Positions On Jerusalem - Israel

Israel

• Israel declared Jerusalem as its capital, later annexed East Jerusalem and declared the united city its capital. Most Israeli governments rejected calls to divide Jerusalem and proclaimed that it would remain united under Israeli sovereignty, though some Israeli governments were willing to discuss a division of the city. Israel has also suggested that the future capital of a Palestinian state should be in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis.

Israel claims it acquired sovereignty over the western part of the city in 1948. Upon the departure of Britain, the area remained without a sovereign and during the war, Israel took control of it. Jerusalem was declared as the capital of Israel in 1949. Following the 1967 Six Day War, Israel extended its jurisdiction and administration over eastern Jerusalem, establishing new municipal borders. It also ensured protection and freedom of access to the holy sites of the city. Although at the time Israel informed the UN that its actions had not constituted annexation but rather administrative and municipal integration, later rulings by the Israeli Supreme Court indicated that the eastern sector had become part of Israel. Israel was of the view that since Jordan had taken the eastern part of the city by an act of aggression in 1948, it never acquired sovereignty, and since Israel conquered it in 1967 during a war of self-defence, it had the stronger right to the land.

In July 1980, the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Law as part of the country's Basic Law. The law declared Jerusalem the unified capital of Israel. The Knesset together with the presidential, legislative, judicial and administrative offices are all located within the city.

In November 2010, the Knesset passed a law which requires approval in a public referendum and the votes of at least 60 Knesset members before any withdrawal from East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.

Israel believes that there is no basis in international law for the position supporting a status of corpus separatum for the city of Jerusalem. Israel holds that it was a non-binding proposal which never materialised, having become irrelevant when the Arab states rejected United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 and invaded the fledgling State of Israel. Neither has there ever been any agreement, treaty, or international understanding which applies the corpus separatum concept to Jerusalem.

Positions on the future status Jerusalem have varied with different Israeli governments. Despite having signed the Oslo Accords which declared that the future status of Jerusalem would be negotiated, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared that he would never divide the city. In 1995, he told a group of schoolchildren that "if they told us peace is the price of giving up a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, my reply would be 'let's do without peace'". This position was upheld by his successor, Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu's successor, Ehud Barak, became the first Israeli Prime Minister to agree to the division of Jerusalem despite his campaign promises. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to keep Jerusalem the "undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish people", while his successor Ehud Olmert supported the detachment of several Arab neighborhoods from Israeli sovereignty and the introduction of an international trust to run the Temple Mount. When Netanyahu succeeded Olmert, he declared that Jerusalem would remain Israel's undivided and eternal capital, but that the city would be open to those of all faiths.