The Contested City of Jerusalem
The status of Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive and controversial issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict, subject to conflicting national claims by two peoples, and its population is very heterogeneous. Jerusalem differs from other places by one main aspect: the city is holy to all three religions.
This paper does not attempt to tell the whole story or untangle the complex legal status of this city, such an effort would be too ambitious for this course. Rather, it seeks to provide sufficient background information to position Jerusalem as a case study for a multitude of issues that afflict the current international scene.
This papers is divided into four main parts. The first part explains the religious significance of Jerusalem. The second part details a brief history of Jerusalem. The third part deals with the main resolutions concerning Jerusalem from the Balfour Declaration to the Six-Day War . The last part examines the city in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian modern peace process from the Oslo Accords.
1/ Religious significance of Jerusalem
Freedom of religion and the safeguarding of all holy places are written in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. The holy places are administered by their respective religious communities, and free access to them is guaranteed by law.
1.1/Jerusalem in Judaism
Jews have lived in the land of Israel for nearly 4,000 years, since the time of the biblical patriarchs (around 2000 BC). The history of the Jewish people, Israel, its capital, Jerusalem, and the Jewish Temple there, has been marked by exile, destruction and rebirth. There has always been a Jewish presence in the land of Israel and in Jerusalem, and the Jewish people as a whole has always dreamed of returning and rebuilding it, a desire that is reflected in the concluding words of Israel’s national anthem, “Ha Tikvah” (“Hope”):
“The hope of 2000 years: To live as a free people in our own land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem”.
The Jews’ link with Jerusalem has never been broken. For three millennia, Jerusalem has been the center of the Jewish faith, retaining its symbolic value through the generations. The many Jews who were exiled after the Roman conquest and dispersed throughout the world have never forgotten Jerusalem. It was invoked by the prophets, sanctified in daily prayer and sung by Hebrew poets in faraway lands.
Many places in the city of Jerusalem are indelibly etched in Jewish consciousness: Mount Moriah, where the Temple once stood; the Western Wall, the only remnant of the Temple, which was the center of Jewish prayer and longing for nineteen centuries; the Tomb of David on Mount Zion; and the ancient Mount of Olives cemetery where Jews have been buried for centuries.
The city of Jerusalem enjoys a special status in Jewish religious law. When Jews pray, they face Jerusalem. Those in Jerusalem face the Temple Mount. At the end of the Passover Seder, they repeated year after year “Next year in Jerusalem”, among other traditions to affirm the religious connection rooted in the Hebrew Bible.
1.2/Jerusalem in Christianity
The most important developments in the Christian faith have taken place in Jerusalem and its surroundings. According to Christian tradition, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is the place where Jesus was crucified, buried and raised from the dead. The city includes the Garden of Gesthemane, where Jesus prayed and where his disciples slept the night before his crucifixion, among other important sites for believers.
This is the importance of Jerusalem to the Christian world. That is why Helen, Constantine’s mother, built churches there in the fourth century to commemorate these events in the life of Jesus, and that is why Christians of all faiths in the world visit Jerusalem and these same churches and sites. Many European Christians began making pilgrimages to Jerusalem in the 1st century AD.
From about 1099 to 1187, Christian crusaders occupied Jerusalem and regarded the city as an important religious site.
1.3/Jerusalem in Islam
Jerusalem is also remarkably significant in Islam, the most populous faith tradition in the Middle East today
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. It is at the center of one of the most important moments in Islam: the night journey and the ascension of the Prophet Muhammad.
According to Islamic teaching, Muhammad was transported by the angel Gabriel on a winged horse from Mecca to the Noble Sanctuary of Jerusalem, where he prayed with other prophets and ascended to heaven before returning.
The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aksa Mosque, both built in the seventh century, made definitive the identification of Jerusalem as the “Distant Place” mentioned in the Qur’an, and thus a holy place after Mecca and Medina. Literature praising the virtues of Jerusalem has flourished in the Muslim world.
2/ History of Jerusalem
Before understanding the negotiations in Jerusalem in modern times, let us recall a brief historical overview of the city of Jerusalem.
Researchers believe that the first human settlements in Jerusalem took place in the early Bronze Age, around 3500 BC. In 1000 BC, King David conquered Jerusalem and made it the capital of the Jewish kingdom. His son, Solomon, built the first holy temple about 40 years later.
The Babylonians occupied Jerusalem in 586 B.C., destroyed the Temple and sent the Jews into exile. About 50 years later, the Persian king Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.
Alexander the Great took control of Jerusalem in 332 BC. Over the next hundreds of years, the city was conquered and ruled by different groups, including Romans, Persians, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuq Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians, Mamluks, and Islamists.
The Ottoman Turks, whose reign lasted four centuries, conquered Jerusalem in 1517. Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilt the city walls (1537), built the Sultan’s basin and installed public fountains throughout the city. One of Jerusalem’s most beautiful gates, built in 1537 under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. After his death, the central authorities of Constantinople lost interest in Jerusalem. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Jerusalem fell to one of its lowest levels.
Jerusalem began to prosper again in the second half of the 19th century. The increasing number of Jews returning to their land, the weakening of Ottoman power and the renewed European interest in the Holy Land led to a new development of Jerusalem.
3/Negotiations over Jerusalem from the Balfour Declaration
The conflicts around Jerusalem go back thousands of years — including biblical times, the Roman Empire and the Crusades — but today’s conflict is a distinct twentieth-century story, with roots in colonialism, nationalism and anti-Semitism.
3.1/ 2 novembre 1917 : Balfour Declaration
During the First World War, British policy gradually became committed to the idea of establishing a Jewish home in Palestine. After discussions in the British cabinet and consultations with Zionist leaders, the decision was made public in the form of a letter from Arthur James Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild, known as the Balfour Declaration. This text is recognized as one of the founding acts of the State of Israel, fifty years before its creation.
3.2/ 1917–1948 : British Mandate
The British Mandate for Palestine is the result of several factors: the British occupation of territories previously governed by the Ottoman Empire, the peace treaties that ended World War I, and the Balfour Declaration. In December 1917, British General Edmund Allenby took control of Jerusalem from its Ottoman Turkish defenders. The three decades of British rule that followed Allenby’s assault on Jerusalem saw an influx of Jewish attracted by the Zionist vision of a Jewish homeland, while the local Arab population adapted to the reality of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled the city since 1517.
“It was to the British that Jerusalem was so important — they were the ones who established Jerusalem as their capital. Before that, it was nobody’s capital since the time of the First and Second Temples,” said Professor Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, a historical geographer at the Hebrew University.
Opposition to this migration fueled several deadly riots by Palestinians, while Jews were upset by British rule and immigration restrictions imposed in 1939 — restrictions that prevented the entry of many Jews escaping the Holocaust. After the war, in 1947, the United Nations approved a partition plan that provided for two states — one Jewish and one Arab — with Jerusalem governed by a “special international regime” due to its unique status.
3.3/ 1948–1967: Declaration of Independance and the division of the city of Jerusalem
Since the creation of Israel in 1948, the diplomatic and international status of Jerusalem has been controversial and unresolved.
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, known as the “Partition Plan”. This resolution divided the British Mandate for Palestine into two states, one Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem being defined as a a separate body under the protection of the United Nations.
The plan was never implemented because the Arabs wanted more of the territory, which led to the war of independence. Israel won the war, ledding to the declaration of independence of the State of Israel on May 1948, proclaimed by David Ben Gurion. The city is now divided between East Jerusalem, under Jordanian control, and West Jerusalem, located in Israeli territory. In 1949, the first Israeli Prime Minister, made Jerusalem the capital of Israel and the Jordanians annexed East Jerusalem, including the Old City.
On November 30, 1948, after the battle between the two armies in Jerusalem came to an end, two officers — Lieutenant-Colonel Moshe Dayan of the Israeli army and Lieutenant-Colonel Abdallah A-Tal of the Jordanian army — drew a line on a map of Jerusalem. This line, which included the No Man’s Land between the two parties, was later included in the Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement of April 3, 1949. The city line divided Jerusalem between Israel (in the western part) and Jordan (in the eastern part, including the Old City and the Temple Mount) for 19 years, until the Six Day War in June 1967, when Israel reunified the city.
Neither Jerusalem as the capital of Israel nor the Jordanian annexation was recognized by any state or official international organization. From 1949 to 1967, the city remained divided, with the Jordanian part separated from the Israeli part by land, fences and barriers. The Jordanian army violated their commitment to allow free access of Jews to the holy places, mainly the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives Cemetery. During this period, very few attempts were made to change the situation.
3.4/ 1967 — Present: The Six-Day War and the reunification of Jerusalem
In June 1967, Israel was forced to fight for its existence. The third war was also the shortest. Israel succeeded against the armies of its three most powerful neighbors- Egypt, Syria,Jordan.
Israel’s decisive victory included the capture of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Old City of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights; the status of these territories subsequently became a major point of contention in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Six Day War of June 1967 led to the reunification of Jerusalem under one authority, the Israeli government and municipality. The barriers of the City Line were removed and the Old City was open to believers of all faiths and Jews could access their most sacred places. Jewish access to the holy places was restored and free access for Muslims and Christians to their holy places was also allowed. The Israeli government authorized Muslim religious bodies such as the Waqf (Islamic Trust) to administer the Temple Mount and other holy places for Muslims, and allowed Christian churches to exercise similar powers to administer Christian holy places.
The victory of the Likud, a right-wing party, in 1977, under the leadership of Menachem Begin, contributed to consolidating this new orientation of Jerusalem as an integral part of Israeli identity.
As part of this change, the symbolic importance of Jerusalem has intensified. Its role in Jewish history has been emphasized in military parades and school programs, and students from all over Israel have been taken there for school visits.
4/ Jerusalem in the Israeli-Palestinian Modern Peace Process
4.1/ 1993 : Oslo Accords
President Bill Clinton’s 1993 Oslo Accords attempted to lay the groundwork for negotiations. The agreement reached included “mutual recognition of Israel and the PLO” and “the introduction of an ‘interim phase’ which consisted of an Israeli withdrawal from most of the Gaza Strip and a small percentage of the West Bank. In these negotiations, Israel accepted the framework of a Palestinian state in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 calling on Israel to surrender its conquered territories. However, the Oslo Accords were conceived as a first step, not as a complete solution; they decided to postpone discussions on the controversial issues of the “final status”, of which Jerusalem is part. Unfortunately, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 put an end to all discussions, and the Oslo Accords became obsolete.
Between 1993 and 2000, little progress was made towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Basic Vatican-Israel Agreement of 1994 and the comparable Basic Vatican-PLO Agreement of 2000 paved the way for Catholic recognition of Israel and the PLO, thus introducing the possibility of Christian participation in the peace process. In addition, the Washington Declaration and the 1994 Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty contained clauses that included recognition by Israel of Jordan’s special status regarding Muslim holy places. However, the peace process, although promising, did not make any real progress until the Camp David summit in 2000.
4.2/ 2000 : Camp David
The main negotiation element often referred to in connection with the 2000 Camp David meeting was the land swap proposed by Ehud Barak, in which the Israeli Prime Minister offered Yasser Arafat 95 pourcent of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip. With regard to Jerusalem, Israel would cede control of the Palestinian-dominated suburbs and dissolve the administration of the central areas of East Jerusalem to Palestinian agencies but, in exchange, it would retain sovereignty and security over East Jerusalem. Barak suggested that the Palestinians would receive the Muslim and Christian neighborhoods, while Israel would keep the Jewish and Armenian neighborhoods. However, “the Israeli proposal to partition the Old City, at least administratively, caused great disarray, not only in Palestinian Arab circles but also in Christian communities” and Arafat eventually declined Barak’s offer. The Palestinians demanded complete sovereignty over East Jerusalem and the Holy Places as well as the dismantling of all Israeli neighborhoods in these areas, conditions that Israel was not ready to accept. In retrospect, Arafat’s refusal to accept Barak’s proposal led to the devolution of the summit and the blockage of the peace process.
4.3/ 2001 : Taba Summit
The 2001 Taba summit is still considered the closest Israelis and Palestinians have ever come to a final settlement; both sides compromised on a return to the pre-1967 borders in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 242, and both Israel and Palestine accepted Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods and Israeli sovereignty over Jewish neighborhoods. Israel has even proposed that Jerusalem be considered a “holy basin” with a separate and distinct international status. However, the Taba summit finally failed, not because of disagreement between the parties, but because of internal upheavals. Both Israel and the United States were undergoing political changes, and the new Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, was a strong opponent of the Oslo Accords and subsequently ended discussions on final status issues.
4.4/ 2017 : Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
On 6 of December 2017 , Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. His decision was condemned by the vast majority of European countries as contrary to international law. Great Britain, France, Sweden, Italy and Japan were among the countries that criticized Trump’s decision at the emergency meeting: Guatemala stated that it would follow up and also relocate its embassy; Paraguay, the Czech Republic, Romania and Honduras stated that they were considering relocation. The American president also announced the transfer of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy City.
The Palestinian leaders feel that the transfer of the American embassy should remain the exception on the part of major powers. They continue to boycott the Trump administration. Palestinian officials have said the announcement disqualifies the United States from peace talks, while Hamas called for a new intifada following Trump’s declarations. Following the announcement there were demonstrations throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as in various countries around the world. By December 25, 2017, Salafi groups had fired almost 30 rockets towards Israel from the Gaza Strip
The U.S. President said he is convinced that the Palestinians will return to the negotiating table and spoke of a peace plan that would include East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.
Conclusion
Jerusalem is an excellent example of the confluence of religion and politics, and is an interesting case study for many of the problems that affect parts of the world today. The case of Jerusalem is a great study of the role of external decisions and the extreme difficulty of imposing external directives on populations that do not accept them. For example, during the period of Jordanian control of East Jerusalem, both Israel and Jordan ignored foreigners’ complaints about their actions and focused on the government of their respective sides of Jerusalem. This realization that a solution must come from inside and will not work without the support of the populations involved has immense implications for the role that the United States should play in the peace process. History has repeatedly shown that events overwhelm diplomacy, the Royal Commission report and the UN partition plan were not implemented because the situation in the region prevented it. Therefore, the United States can learn that while they can help facilitate discussion, they cannot successfully attempt to impose their own solutions on the Israelis and Palestinians.
Moreover, Jerusalem and its inhabitants embody some of the most difficult issues affecting religious communities today. Both Muslims and Jews face the struggle to find a compromise between what the city’s inhabitants want and what Islam and Judaism respectively are demanding around the world. It has been said that “from an Islamic point of view, the role of Jerusalem defines the centrality of Palestine for the Arab-Islamic world,” and similar comments have been made by Jews as well. Similarly, the discussions on Jerusalem have highlighted the immense internal divisions between the different religions, and have broken the illusion that Christianity, Islam and Judaism are monolithic entities.
Through this analysis of Jerusalem, I have tried to highlight some of the difficulties involved in balancing religious and political objectives. The real message of the study of Jerusalem and its complex history is not only the impossibility of trying to separate religion and politics, but also the potential benefits of mixing the two. Rarely in human history has a single city aroused such passion, and rather than framing this emotion in a negative way, diplomats should use it to inspire peace and coexistence.
