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Jerusalem Day: A City Reunited, Forever

(Israel Hayom) Nadav Shragai - Happy holiday. Today is the day we mark the liberation of Jerusalem. Our parents and grandparents dreamed of this city, which has become something we take for granted - a city without walls and barbed wire. A city without sniper fire from Jordanian legionnaires on the Old City wall. One with free access to the Western Wall and Rachel's Tomb and Shimon HaTzadik (and somewhat less free access to the Temple Mount). A mixed city, in which terrorism and violence and extremism - despite the deceptive impression - are the exception, not the rule, while the threads that hold Jews and Arabs together in everyday normalcy are much more numerous and dominant. Some 40% of Jerusalem's Jewish residents, about 230,000 people, live in an area erroneously termed "east Jerusalem," to the north, south, and even east of the old borders that will never return because the demography of consciousness has completely changed. While certain circles try to redraw delusional borders to divide the city and feed the "two capitals" idea, demography of thought tells a different story. Most Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem today reject any physical division of the city, one that would entail a border that could lead to a security, economic, and urban catastrophe. The writer, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has documented Jerusalem for Ha'aretz and Israel Hayom for over 30 years.
2021-05-10 00:00:00
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