Israel’s treatment of Jerusalem’s holy sites in early 2026 exposed deep colonial and racist hierarchies in the city. In late February, Israeli authorities closed access to both Masjid Al-Aqsa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They cited security concerns tied to the ongoing Israel–US war on Iran. For Palestinians and Muslims across the world, the closure of Al-Aqsa during most of Ramadan, including Eid and which is ongoing, is a profound spiritual blow. It was enforced with military severity, including the barring of the Imam of Al-Aqsa, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Abbasi, from entering the sacred Sanctuary just before Ramadan. The closure after two weeks provoked condemnation from the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. However, this had little impact the Al-Aqsa remains closed.

When the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was closed and its religious leaders denied access, the response was swift. International outrage followed and Israel quickly reversed course. Access was restored. The symbolism was unmistakable. When Christians are blocked, the world notices. When Muslims are blocked, the world looks the other way.

What happened regarding the two Holy sites in Jerusalem is a lesson in privilege and power.

This incident highlights that Jerusalem is not administered fairly. Israeli colonialist policy shapes the city, creating a hierarchy among the occupied. This structure is off course after placing a person with a Jewish identity in the privileged pinnacle position.

However, the reopening of the church should not be mistaken for equality or justice. It is only symbolic. Symbolism matters, of course, but symbolism without structural change is theatre.

Because Israel rules all Palestinians – Muslim, Christian or others – through conquest, military control, settlement expansion, and a legal order that privileges Jews over all Palestinians.

READ: Arab and Muslim ministers condemn Israeli curbs on worship in Jerusalem

Christian leaders may have been allowed back, but the larger architecture of dispossession remains intact. Palestinians still live under occupation. Their homes, towns, and movement remain hemmed in by a system that human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, have condemned as apartheid. That is the reality no carefully managed reopening can erase.

However, the contrast with Al-Aqsa cannot be ignored. Leaders of Muslim-majority countries have poured adulation and millions of dollars in gifts upon Trump, the US President. They bow to Western leaders who never acknowledge them and are ‘normalising’ relations with Israel, either officially through the Abrahamic accords or unofficially through business and diplomacy. Arab leaders’ fury has no consequences because it is now well established that their roar never becomes a strike.

It also reflects a global order where Muslim suffering is seen as manageable. When a church is blocked, Western capitals speak of shared heritage. When Muslims are prevented from Al-Aqsa, the language changes. Words like “security,” “tension,” and “complexity” are used instead.

The asymmetry is not subtle. It is one of the most enduring faces of Islamophobia. Not only explicit hatred, but the routine normalisation of Muslim exclusion.

This is how Islamophobia gains global respectability. It does not always arrive as slurs or open prejudice. Sometimes it appears as procedural language, temporary closures, administrative necessity, or exceptional security measures that always seem to target Muslims. The result is the same. Muslim life is treated as negotiable. In this sense, the double standard shows who the world protects and who is seen as expendable.

READ: US raises concerns with Israel over restrictions at Jerusalem holy sites during Holy Week

Israel, as an occupying power, has no moral or legal right to restrict Palestinians’ freedom to practice religion in occupied Jerusalem. International law does not let an occupier treat sacred life as a matter of police discretion. Freedom of worship is a right—not a favour given by military rule. In Jerusalem, that right has been fragmented, conditional, and unequal.

The deeper scandal is not just that Al-Aqsa remains restricted. It is that the world has learned to live with Israel’s dictates over Al-Aqsa. Each new condemnation disappears into the machinery of inaction. Each violation becomes another headline, another statement, another diplomatic shrug. Meanwhile, all Palestinians continue to live under an arrangement that strips them of dignity while presenting itself as temporary, necessary, or security-driven.

The difference in Israeli response shows that the issue is not poor communication between communities or a misunderstanding of religious sentiment. It is about who is privileged, whose voice matters. Not only is Al-Aqsa under siege, but the global Muslim community. It is a political system, Israeli and global, that decides whose prayer is urgent and whose prayer can wait. It is the global hierarchy that allows a church to reopen while Al-Aqsa remain closed.

Yes, the reopening of the Holy Sepulchre matters. But it only reminds us of the larger injustice and inequality. The church opening does not end occupation. It does not restore equality. It does not repair the damage done to Palestinians or erase the apartheid conditions they face daily.

What is required is not another symbolic concession. What is required is an end to the occupation itself. Anything less is not peace. It is the management of inequality for all Palestinians – Christians, Muslims and the Rest.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

© Middle East Monitor