To fight terrorism, build up Jerusalem

It's the same old story in Jerusalem again. Waking up in the morning and wondering where the daily terrorist attack will be. We bled from such attacks in the late 1980s during the First Intifada and in the mid-90s during the wave of suicide bombings. We believed the worst was behind us, but then we reached the next low point, the Second Intifada, which erupted in the early 2000s. The Second Intifada was even more painful and difficult than the preceding waves of terrorism.

Palestinian terrorists committed suicide attacks while the Jews were building. The Palestinian murderers stabbed Jews, and the Jews hammered stakes into the ground to mark new construction sites in Jerusalem. The Palestinian terrorists blew themselves up on buses and busy city streets full of innocent people, and Israel expelled the Palestinian Authority from its facilities in Jerusalem. They committed a terrorist attack in the neighborhood of Bayit Vegan (in Hebrew, House and Garden) and we built another house and another garden. Step by step we will build Jerusalem, the capital of Israel and of the Jewish people. With the blood we have spilled, we will build.

Jerusalem is not a caravan neighborhood in a controversial settlement outpost in some far-off corner of Samaria. There is consensus over the capital Jerusalem -- here in Israel and among Jews across the globe. One day we will tear down the separation wall, which we built for security purposes. But the neighborhood of Har Homa (literally, wall mountain), which we built to house Israeli citizens, we will never tear down.

No, these words are not meant as criticism against the Palestinians or against anyone. It is simply what was necessary to bridge the 20-year gap -- the amount of time between the War for Independence and the Six-Day War -- during which we, Jews and citizens of Israel, were forced to look at Jerusalem from a distance but were not able to build it up.

The battle for Jerusalem will not focus solely on fighting the vile and cruel terrorism raging in the streets, targeting the Jewish people. This battle for Jerusalem will also focus on the struggle to build in our capital, not just in the western part of the city, but, much to the chagrin of the terrorists, beyond the city's pre-1967 borders as well.

Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, despite not coming easily, will come! An Arab friend was correct in describing it thusly: "Recognition limps along -- but will eventually arrive." Indeed, this recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel will arrive with or without international initiatives to recognize a Palestinian state.

In Washington, London and Moscow, as in Cairo, Amman and even Ramallah they know -- and do they ever know -- that Jerusalem will never return to its pre-1967 borders!

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