For eight long months, our adversaries have relentlessly pummeled the northern towns and villages, maintaining a steady barrage on the Gaza periphery, while periodically raining rockets down on the central Israel. Make no mistake though – their obsession remains laser-focused on Jerusalem. They think of it constantly, their words and deeds are centered on the city, dreaming of the day it will be "freed" from Jewish control. The evidence is plain for any willing to look impartially at their statements and writings, harkening back to our failure to take them at their word before this latest round of hostilities erupted.
In the Palestinians' warped vision, the Jewish people are foreigners with no authentic ties to this land, the ancient Jewish capital, the Temple Mount, or the Western Wall. We are accused of nefarious plots to undermine and ultimately destroy the Muslim shrines atop that sacred plateau through underhanded tactics like "artificial earthquakes" and subterranean excavations. The contemporary "armies of Saladin" are framed as modern-day crusaders destined to eventually reconquer Jerusalem, driving out the "foreign invaders," a.k.a. the Jews. Our archaeologists are labeled as fraudsters falsifying historical artifacts to invent a fictional Jewish narrative in the city. An absolutist religious imperative is invoked, positing a duty to "purify" Jerusalem of the Jewish "defilement" of its intrinsically Muslim character.
They did not name this conflict the "Tel Aviv Floor" or the "Kiryat Shmona Flood," but rather the "Al Aqsa Flood" – revealing where their aspirations unequivocally lie. All roads on the Palestinian side lead toward al-Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem, with streets across their camps, towns and cities bearing the name of that most combustible compound.
Even after Israel facilitated a quarter million Jews taking up residence across the liberated neighborhoods of an undivided Jerusalem in the decades since 1967 – and despite many east Jerusalemites themselves fearing the turmoil that would accompany any repartition or transition to Palestinian Authority control – our foes have never ceased to angle for either re-dividing the city or conquering it outright. From their perspective, the events of early October 1967 codified not Jewish reunification but rather an ongoing Israeli weakness ripe for reversal, with the battle for sovereignty over Jerusalem's sublime stakes still unresolved.
If Israel is to definitively foreclose on such an eventuality, concerted action on several fronts is urgently required. First, a massive weapons-sweeping campaign must be launched to confiscate the thousands of illegal arms currently dispersed and stashed throughout east Jerusalem's neighborhoods – rather than relying on episodic, intelligence-driven seizures as has been the case until now, despite the open secret that widespread armament plagues the area.
Secondly, the pivotal struggle to preserve a united Jerusalem under Jewish sovereignty will inevitably be decided within the ancient, iconic confines of the Old City itself. While Israel successfully settled blocs across the liberated Biblical heartland, the startling omission of a Jewish civilian foothold within the Old City's quarters constituted a historic missed opportunity – one which continues to undermine any definitive rebuttal of the delusion that this sacred space could somehow be re-divided. Until the time when all four quarters are securely undergirded by indigenous Jewish inhabitants, the impression of a disputed, divisible territory will persist from afar.
Finally, while the vast majority of the Arab Israeli residents of east Jerusalem may well desire a quieter existence of civic normalcy over perpetual conflict and resistance – even if lacking allegiance to the Zionist ideal – Israel can no longer abide the cumulative denial of basic rights and services that has systematically marginalized that entire population over successive decades.
