Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has gotten used to being the target of vicious political attacks over the last year, especially when the attacks come from right-wing and ultra-Orthodox Knesset members. Surprisingly, those same legislators praised him yesterday for refusing to cancel the annual “Jerusalem Day flag parade” despite threats from Hamas and Hezbollah to set the city on fire if the parade took place.

Ever since Jerusalem was reunited 55 years ago in the 1967 Six-Day War, the historic event has been celebrated with thousands of participants marching through the city with flags. Their final destination is the Western Wall, for an evening of singing and dancing and, of course, the raising of Israeli flags. Most of the participants align with the Israeli right, particularly with the religious nationalist sector.

For decades, this annual parade to mark the reunification of the city took place with only minor incidents. That all changed last year. Hamas was able to establish a link between Jerusalem and Gaza. It threatened to fire missiles at Jerusalem if the parade took place, and it carried through with that threat. It was the opening salvo of Operation Guardian of the Walls in Gaza and a series of riots in Israel’s mixed, Arab-Jewish cities.

It happened during the final days of Benjamin Netanyahu’s long tenure as prime minister. On this particular occasion, he took the advice of the security forces and gave orders to stop the parade. This year, as Jerusalem Day approached, the government debated whether the parade should be allowed to take place. The situation in Jerusalem was already tense, and there had been a wave of terrorist attacks over the past few months (although it seems to have died down).