Judaization of Jerusalem - Background

Background

See also: History of Jerusalem and Positions on Jerusalem

Jerusalem has a long history of settlement predating that of the three monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which hold the city in high esteem. Members of all three religions and others have made Jerusalem their home over the years.

Although the city came under Muslim rule in 638, it retained its Christian appearance for centuries afterward. During the Crusades (1099–1291), many new Christian sites, including 60 churches, were constructed, and a number of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, like Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, were transformed into churches or palaces for the Crusader kings. After the Ayyubids captured the city from the Crusaders in 1187, active measures were undertaken to restore Islamic sites and Islamise the city, a project motivated by the spirit of the counter-crusades which no longer viewed Christian sites as innocuous since they had made their way into sacred Muslim places. This project was completed by the Mamluks who wished to make Jerusalem look like a sacred Islamic domain, erecting dozens of religious buildings which altered the appearance of the city yet again, with many of the buildings appropriating Christian sites.

In modern times, Jerusalem was ruled by the Ottoman empire, who ruled over much of Palestine from the 16th century until the end of World War I. Under their rule Jerusalem was home to Jews, Christians and Muslims. The Jewish community was the smallest of these three in the early 19th century, numbering some 2,000 out of a total population of 8,744 in 1806. At the time, Ashkenasic Jews were forbidden from residing in the city, having been banished by the Ottoman authorities shorty after 1720. Jerusalem became an important administrative capital in the 19th century after the Ottomans established a new Jerusalem district. Jewish immigration to the city was motivated by a number of factors, a main factor among them being the centrality of Jerusalem for Judaism. Political factors also played a role; for example, one result of growing intervention by the British Empire in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire at this time was that increased Jewish immigration to Jerusalem received British protection.

By the end of the period of the Ottoman Tanzimat reforms, Jews had grown to represent the single largest religious community in Jerusalem. Weiner writes that from the 1880s onward, all sources acknowledge that Jews constituted the majority within the city. Jewish building societies were established by the 1870s, and the Meah Shearim Quarter was constructed northwest of the Old City walls. Other building projects followed, and by the 1890s, leading Jerusalem Muslim families were protesting against Jewish immigration and land acquisitions.

After the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, Jerusalem was placed under the control of the British Mandate. According to the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan, Jerusalem was to form an international corpus separatum. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, however, Jerusalem was divided, with Israel taking control over West Jerusalem and Jordan taking control over East Jerusalem. Jewish residents were expelled from the Old City and from other areas that fell under Jordanian control, such as the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Neve Yaakov and Atarot and the villages of Kalya and Beit HaArava. Concrete walls and barbed-wire fences separated the two halves of Jerusalem, and Jews were forbidden from any entry into East Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the Six Day War in 1967. Today, Palestinian Jerusalemites in East Jerusalem number some 250,000, comprising 30% of the total population of Jerusalem. Since the Six Day War and Israel's extension of administrative control over East Jerusalem, Israeli actions seeking to change the legal status of East Jerusalem have been condemned by the international community. Moshe Ma'oz describes the policy of Israeli governments since 1967 as aimed at "maintain a unified Jerusalem; to Judaize or Israelize it, demographically and politically." According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), "Israeli and Palestinian organisations have criticised Israeli policies that have sought to judaise East Jerusalem, expand the municipality of Jerusalem, and maintain a Jewish majority in Jerusalem at the expense of the Palestinian community, in violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law (UNCHR, 12 July 1995; ICAHD, March 2007; B'tselem, July 2006)."