We may look back at Chol HaMo’ed Sukkot 5770 as the day the battle for Jerusalem was rejoined.

As has been the case for many years, thousands of Jews made their way to the Kotel Ha’Ma’aravi (the Western Wall remnant of the Holy Temple), for a joyous holiday blessing of the Jewish people by Kohanim (priests).

The Palestinians, determined to deny Jewish history and our connection to our eternal capital of Jerusalem, plotted violence. And the Palestinian political leadership, with whom the international community presses for negotiations, has called upon world leaders to “force” Israel “to put off its attempts to take over Jerusalem and Judaize it.”

Of the Palestinians assertion that Israel is, one presumes, just now “attempting” to “Judaize” Jerusalem, and the holy city has not been more embedded in the heart and history of the Jewish people for more thousands of years than in Islam or the Arab world, one can only think Orwell would be proud.

—