The first landmark to greet us was the famous clock tower. A plaque in Hebrew hung on one side of the tower. I knew from my extensive readings that the tower had been built during the late Ottoman period to honor the twenty-fifth anniversary of Sultan Abdel Hamid II’s reign. I explained it to our friends. However, a young Israeli man, who was standing nearby, corrected me. No, he claimed, it was built in 1948 in the memory of the Israeli soldiers who were under attack. When I tried to contradict him with the blatant evidence that the tower was old and Ottoman in design he replied as he walked
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