Published May 13. 2021 5:36PM
Zev Chafets
Shortly after the sirens went off in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night, I sat in an improvised home shelter listening to the boom of rockets fired from Gaza and the response of Israel s vaunted Iron Dome anti-missile system. The windows of the house rattled. The voices of the Israeli radio reporters, usually exuding certainty, sounded confused. This was not supposed to be happening.
My first thought went to Ramadan, 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched a sneak attack on Israel. Israel had regarded itself as an impregnable fortress. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, the legendary Sabra war hero, inspected the battlefield and reported to a befuddled Prime Minister Golda Meir. The third temple (Israel) is in danger of falling. The country was shaken. Never again, Israelis promised themselves after military disaster was narrowly averted. Tuesday night in Tel Aviv sure felt like a never again moment.
A timeline of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948
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JTA After Hamas launched seven missiles at Jerusalem from Gaza this week, forcing the unprecedented evacuation of the Knesset and the city’s District Court, a new escalation was inevitable. Once again, Israel’s capital is at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one intertwining religious tension between Muslims and Jews with political arm wrestling over both the city and the Palestinian territories.
Jerusalem, seen from the east, with the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif) in the foreground. (Flickr)
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(JTA) After Hamas launched seven missiles at Jerusalem from Gaza this week, forcing the unprecedented evacuation of the Knesset and the city’s District Court, a new escalation was inevitable. Once again, Israel’s capital is at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one intertwining religious tension between Muslims and Jews with political arm wrestling over both the city and the Palestinian territories.
And once again, the future of the city of Jerusalem, in particular the future of eastern Jerusalem and the Old City, lays at the very heart of the charged narratives of both sides to the conflict.
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