I have been in Israel for over 14 years now. I still remember my second Shabbat in Israel spent in Hevron where my friends and I were shot at with a spray of bullets as we walked back from our Shabbat meals. That Shabbat I spent in doors as the IDF and the terrorists from the Palestinan Authority battled back and forth. It was an eye opener for me. The 2nd intifada continued. Suicide bombings increased and my wife and I, newly weds willing to grit it out here made our peace with the idea that our lives would be a simple extension of our relatively peaceful upbringing.
Numerous terror attacks and few wars later Israel is at it again. Jerusalem is also once again at the heart of this current round of violence. Arab claims that some sort of status quo has been broken are ridiculous once one studies the issue. If anything the breakers of the fabled status quo are the same Arabs threatening everyone else who dares utter a prayer or even walk on the Temple Mount. Arabs continuously deny our connection to Jerusalem, rewriting history as if they have been here for centuries.
The key to settling this conflict is Jerusalem. The Arabs know that if we the Nation of Israel succeed in returning to our property that has been taken from us over the last century and we succeed in getting over our fears and really reunite and redeem our former Jewish neighborhoods, then their claims on the rest of Israel fall apart.
This is why neighborhoods like the Old Yemenite Village located in what the Arabs have renamed Silwan as well the Flowers Gate neighborhood in the Old City, among others are so important to redeem and settle. By restoring the rightful heirs to their land, the unjust actions of the past can be reversed. Peace flows from truth.
Below are some images of the Yemenite Village as it was a century ago. The hill Silwan is on now is empty save for the Yemenite Jews that lived there. Those Arabs that have claimed to have been there for centuries are nowhere to be found. That is because they cannot be found in the vicinity.
Truth will win!
