In Ottoman Jerusalem, families of different religions picnicked together at popular shrines and vouched for each other at the bank; Muslims and Jews were business partners and neighbors; and Arab children dressed in costumes for the Jewish holiday of Purim. How then did this city of ethnic diversity become a crucible of sectarian conflict? Marcus (The View from Nebo), a Pulitzer-winning former Wall Street Journal correspondent, focuses on the year 1913 as a turning point, when leaders at the Zionist Congress argued for both cultural and demographic domination of Palestine, while at the same time Jews and Arabs were negotiating a possible peace. Marcus also highlights three men who helped shape the destiny of the future Israeli capital.

Searching for the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict, historians for years focused on the British Mandate period (1920–1948). Amy Dockser Marcus, however, demonstrates that the bloody struggle for power actually started much earlier, when Jerusalem was still part of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism laid the groundwork for the battles that would continue to rage nearly a century later.

INTRODUCTION: Jerusalem 2004-2000

PART ONE: Jerusalem 1898

PART TWO: Jerusalem 1908

 PART THREE: Jerusalem 1913

  PART FOUR: Jerusalem 1914

EPILOGUE: Jerusalem 2004-2006

      Acknowledgments

      Notes on Sources

      Bibliography

      Index