Jerusalem

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

The energy of the Intifada created a power vacuum that was filled by new leaders and ideas: the PLO elite was out of touch with the Palestinian street, and fundamentalist Islam was replacing Nasser’s obsolete pan-Arabism. In 1987, Islamicist radicals founded the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, a branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which was dedicated to the jihad to destroy Israel. The Intifada also altered Jewish Jerusalem, admitted Kollek, ‘in a fundamental way’ – it destroyed the dream of a united city. Israelis and Arabs ceased to work together; they no longer walked through each other’s suburbs. The tension spread not only between Muslim and Jew but also among the Jews themselves: the ultra-Orthodox rioted against secular Jews, who began to move out of Jerusalem. The old world of Christian Jerusalem was shrinking fast: by 1995 there were only 14,100 Christians left.