History of Jerusalem (Source: wikipedia)

Antiquity (prehistory - 1000 BCE)

The city now known as Jerusalem has known many wars and had various periods of occupation in its long history. Genesis 14:18, mentions a city called Salem, ruled by King Melchizedek, a "priest of God", whom most Jewish commentators believe refers to Jerusalem.[1] According to one Jewish tradition reported by the midrash, it was founded by Abraham's forefathers Shem and Eber, and in the midrash Melchizedek is equated with Shem. The Amarna letters contain correspondence from Abdi-Heba, king of Urusalim (the name of Jerusalem in the Late Bronze Age). At this time his entire kingdom may have had a population of fifteen hundred people, and Urusalim would have been a 'small highlands stronghold' in the fourteenth century BCE with no fortifications or large buildings.

Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah (1000 BCE - 580 BCE)

According to the Books of Samuel, the Jebusites managed to resist attempts by the Israelites to capture the city, and by the time of King David were mocking such attempts, claiming that even the blind and lame could defeat the Israelite army. Nevertheless, the masoretic text for the Books of Samuel states that David managed to capture the city by stealth, sending his forces through a "water shaft" and attacking the city from the inside. Archaeologists now view this as implausible as the Gihon spring — the only known location from which water shafts lead into the city — is now known to have been heavily defended (and hence an attack via this route would have been obvious rather than secretive). The older Septuagint text, however, suggests that rather than by a water shaft, David's forces defeated the Jebusites by using daggers[citation needed].

There was another king in Jerusalem, Araunah, during, and possibly before, David's control of the city, according to the Biblical narrative, who was probably the Jebusite king of Jerusalem.The city, which at that point was upon Ophel, was, according to the biblical account, expanded to the south, and declared by David to be the capital city of the united Kingdom of Israel. David also, according to the Books of Samuel, constructed an altar at the location of a threshing floor he had purchased from Araunah; a portion of biblical scholars view this as an attempt by the narrative's author to give an Israelite foundation to a pre-existing sanctuary.

Later, according to the biblical narrative, King Solomon built a more substantive temple, the Temple of Solomon, at a location which the Book of Chronicles equates with David's altar. The Temple became a major cultural centre in the region; eventually, particularly after religious reforms such as those of Hezekiah and of Josiah, the Jerusalem temple became the main place of worship, at the expense of other, formerly powerful, ritual centres, such as Shiloh and Bethel. Solomon is also described as having created several other important building works at Jerusalem, including the construction of his palace, and the construction of the Millo (the identity of which is somewhat controversial). However, archaeologists have found no major building works at Jerusalem dating from this era (except perhaps the Large Stone Structure, which is the subject of some controversy), and some have suggested that Solomon's building programme was somewhat mythical - being based on the building programme of the later Omrides.

When the Kingdom of Judah split from the larger Kingdom of Israel (which the Bible places near the end of the reign of Solomon, though Israel Finkelstein and others claim it occurred closer to the time of Hezekiah[7]), Jerusalem became the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, while the truncated Kingdom of Israel located its capital at Samaria. Thomas L. Thompson argues that it only became a city and capable of acting as a state capital in the middle of the seventh century.

By the end of this First Temple Period, Jerusalem was the sole acting religious shrine in the kingdom and a centre of regular pilgrimage; a fact which archaeologists generally view as being corroborated by the evidence, though there remained a more personal cult involving Asherah figures, which are found spread throughout the land right up to the end of this era.

Jerusalem was the capital of the Kingdom of Judah for some 400 years. It had survived an Assyrian siege in 701 BCE by Sennacherib, unlike Samaria, the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel, that had fallen some twenty years previously. This was a miraculous event according to the Bible in which an Angel killed 185,000 men in Sennacherib's army. According to Sennacherib's own account, recorded in an inscription contemporary with the event (known as the Taylor prism), the king of Judah, Hezekiah, was "shut up in the city like a caged bird" and eventually persuaded Sennacherib to leave by sending him "30 talents of gold and 800 talents of silver, and divers treasures, a rich and immense booty".

However, the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BCE led to the city being overcome by the Babylonians, who then took the young King Jehoiachin into Babylonian captivity, together with most of the aristocracy. Zedekiah, who had been placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar (the Babylonian Emperor), rebelled, and Nebuchadnezzar, who at the time (587/586 BCE) was ruler of the most powerful empire, recaptured the city, killed Zedekiah's descendants in front of him, and plucked out Zedekiah's eyes so that that would be the last thing he ever saw. The Babylonians then took Zedekiah into captivity, along with prominent members of Judah. The Babylonians then burnt the temple, destroyed the city's walls, and appointed Gedaliah the son of Achikam as governor of Judah. After 52 days of rule, Yishmael, son of Netaniah and a surviving descendant of Zedekiah, assassinated Gedaliah after encouragement by Baalis, the king of Ammon. The remaining population of Judah, fearing the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, fled to Egypt.

Restoration and autonomy in the Persian era (- 312 BCE)

After several decades of captivity in Babylon and the Persian conquest of Babylonia, Cyrus II of Persia allowed the Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the Temple. The construction was finished in 516 BCE the sixth year of Darius the Great. Then, Artaxerxes I sent Ezra and then Nehemiah to rebuild the city's walls and to govern Judah, which was ruled as Yehud province under the Persians and minted Yehud coinage. The Temple was rebuilt and Jerusalem was once again the capital of Judah, and the center of Jewish worship.

Autonomy in the Greek era (312 BCE - 164 BCE)

When Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, Jerusalem and Judea fell under Greek control and Hellenic influence. After the Wars of the Diadochi following Alexander's death, Jerusalem and Judea fell under Ptolemaic control under Ptolemy I and continued minting Yehud coinage. In 198 BCE as a result of the Battle of Panium, Ptolemy V lost Jerusalem and Judea to the Seleucids under Antiochus the Great.

Under the Seleucids many Jews began to become Hellenised and with their assistance tried to Hellinize Jerusalem eventually culminating in a rebellion by Matisyahu the High Priest and his five sons: Simon, Yochanan, Eleazar, Jonathan and Judah the Maccabee. As a result of the rebellion, Jerusalem became the capital of the independent Hasmonean Kingdom.

The Hasmonean Kingdom and era (164 BCE - 35 BCE)

The Hasmonean Kingdom lasted for 103 years. It was ruled by Simon the son of Matisyahu; then by his son Yochanan who started minting coins; then by his son Yehuda Aristobolus; then by his wife Salome Alexandra; then by his brother Alexander Yannai; then by his sons Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. When the brothers Hyrcanus and Aristoblulus each asked for Rome to intervene on their behalf, Judea fell under the greater rule of Rome as an autonomous province but still with a significant amount of independence. The last Hashmonean king was Aristobulus's son Matisyahu Antigonus.

The Herodian Dynasty (35 BCE - 96 CE)

The Romans installed Herod as a Jewish client king around 19 BCE. As king of the Province of Judea, Herod rebuilt the Second Temple (see also Herod's Temple), upgraded the surrounding complex, and expanded the minting of coins to many denominations. This rebuilding effort is considered the most important of the many improvements Herod made to the city. He also built Caesarea Maritima which replaced Jerusalem as the capital of the Roman province[9]. After Herod's death in 4 BCE, Judea and the city of Jerusalem came under direct Roman rule in 6 CE through Roman prefects, procurators, and legates (see List of Kings of Judea) but Herod's descendants (in the order of Archelaus, Agrippa I, and Agrippa II) remained kings of Judea. In 66 CE the Jewish population rebelled against the Roman Empire in what is now known as the First Jewish–Roman War. Roman legions under future emperor Titus reconquered and subsequently destroyed much of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE although the rebellion lasted a few more years. Titus' victory is commemorated by the Arch of Titus. Agrippa II died circa 94 CE, which brought the Herodian dynasty to an end almost thirty years after the destruction of the Second Temple.

Roman and Byzantine rule (6 CE - 638 CE)

Jerusalem became the birthplace of Early Christianity in the first century CE. According to the New Testament, it is the location of the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ, see also Jerusalem in Christianity. It was in Jerusalem that, according to the New Testament, the Apostles of Christ received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and first began preaching the Gospel and proclaiming his resurrection.

Jerusalem eventually became home to one of the five Patriarchates of the Christian Church (after the Great Schism, it remained a part of the Eastern Orthodox Church).

After a brief period of Roman rule, the city was ruined when a civil war, accompanied by the Great Jewish Revolt against Rome in Judea, led to the city's sack yet again, at the hands of Titus in 70 CE. The Second Temple was burnt and all that remained was the great external (retaining) walls supporting the Esplanade on which the Temple had stood, a portion of which has become known as the Western Wall; also known as the Wailing Wall.

After the end of this first revolt, Jews continued to live in Jerusalem in significant numbers, and were allowed to practice their religion.

What is today known as "Old City" was laid out by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century, when he began to rebuild Jerusalem as a pagan city, Aelia Capitolina, in 135 CE. He placed restrictions on some Jewish practices, which caused a revolt by the Judeans, led by Simon Bar Kokhba. Hadrian responded with overwhelming force, putting down the rebellion, killing as many as a half million Jews, and resettling the city as a Roman colonia under the name Aelia Capitolina. Jews were forbidden to enter the city but for a single day of the year, Tisha B'Av, (the Ninth of Av, see Hebrew calendar), which is the fast day that Jews mourn the destruction of both Temples.

For the next 150 years, the city remained a relatively unimportant Roman town. The Byzantine Emperor Constantine, however, rebuilt Jerusalem as a Christian center of worship, building the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 335. Jews were still banned from the city, except during a brief period of Persian rule from 614-629 CE.

Arab Caliphates (638 - 1300s)

Although the Qur'an does not mention the name "Jerusalem", instead it mentions the name al-Quds which in Arabic is synonymous with Jerusalem, the hadith unequivocally asserts that it was from Jerusalem that Muhammad ascended to heaven in the Night Journey (also known as the Isra and Miraj). The city was one of the Arab Caliphate's first conquests in 638 CE; according to Arab historians of the time, the Rashidun Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab personally went to the city to receive its submission, cleaning out and praying at the Temple Mount in the process. Sixty years later the Dome of the Rock was built, a structure enshrining a stone from which Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven during the Isra. (Note that the octagonal and gold-sheeted Dome is not the same thing as the Al-Aqsa Mosque beside it, the latest version of which was built more than three centuries later). Umar ibn al-Khattab also allowed the Jews back into the city and freedom to live and worship after four hundred years.

Under the early centuries of Muslim rule, especially during the Umayyad (650-750) and Abbasid (750-969) dynasties, the city prospered; the geographers Ibn Hawqal and al-Istakhri (10th century) describe it as "the most fertile province of Palestine", while its native son the geographer al-Muqaddasi (born 946) devoted many pages to its praises in his most famous work, The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Climes. Jerusalem under Muslim rule did not achieve the political or cultural status enjoyed by the capitals Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo etc. Interestingly, al-Muqaddasi derives his name from the Arabic name for Jerusalem, Bayt al-Muqaddas, which is linguistically equivalent to the Hebrew Beit Ha-Mikdash, the Holy House.

Shifts in control: Crusaders, Tatars and Ayubids

The early Arab period was also one of religious tolerance. However, in the early 11th century, the Egyptian Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of all churches. Jews were among the most vigorous defenders of Jerusalem against the Crusaders. When the city fell, the Crusaders placed all the Jews in Jerusalem inside the city's synagogue and then burned it down.

Jerusalem became the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Godfrey of Bouillon, was elected Lord of Jerusalem on July 22, 1099, but did not assume the royal crown and died a year later.[10] Barons offered the lordship of Jerusalem to Godfrey's brother Baldwin, Count of Edessa, who had himself crowned by the Patriarch Daimbert on Christmas Day 1100 in the basilica of Bethlehem.

Christian settlers from the West set about rebuilding the principal shrines associated with the life of Christ. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was ambitiously rebuilt as a great Romanesque church, and Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount (the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque) were converted for Christian purposes. It is during this period of Frankish occupation that the Military Orders of the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar have their beginnings. Both grew out of the need to protect and care for the great influx of pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem in the twelfth century. The Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted until 1291; however, Jerusalem itself was recaptured by Saladin in 1187, who permitted worship of all religions (see Siege of Jerusalem (1187)).

According to Rabbi Elijah of Chelm, German Jews lived in Jerusalem during the 11th century. The story is told that a German-speaking Palestinian Jew saved the life of a young German man surnamed Dolberger. So when the knights of the First Crusade came to siege Jerusalem, one of Dolberger's family members who was among them rescued Jews in Palestine and carried them back to Worms to repay the favor.[11] Further evidence of German communities in the holy city comes in the form of halakic questions sent from Germany to Jerusalem during the second half of the eleventh century.

In 1173 Benjamin of Tudela visited Jerusalem. He described it as a small city full of Jacobites, Armenians, Greeks, and Georgians. Two hundred Jews dwelt in a corner of the city under the Tower of David.

In 1219 the walls of the city were razed by order of al-Mu'azzam, the Ayyubid sultan of Damascus. This rendered Jerusalem defenseless and dealt a heavy blow to the city's status.

In 1229, by treaty with Egypt's ruler al-Kamil, Jerusalem came into the hands of Frederick II of Germany. In 1239, after a ten-year truce expired, he began to rebuild the walls; but they were again demolished by an-Nasir Da'ud, the emir of Kerak, in the same year.

In 1243 Jerusalem came again into the power of the Christians, and the walls were repaired. The Khwarezmian Tatars took the city in 1244; and they in turn were driven out by the Egyptians in 1247. In 1260 the Tatars under Hulagu Khan engaged in raids into Palestine. It is unclear if the Mongols were ever in Jerusalem, as it was not seen as a settlement of strategic importance at the time. However, there are reports that some of the Jews that were in Jerusalem temporarily fled to neighboring villages.[citation needed]
View and Plan of Jerusalem. A woodcut in the "Liber Chronicarum Mundi", Nuremberg, 1493

In 1267 the Jewish Catalonian sage Nahmanides travelled to Jerusalem. In the Old City he established the Ramban Synagogue, the oldest active synagogue in Jerusalem.

[Mamluks and early Ottoman rule (1300s - 1800s)

In the middle of the 13th century, Jerusalem was captured by the Egyptian Mamluks. In 1517, it was taken over by the Ottoman Empire and enjoyed a period of renewal and peace under Suleiman the Magnificent - including the rebuilding of magnificent walls of what is now known as the Old City (however, some of the wall foundations are remains of genuine antique walls). The rule of Suleiman and the following Ottoman Sultans brought an age of "religious peace"; Jew, Christian and Muslim enjoyed the freedom of religion the Ottomans granted them and it was possible to find a synagogue, a church and a mosque in the same street. The city remained open to all religions, although the empire's faulty management after Suleiman meant slow economical stagnation.

In 1482, the visiting Dominican priest Felix Fabri described Jerusalem as "a dwelling place of diverse nations of the world, and is, as it were, a collection of all manner of abominations". As "abominations" he listed Saracens, Greeks, Syrians, Jacobites, Abyssinians, Nestorians, Armenians, Gregorians, Maronites, Turcomans, Bedouins, Assassins, a possibly Druze sect, Mamluks, and "the most accursed of all", Jews; Only the Latin Christians "long with all their hearts for Christian princes to come and subject all the country to the authority of the Church of Rome".

In 1700, Judah he-Hasid led the largest organized group of Jewish immigrants to the Land of Israel in centuries. His disciples built the Hurba Synagogue, which served was the main synagogue in Jerusalem from the 16th century until 1948 (when it was destroyed by the Arab Legion).

Late Ottoman period (1800s - 1917)

The modern history of Jerusalem began in the mid-nineteenth century, with the decline of the Ottoman Empire. At that time, the city was a backwater, with a population that did not exceed 8,000. Nevertheless, it was, even then, an extremely heterogeneous city because of its significance to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The population was divided into four major communities - Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Armenian - and the first three of these could be further divided into countless subgroups, based on precise religious affiliation or country of origin. An example of this would be the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was meticulously partitioned between the Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Armenian, Coptic, and Ethiopian churches. Tensions between the groups ran so deep that the keys to the shrine were left with a 'neutral' Muslim family for safekeeping.

At that time, the communities were located mainly around their primary shrines. The Muslim community surrounded the Haram ash-Sharif or Temple Mount (northeast), the Christians lived mainly in the vicinity of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (northwest), the Jews lived mostly on the slope above the Western Wall (southeast), and the Armenians lived near the Zion Gate (southwest). In no way was this division exclusive, however, it did form the basis of the four quarters during the British Mandate period (1917-1948).

Several changes occurred in the mid-nineteenth century, with long-lasting effects on the city: their implications can be felt today and lie at the root of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over Jerusalem. The first of these was a trickle of Jewish immigrants from the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The first such immigrants were Orthodox Jews: some were elderly individuals, who came to die in Jerusalem and be buried on the Mount of Olives; others were students, who came with their families to await the coming of the Messiah, and adding new life to the local population. At the same time, European colonial powers also began seeking toeholds in the city, hoping to expand their influence pending the imminent collapse of the Ottoman Empire. This was also an age of Christian religious revival, and many churches sent missionaries to proselytize among the Muslim and especially the Jewish populations, believing that this would speed the Second Coming of Christ. Finally, the combination of European colonialism and religious zeal was expressed in a new scientific interest in the biblical lands in general and Jerusalem in particular. Archeological and other expeditions made some spectacular finds, which increased interest in Jerusalem even more.

By the 1860s, the city, with an area of only 1 square kilometer, was already overcrowded. Thus began the construction of the New City, the part of Jerusalem outside of the city walls. Seeking new areas to stake their claims, the Russian Orthodox Church began constructing a complex, now known as the Russian Compound, a few hundred meters from Jaffa Gate. The first attempt at residential settlement outside the walls of Jerusalem was begun by Jews, who built a small complex on the hill overlooking Zion Gate, across the Valley of Hinnom. This settlement, known as Mishkenot Sha’ananim, eventually flourished and set the precedent for other new communities to spring up to the west and north of the Old City. In time, as the communities grew and connected geographically, this became known as the New City.

British Mandate period (1917 - 1948)

The British were victorious over the Turks in the Middle East during World War I and with victory in Palestine, General Sir Edmund Allenby, commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force entered Jerusalem on foot, out of respect for the Holy City, on December 11, 1917.

By the time General Allenby took Jerusalem from the Ottomans in 1917, the new city was a patchwork of neighborhoods and communities, each with a distinct ethnic character. This continued under British rule, as the New City of Jerusalem grew outside the old city walls and the Old City of Jerusalem gradually emerged as little more than an impoverished older neighborhood. One of the British bequests to the city was a town planning order requiring new buildings in the city to be faced with sandstone and thus preserving some of the overall look of the city, even as it grew. During the 1930s, two important new institutions, the Hadassah Medical Center and Hebrew University were founded in Jerusalem's Mount Scopus.

British rule marked a period of growing unrest. Arab resentment at British rule and the influx of Jewish immigrants (by 1948 one in six Jews in Palestine lived in Jerusalem) boiled over in anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem in 1920, 1929, and the 1930s that caused significant damage and several deaths. The Jewish community organized self-defense forces in response to the Jerusalem pogrom of April, 1920 and later disturbances; while other Jewish groups carried out bombings and attacks against the British, especially in response to suspected complicity with the Arabs and restrictions on immigration during World War II imposed by the White Paper of 1939. The level of violence continued to escalate throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In July 1946 members of the underground zionist group Irgun blew up a part of the King David Hotel, where the British forces were temporarily located, an act which led to the death of many civilians.
Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, Israel, during 1944 British demolition of recent construction obscuring the historic city walls.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly approved a plan which partitioned the British Mandate of Palestine into two states: one Jewish and one Arab. Each state would be composed of three major sections, linked by extraterritorial crossroads, plus an Arab enclave at Jaffa. The Greater Jerusalem area would fall under international control.

The 1948 War

After partition, the fight for Jerusalem escalated, with heavy casualties among both fighters and civilians on the British, Jewish, and Arab sides. By the end of March, 1948, just before the British withdrawal, and with the British increasingly reluctant to intervene, the roads to Jerusalem were cut off by Arab irregulars, placing the Jewish population of the city under siege. The siege was eventually broken, though massacres of civilians occurred on both sides, before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War began with the end of the British Mandate in May 1948.

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War led to massive displacement of Arab and Jewish populations. According to Benny Morris, due to mob and militia violence on both sides, 1,500 of the 3,500 (mostly ultra-Orthodox) Jews in the Old City evacuated to west Jerusalem as a unit. See also Jewish Quarter. The comparatively populous Arab village of Lifta (today within the bounds of Jerusalem) was captured by Israeli troops in 1948, and its residents were loaded on trucks and taken to East JerusalemThe villages of Deir Yassin, Ein Karem and Malcha, as well as neighborhoods to the west of Jerusalem's Old City such as Talbiya, Katamon, Baka, Mamilla and Abu Tor, also came under Israeli control, and its residents were forcibly displaced; in some cases, as documented by Zionist historian Benny Morris and Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, among others, expulsions and massacres occurred.

In May 1948 the US Consul, Thomas C. Wasson, was assassinated outside the YMCA building. Four months later the UN mediator, Count Bernadotte, was also shot dead in the Katamon district of Jerusalem.

Division between Jordan and Israel (1948 - 1967)

The United Nations proposed, in its 1947 plan for the partition of Palestine, for Jerusalem to be a city under international administration. The city was to be surrounded completely by the "Arab State", only a highway connected international Jerusalem to the "Jewish State".

Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jerusalem was divided. The Western half of the New City became part of the newly formed state of Israel, while the eastern half, along with the Old City, was annexed by Jordan. According to David Guinn,

According to Gerald M. Steinberg, Jordan ransacked 57 ancient synagogues, libraries and centers of religious study in the Old City Of Jerusalem, 12 were totally and deliberately destroyed. Those that remained standing were defaced, used for housing of both people and animals. Appeals were made to the United Nations and in the international community to declare the Old City to be an 'open city' and stop this destruction, but there was no response.[20] (See also Hurva Synagogue)

On January 23, 1950 the Knesset passed a resolution that stated Jerusalem was the capital of Israel. It is also the largest city in the country.

Israeli rule (since 1967)

East Jerusalem was captured by Israel Defense Force following the Six Day War in 1967. The Moroccan Quarter containing several hundred homes was demolished and their inhabitants were expelled; thereafter a public plaza was built in its place adjoining the Western Wall. However, the Waqf (Islamic trust) was granted administration of the Temple Mount and thereafter Jewish prayer on the site was prohibited by both Israeli and Waqf authorities.

Most Jews celebrated the event as a liberation of the city; a new Israeli holiday was created, Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim), and the most popular secular Hebrew song, "Jerusalem of Gold" (Yerushalayim shel zahav), became popular in celebration. Many large state gatherings of the State of Israel take place at the Western Wall today, including the official swearing-in of different Israel army officers units, national ceremonies such as memorial services for fallen Israeli soldiers on Yom Hazikaron, huge celebrations on Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israel Independence Day), huge gatherings of tens of thousands on Jewish religious holidays, and ongoing daily prayers by regular attendees. The Western Wall has become a major tourist destination spot.

Under Israeli control, members of all religions are largely granted access to their holy sites. The major exceptions being security limitations placed on some Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from accessing holy sites due to their inadmissibility to Jerusalem, as well as limitations on Jews from visiting the Temple Mount due to both politically motivated restrictions (where they are allowed to walk on the Mount in small groups, but are forbidden to pray or study while there) and religious edicts that forbid Jews from trespassing on what may be the site of the Holy of the Holies. Concerns have been raised about possible attacks on the al-Aqsa Mosque after a serious fire broke in the mosque in 1969 (started by Michael Dennis Rohan, an Australian fundamentalist Christian). Riots broke out following the opening of an exit in the Arab Quarter for the Western Wall Tunnel on the instructions of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which prior Prime Minister Shimon Peres had instructed to be put on hold for the sake of peace (stating it has waited for over 1000 years, it could wait a few more).

Conversely, Israeli and other Jews have showed concerns over excavations being done by the Waqf on the Temple Mount that could harm Temple Relics, particularly excavations to the north of Solomon's Stables that were designed to create an emergency exit for them (having been pressured to do so by Israeli authorities). Some Jewish sources allege that the Waqf's excavations in Solomon's Stables also seriously harmed the Southern Wall; however an earthquake in 2004 that damaged the eastern wall could also be to blame.

East Jerusalem

The status of East Jerusalem remains a highly controversial issue. The international community does not recognize the annexation of the eastern part of the city, and most countries, including the US, maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv. The United States Congress has pledged to move its embassy to Jerusalem, subject to Presidential approval, which has not been forthcoming as the peace process continues. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 478 declared that the Knesset's 1980 "Jerusalem Law" declaring Jerusalem as Israel's "eternal and indivisible" capital was "null and void and must be rescinded forthwith". This resolution advised member states to withdraw their diplomatic representation from the city as a punitive measure. The council has also condemned Israeli settlement in territories captured in 1967, including East Jerusalem.

Since Israel gained control over East Jerusalem in 1967, Jewish settler organizations have sought to establish a Jewish presence in neighborhoods such as Silwan. In the 1980s, Haaretz reports, the Housing Ministry "then under Ariel Sharon, worked hard to seize control of property in the Old City and in the adjacent neighborhood of Silwan by declaring them absentee property. The suspicion arose that some of the transactions were not legal; an examination committee...found numerous flaws." In particular, affidavits claiming that Arab homes in the area were absentee properties, filed by Jewish organizations, were accepted by the Custodian without any site visits or other follow-up on the claims. ElAd, a settlement organization which Haaretz says promotes the "Judaization" of East Jerusalem, and the Ateret Cohanim organization, are working to increase Jewish settlement in Silwan in cooperation with the Committee for the Renewal of the Yemenite Village in Shiloah.

City of David digs and the Arab village of Silwan

The Israel Antiquities Authority has given over responsibility for the City of David digs, featuring excavation of the ancient Silwan aqueduct tunneling around and under the Old City, to ElAd. According to Israeli archaeologist Yoni Mizrachi, among others, 'Ir David' is "one of the few sites operated by private organisations and it is the only one run by a right-wing organisation."Islamic-era skeletons discovered in the course of excavations were removed from the site without informing the Muslim authorities and have since disappeared; furthermore ElAd has been accused of conducting archaeological digs on Arab properties According to the London Times, "Jewish settler groups are digging an extensive tunnel network under Muslim areas of Jerusalem's Old City while building a ring of settlements around it to bolster their claim to the disputed city in any future peace deal."[35] Elad began the City of David tunnels without applying for a permit from the Jerusalem municipality. As of April 2008, the Israeli High Court had issued a temporary order staying further construction.

In 2005, the Israeli government stated that it would demolish 88 Arab homes in Al-Bustan neighborhood to make way for expansion of the archaeological park and a nearby Jewish settlement housing 50 people.[39] No municipal court has ever ruled that any of the Arab homes slated for demolition were built illegally or without permits. Building on ongoing housing construction in conjunction with archaeological excavation, in 2008 the Jerusalem municipality began "the process of approving a plan for a new housing complex, including a synagogue, in the heart of the Arab neighborhood of Silwan".