OpinionJournal.com (free registration required) shares a story today written by a Major in the IDF Reserves, who is a historian in his civilian life.

Together with thousands of Jews, I sat on the flagstones before the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The time was midnight on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, the day on which, according to tradition, invaders twice overwhelmed the city’s defenders, destroying their Temple and crushing Jewish independence in Israel. Two thousand years later, a new Jewish state with a powerful army has arisen, yet Jews continue to lament on that day, and rarely as fervidly as now. For the first time in history–ancient or modern–that state would send its army not to protect Jews from foreign attack, but to evict them from what many regarded as their God-given land, in Gaza.

It’s well-written, and worth reading.

disclaimer: Personally, I hate sites that make me register before reading, but in the several years I’ve read their pieces, I have never regretted registering, and as far as I can tell, I’ve never been spammed by them.