Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In the War of Independence, the Jordanian army took the eastern part of the city and ex-
pelled all of the Jews living there. For the next two decades, Jerusalem was divided between
Israeli and Jordanian rule. The two halves were reunited in the 1967 war, when Israel recap-
tured the eastern part. Today, the populations still largely follow that division, although Jews
have built additional residential neighborhoods, especially Ramot to the west and a number
of places on the city's north side, on previously empty land as well as in the Old City's Jewish
Quarter. Haredim, who form a large portion of the Jewish population, live in several west
Jerusalem areas, notably Mea Shearim and Geula, both near Jerusalem's current center. Many
new neighborhoods have been built on Jerusalem's east side, too, and large numbers of Arabs
have moved from the West Bank to east Jerusalem.
During most of a 3,000-year-long history, until the mid-nineteenth century, Jerusalem
largely consisted of the small area now inside the walled district called the Old City, which
comprises four quarters —Jewish, Arab, Christian, and Armenian. Almost all of its streets are
still narrow, pedestrian-only lanes. The relatively traditional appearance of other parts of the
city is kept by a ban on high-rises, and all buildings must have fronts of white Jerusalem stone.
But the status of Jerusalem is very much in dispute. The future of Jerusalem has long been
and will continue to be one of the most passionately and hotly contested issues in any Israel-
Palestinian negotiation. For Israel, Jerusalem is its capital. That is where the prime minister
and the president reside, it is the location of the Knesset and the Supreme Court, the place
where government ministries are headquartered, and the home of such key cultural institu-
tions as the Israel Museum and the Hebrew University.
For the Palestinians, Jerusalem is its future capital, whether just east Jerusalem or the entire
city after the State of Israel has been destroyed. The PA sees Ramallah, in the central West
Bank, as just a temporary capital. Although most Israelis want to keep the city united, Israeli
governments have offered — most notably at the Camp David summit and in the Clinton
plan — to repartition the city, giving most of east Jerusalem to the PA while keeping the Jewish
and Armenian Quarters of the Old City and some other neighborhoods as part of Israel. The
PA rejected both of these proposals.
Despite both Israeli and Palestinian opposition to partition, most countries in the world
still offi cially accept the 1947 plan to have Jerusalem under international control. They not only
reject the idea that a united Jerusalem is Israel's capital but refuse to recognize that pre-1967
west Jerusalem has that status. Neither side wants the city to be internationalized. It is unlikely
that anything other than a repartition of the city along some agreed-upon line would produce
a comprehensive peace agreement.
Palestinians have made sporadic terrorist attacks on Israelis in Jerusalem, and at times —
especially from 2000 to 2005 — the security situation has deteriorated badly. With rising ten-
sion, there have been Palestinian riots near the al-Aqsa Mosque, and the city has been closed
to those entering from the West Bank. Yet the amount of unrest in the city should not be over-
estimated, since the level of political violence is usually limited in time and space. Jerusalem
almost always functions in a normal manner.
A second division in Jerusalem is between secular and religious Jews. About half the Jewish
population in the city is highly religious —Datim or Haredim — and one-third of those are
