East Jerusalem (; ) is the portion of Jerusalem east of the Green Line. It was established formally by the armistice agreements at the end of the 1948 Palestine war. It is considered to be the capital and part of the Palestinian territories according to international law by the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations, and under illegal occupation by Israel. Many states (e.g. Brazil, China,China supports Palestinian UN bid (Xinhua, 8 September 2011) "China recognizes Palestine as a country with east Jerusalem as its capital and possessing full sovereignty and independence, in accordance with borders agreed upon in 1967, according to Jiang" Russia,Medvedev reaffirms Soviet recognition of Palestine (Ynet News, 18 January 2011) "Russian president says Moscow has not changed its position since 1988 when it 'recognized independent Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem'" and all 57 members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine,Muslim leaders urge world to recognise East Jerusalem as capital of Palestine (France 24, 2017-12-13) "their final statement declared "East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine" and invited "all countries to recognise the State of Palestine and East Jerusalem as its occupied capital."" whereas other states (eg. Finland, Ireland, Norway, Slovenia and Spain) see East Jerusalem as the future capital of Palestine while referring to it as "an occupied territory".
East Jerusalem includes the Old City and sites of religious significance to Muslims, Christians, and Jews. After the 1948 war, the territory was held by Jordan, as opposed to West Jerusalem, which became part of the newly established State of Israel. In the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, Israel captured and occupied East Jerusalem, then unilaterally annexed it in 1980. In 2020, East Jerusalem had a population of 595,000 inhabitants, of whom 361,700 (61%) were Palestinian Arabs and 234,000 (39%) were Jewish settlers. Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem are illegal under international law and in the eyes of the international community.
Jerusalem was envisaged as a separate, international city under the 1947 UN partition plan. It was, however, divided by the 1948 war that followed Israel's declaration of independence. As a result of the 1949 Armistice Agreements, the city's western half came under Israeli control, while its eastern half, containing the famed Old City, fell under Jordanian control, at the exception of Mount Scopus enclave. Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War; since then, the entire city has been under Israeli control. The 1980 Jerusalem Law declared unified Jerusalem the capital of Israel, formalizing the effective annexation of East Jerusalem. Palestinians and many in the international community consider East Jerusalem to be the future capital of the State of Palestine. The status of Jerusalem has been described as "one of the most intractable issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict", with conflicting claims to sovereignty over the city or parts of it, and access to its holy sites.Leigh Phillips (19 November 2009). "EU rebukes Israel for Jerusalem settlement expansion" . EUObserver. "The issue of Jerusalem is one of the most intractable issues in the Israel-Palestine conflict. While both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital, most countries maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv while the occupied territories are administered by the Palestinian Authority in the town of Ramallah."
Israeli and Palestinian definitions of East Jerusalem differ. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Jerusalem's municipal boundaries were extended totaling an area three times the size of pre-war West Jerusalem. This includes several West Bank villages to the north, east and south of the Old City that are now considered neighborhoods of the city, as well as eight suburban neighborhoods that were built since then. The international community considers these neighborhoods illegal settlements, but the Israeli government disputes this. The Israeli position is based on the extended municipal boundaries, while the Palestinian position is based on the 1949 Agreements.
East Jerusalem includes the Old City, which is home to many sites of seminal religious importance for the three major Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, including the Temple Mount / Al-Aqsa, the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Arab residents of East Jerusalem are increasingly becoming integrated into Israeli society, in terms of education, citizenship, national service and other aspects.
Names
East Jerusalem is the familiar term in English. Arabs largely use the term (), or, in official English-language documents, Arab Jerusalem, emphasizing the predominance of the Arabic-speaking Palestinian population, while Israelis call the area East Jerusalem because of its geographic location in the east of the expanded Jerusalem. The territory is also sometimes referred to as Occupied East Jerusalem or OEJ.
History
Ancient period The area of East Jerusalem has been inhabited since 5000 BCE, with settlement beginning in the Chalcolithic period. Tombs are attested by the Early Bronze Age, around 3200 BCE. In the late second millennium BCE, settlement concentrated around the City of David, which was chosen because of its proximity to the Gihon Spring. Massive Canaanite constructions were undertaken, with a water channel excavated through rock drawing water to a pool inside the citadel, the wall of which was thick, built from rocks weighing up to three tonnes.
British Mandatory Period In 1934, the British Mandatory authorities divided Jerusalem into 12 wards for electoral purposes. The mapping was criticized by those who believed it was drawn to ensure a Palestinian majority on the Jerusalem city council. The actual mapping suggests otherwise, according to Michael Dumper, who states that the peculiar "hook" on the western electoral borders was a gerrymander made to include as many new Jewish neighbourhoods on that side as possible, while keeping outside of the boundaries Arab villages. To the east, the city's border ended at the Old City walls, in order to exclude the contiguous Arab neighbourhood of Silwan, Ras al-Amud and At-Tur and Abu Tor. These boundaries defined the municipality down to 1948. By 1947 Palestinian Arabs constituted a majority overall in the Jerusalem district, but Jews predominated within the British municipal boundaries, 99,000 to 65,100 Arabs. The Jewish presence in eastern Jerusalem was concentrated to the Old Quarter, with a scattering also present in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah.
1948 Arab–Israeli War and aftermath Of the 30 holy places in Jerusalem, only three were located in Western Jerusalem, with the overwhelming bulk lying within the eastern sector. During the subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War, a large number of Jerusalem's churches, convents, mosques, synagogues, monasteries and cemeteries were hit by shell or gunfire. After the armistice the city was divided into two parts. The western portion came under Israeli rule, while the eastern portion, populated mainly by Muslim and Christian Palestinians, came under Jordanian rule, with the international community withholding recognition of the respective areas of control of both parties.
During the Battle for Jerusalem, fighting in the Jewish quarter between the Jordanian Arab Legion and the IDF, Irgun and Lehi had been particularly fierce, leaving the zone in ruins. The battle and subsequent looting by Palestinian civilians left 27 synagogues and 30 schools destroyed. The Jordanian army is said to have blown up, three days after conquering the area, what remained of the Hurva Synagogue, which had served both as a civilian refuge and Israeli military post.
For Palestinians, expulsions from the Jerusalem area date back to January 1948, when the Haganah bombed the Semiramis Hotel in Qatamon. The death of 26 civilians marked the beginning of evacuation of the area, which increased after the nearby Deir Yassin massacre in early April, followed by a 3-day assault and looting from 30 April onwards. In the first six months of the 1948 war 6,000 Jews also abandoned the city, and when war broke out, thousands fled the northern areas subject to Jordanian shelling. After the surrender to the Jordanian Arab Legion, the Red Cross, which had been invested with the authority to protect many major sites, oversaw the evacuation westwards through Zion Gate of some 1,300 Jews from the Old Quarter. The only eastern area of the city that remained in Israeli hands throughout the 19 years of Jordanian rule was Mount Scopus, where the Hebrew University is located, which formed an enclave during that period. Likewise, Palestinians living in such western Jerusalem neighbourhoods as Qatamon, Talbiya, Baq'a, 'Ayn Karim, Lifta and Malha either fled or were forced out, many of them seeking refuge in the Old City.
East Jerusalem absorbed thousands of Palestinian refugees, a substantial number of whom were middle-class people from West Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods when they came under Israeli rule, and many were settled in the previous Jewish areas of the eastern sector, whose inhabitants, likewise refugees, were relocated in the formerly majority-Arab suburbs of West Jerusalem, such as Overall; as a result of the conflict, the Jewish population of Jerusalem fell by 30–40%, while Eyal Benvenisti states half of its Palestinian population of 60,000 left. According to the Jordanian census of 1952, East Jerusalem had an Arab population of 46,700.
Jordanian rule
Jerusalem was to be an international corpus separatum under the 1947 UN Partition Plan. It was not included as a part of either the proposed Jewish or Arab states. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the western part of Jerusalem was captured by Israel, while East Jerusalem (including the Old City) was captured by Jordan. The war came to an end with the signing of the 1949 Armistice Agreements. On 23 January 1950, Israel declared Jerusalem its capital, with a Knesset resolution declaring that, "With the creation of a Jewish State, Jerusalem again became its capital". Jordan followed suit on 24 April and, on the basis of a referendum conducted also among Palestinian West Bankers, the Hashemite Kingdom incorporated the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The unification was recognized by the United Kingdom, which however stipulated that they did not recognize the assertion of Jordanian sovereignty over East Jerusalem, but only de facto control. The United States, while approving the unification, withheld making any public statement and likewise affirmed that since the issue of Jerusalem was sub judice, it did not recognize either the Israeli annexation of West Jerusalem, nor the Jordanian annexation of the eastern area of the city.
The municipal boundaries of Jordanian East Jerusalem were expanded to cover by taking in the nearby villages of Silwan, Ras al-Amud Aqabat al-Suwana, 'Ard al-Samar and parts of Shuafat. This expansion of the boundaries was prompted in large part by the need to cope with housing the refugee flow of Palestinians from West Jerusalem. While many municipal functions were shifted to Amman, in 1953, Jordan conferred on East Jerusalem the status of amana (trusteeship) – in response to Israel efforts to make West Jerusalem Israel's capital – effectively making the city Jordan's second capital. The political motive behind the transfer of the bureaucracy to Amman lay in the desire to weaken the power of the rival al-Husayni family.