The two boys must have been about 12, their faces betraying the onset of puberty. Along the Via Dolorosa, a shopping alley in the heart of Jerusalem's Old City Muslim Quarter, the teenagers encountered a woman wearing a headscarf – a young adult. They stopped and spat directly in her face. The woman bravely continued, moving against the relentless stream of teenagers. More insults followed. More spit. Hateful stares. Eventually, she chose to disappear down a side street. The Jerusalem "flag march" – which closely resembles a racist pride parade – had yet to begin, but in the hours leading up to the annual celebration of Israel's conquest and annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, an act not recognized by the international community, groups of young Jewish nationalist and religious men – almost exclusively male – roamed the Old City's alleys shouting anti-Arab slogans.

This ritual, both racist and joyous for its organizers, was frightening for everyone else, in a district where merchants had shuttered their shops out of fear of violence and vandalism. Throughout the day, chants of "Death to Arabs" and "May your villages burn" rang out across the city. Gathered by yeshiva (Talmudic school) or by a settlement established in the occupied West Bank, supervised by rabbis and adults, these young people sang and danced under heavy police and military surveillance.

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