Jerusalem
Israel
Unesco World Heritage Site proposed by Jordan, 1981
Jerusalem (Coordinates: 31°47'N 35°13'E) is the capital as well as the largest city in Israel. It has a population of 732,1000 over an area of 125.1 sq kilometers. Jerusalem is located in the Judaen Mountains, between the Mediterranean Sea and the northern tip of the Dead Sea. With a history that goes back to four thousand years BC, Jerusalem is regarded as the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center for the Jewish people since the 10th century BC. It is also rich with ancient Christian sites and is the third holiest city in Islam.
The Old City of Jerusalem is a walled area that constituted the whole of Jerusalem until the 1860s. This Old City and its walls were proposed in 1982 by Jordan to be placed on the Unesco World Heritage Site Endangered List. It comprises four quarters, namely the Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim Quarters. The size of this Old City is small - only 0.9 square kilometers. Nevertheless, it holds most of the sites of great religious significance, including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall for Jews, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians, and the Dome on the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque for the Muslims.
Arch of Ecce Homo, Jerusalem
Photo: Kirschblut, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License
Outside the Old City is modern Jerusalem. The Arab population resides in clusters on the north, east and south of the city. Today Jerusalem continues to be a hotbed of conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians: the Palestinians regard East Jerusalem, which includes Jerusalem's Old City and the aforementioned holiest sites, as the capital of the Palestinian state while Israel regarded the "united Jerusalem" as Israel's eternal capital.
History of Jerusalem
Places within Jerusalem have been occupied as early as the Copper Age, around four thousand years BC, as seen from ceramic evidence. Permanent settlement has been there since three thousand years BC. The earliest written references to Jerusalem dates to the 19th century BC. According to the Bible, the area was inhabited by the Jebusites until the 11th century BC, when David invaded and conquered the Jebusites. He established Jerusalem as the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah around one thousand years BC.
King David reigned until 970 BC, and his son King Solomon took over as King of Israel. King Solomon built his temple, the First Temple, around that time. After King Solomon died in 930 BC, the ten northern tribes split off, to form the northern kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of Israel. The southern tribes remain under the leadership of the House of David and Solomon, with Jerusalem as the capital, and was known as the Kingdom of Judah. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC. Then, in 586 BC, the Babylonians conquered Judah and Jerusalem, and Solomon's temple was destroyed in the invasion. The Jews were then taken in Babylon as captives.
In 538 BC, the Persian King Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to return to Judah and rebuild Jerusalem. The Second Temple was completed in 516 BC, during the reign of King Darius the Great, and Jerusalem was once again the capital of Judah, and the center of Jewish worship. Then around 330 BC, the Persian Empire fell to the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great, and Jerusalem and Judea also fell to Macedonian rule.
By around the time of Christ, Jerusalem was under Roman rule as the Iudaea Province. At that time, the Romans installed a Jewish client king, beginning with Herod the Great (73-4 BC). Herod the Great was the king involved in the infanticide as mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew 2:16-18. After Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided among three of his sons, namely Herod Archelaus, Herod Antipas and Herod Philip II. The kingdom was ruled as the Tetrarchy of Jedea until it was reunited under Herod Agrippa in 41 AD. Herod Agrippa ruled as client king of Judea until 96 AD. The Great Jewish Revolt of 70 AD resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple. In 130 AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian romanized Jerusalem and renamed it Aelia Capitolina.
Dome of the Rock, as viewed from Bab al-Qattanin, Jerusalem
Photo: Gilabrand, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License
A three-year Jewish rebellion against the Romans, called the Bar Kochba Revolt, happened from 132-135 AD, and during that time, Jerusalem was once again the capital of Judea. Emperor Hadrian recaptured Jerusalem in 135 AD. This time, he banned the Jews from entering it. Hadrian then renamed the Iudaea Province as Syria Palaestina, after the Philistines, and to de-Judaize Judea. The ban on Jews from entering Jerusalem was enforced until the 4th century AD.
In the 4th century AD, Roman Emperor Constantine I constructed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. During that time, until the Arab conquest of Jerusalem in 638 AD, the Jews were forbidden from Jerusalem. They were only allowed back into the city by the Muslim rulers.
The Dome of the Rock was commissioned by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik at the end of the 7th century. For the next four hundred years, Jerusalem's prominence diminished. Then in 1099, Jerusalem was beseiged by the First Crusaders, who killed most of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants there. Another Muslim ruler, Saladin (Salah al-Di-n Yusuf ibn Ayyub) captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. Between 1228 and 1244, Jerusalem was under the control of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. In 1244 it fell to the Khawarizmi Turks, and in 1260 by the Mamelukes.
In 1517, Jerusalem fell under the control of the Ottoman Turks, and remained under their control until the 20th century. During the 19th century, new neighbourhoods were established outside the Old City walls for the first time. The British captured Jerusalem in the Battle of Jerusalem in 1917. The League of Nations, through its 1922 ratification of the Balfour Declaration, entrusted the United Kingdom to administer the Mandate of Palestine and help establish a Jewish state in the region.
As the British Mandate of Palestine was expiring, the 1947 UN Partition Plan (Part III) recommended "the creation of a special international regime in the City of Jerusalem. This plan was never implemented. At the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan (then known as Transjordan). The Armistice Agreement of 1949 established a ceasefire line between Israel and Jordan that cut through the center of Jerusalem. It was in place from 1949 until 1967. During that time, West Jerusalem was part of Israel and was designated by Israel as its capital, while East Jerusalem was part of Jordan. Contrary to the terms of the Armistice Agreement of 1949 between Jordan and Israel, however, the Israelis were denied access to Jewish holy sites, many of which were desecrated, and were only allowed extremely limited access to Christian holy sites.
In the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel captured East Jerusalem, asserted sovereignty over the entire city, and later in 1980 declared Jerusalem, "complete and united", to be the capital of Israel. However, East Jerusalem has been seen by the Palestinian Arabs as a possible capital of a proposed Palestinian state. They also refer to Security Council resolution 252, which considers invalid expropriation of land and other actions that tend to change the legal status of Jerusalem. The status of the city and of its holy places remains disputed to this day.
The Temple Mount as it appears today. The Western Wall in the foreground and the Dome on the Rock in the background.
Photo: Nadavspi, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 1.0 License
Main entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
Photo: Wayne McLean, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License
Jerusalem, 
