As the unification of the city is marked, the Biden administration thinks the best thing would be for Jews to lose a crucial court case. Are they right to think that defusing the crisis by giving up Jewish rights is the priority? After several days of unrest, the government of Israel is once again presented with a dilemma to which there are no easy answers. Palestinians and their supporters are using a court case over property rights in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah as one of the pretexts for a wave of often violent demonstrations. With the Jewish world about to celebrate Jerusalem Day—the 54th anniversary of the city’s unification during the Six-Day War—the choice that authorities are seemingly presented with is one between validating history and Jewish rights or keeping the peace in the country’s capital.
