On August 14th a lone gun man shot 8 pedestrians just outside of Jerusalem’s Old City and then fled into the Shiloach neighborhood (aka Silwan) of Jerusalem. This neighborhood sits opposite of the City of David on the Eastern side of the Kidron Valley. While at one time Shiloach was a majority Jewish neighborhood, the pogroms of the first half of the 20th century and the 19 year Jordanian occupation flipped it to a solely Arab populace.

While things have changed in the last 20 years as more and more Jews have moved back, the situation is far from certain. Even though the Arab terrorist eventually turned himself in, the idea that he was able to escape into the Shiloach due to the sympathetic residents is absolutely unacceptable.

There was a time when the City of David was very similar to the Shiloach. It was considered dangerous as very few Jews lived there. Now the City of David is a major tourist attraction with a robust and growing Jewish population. This did not happen over night, but rather through years of hard work and continued real estate acquisitions.

The Shiloach is growing. There are now 42 families living there, with more on the way. The only way to stop the next shooting near the Old City is to continue to flip these former Jewish neighborhoods back to being Jewish. With a secure perimeter, terrorists will have far less ability to harm any of us.