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Friday, May 20, 2011

Ahem...Jerusalem is Israel's Capital!

FROM WIKIPEDIA:


Jerusalem (Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם‎‎ About this sound (audio) (help·info), Yerushaláyim, ISO 259-3 Yrušalaym, "Abode of Peace"; Arabic: القُدس About this sound (audio) (help·info), al-Quds [al-Sharif], "The Holy Sanctuary", أُورشَلِيم, Ūrshalīm)[ii] is the capital of Israel, though not internationally recognized as such.[iii] If the area and population of East Jerusalemlargest city[1] in both population and area,[2] with a population of 763,800 residents over an area of 125.1 km2 (48.3 sq mi).[3][4][iv] Located in the Judean Mountains, between the Mediterranean Sea and the northern edge of the Dead Sea, modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the boundaries of the Old City.

Note the wording...see anything at all about the phony baloney, don't even exist Palestinians?  "Israel's capital," "Israel's Largest City."

During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.[12] The oldest part of the city was settled in the 4th millennium BCE, making Jerusalem one of the oldest cities in the world.[13] The old walled city, a World Heritage site, has been traditionally divided into four quarters, although the names used today—the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters—were introduced in the early 19th century.[14] The Old City was nominated for inclusion on the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger by Jordan in 1982.[15]

Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel annexed East Jerusalem (which was controlled by Jordan following the 1948 war) and considers it a part of Israel, although the international community has rejected the annexation as illegal and considers East Jerusalem to be Palestinian territory held by Israel under military occupation.[16][17][18][19]Jerusalem Law of 1980. Israel, however, considers the entire city to be a part of Israel following its annexation of East Jerusalem through the

Settled in the 4th BC, one of the oldest cities in the world...Jerusalem, NOT Al Quds.


All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset (Israel's parliament), the residences of the Prime Minister and President, and the Supreme Court. Jerusalem is home to the Hebrew University and to the Israel Museum with its Shrine of the Book. The Jerusalem Biblical Zoo has ranked consistently as Israel's top tourist attraction for Israelis.[23][24]

Couldn't be anymore clear than if it was made up of God's water supply. 

A city called Rušalimum or Urušalimum (Foundation of Shalem)[25] appears in ancient Egyptian records as the first two references to Jerusalem, in c. 2000 BCE and c. 1330 BCE respectively.[26][27][28] The form Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) first appears in the Bible, in the book of Joshua. This form has the appearance of a portmanteau (blend) of Yireh (an abiding place of the fear and the service of God)[29] and the original root S-L-M and is not a simple phonetic evolution of the form in the Amarna letters. The meaning of the common root S-L-M is unknown but is thought to refer to either "peace" (Salam or Shalom in modern Arabic and Hebrew) or Shalim, the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion.[30][31][32]

Where in the koran is Jerusalem or AlQuds mentioned? 

Ceramic evidence indicates the occupation of City of David, within present-day Jerusalem, as far back as the Copper Age (c. 4th millennium BCE),[13][44] with evidence of a permanent settlement during the early Bronze Age (c. 3000–2800 BCE).[44][45] The Execration Texts (c. 19th century BCE), which refer to a city called Roshlamem or Rosh-ramen[44] and the Amarna letters (c. 14th century BCE) may be the earliest mention of the city.[46][47] Some archaeologists, including Kathleen Kenyon, believe Jerusalem[48] as a city was founded by Northwest Semitic people with organized settlements from around 2600 BCE. According to Jewish tradition, the city was founded by Shem and Eber, ancestors of Abraham. In the biblical account, Jerusalem ("Salem") when first mentioned is ruled by Melchizedek, an ally of Abraham (identified with Shem in legend). Later, in the time of Joshua, Jerusalem lay within territory allocated to the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18:28), but continued to be under the independent control of the Jebusites until it was conquered by David and made into the capital of the united Kingdom of Israel (c. 11th century BCE).[49][50][v] Recent excavations of a Large Stone Structure and a nearby Stepped Stone Structure are widely believed[by whom?] to be the remains of King David's palace. The excavations have been interpreted by some archaeologists as lending credence to the biblical narrative.[51]
According to Hebrew scripture, King David reigned until 970 BCE. He was succeeded by his son Solomon,[52] who built the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah. Solomon's Temple (later known as the First Temple), went on to play a pivotal role in Jewish history as the repository of the Ark of the Covenant.[53] For more than 400 years, until the Babylonian conquest in 587 BCE, Jerusalem was the political capital of the united Kingdom of Israel and then the Kingdom of Judah. During this period, known as the First Temple Period,[54] the Temple was the religious center of the Israelites.[55] On Solomon's death (c. 930 BCE), the ten northern tribes split off to form the Kingdom of Israel. Under the leadership of the House of David and Solomon, Jerusalem remained the capital of the Kingdom of Judah.[56]
When the Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, Jerusalem was strengthened by a great influx of refugees from the northern kingdom. The First Temple period ended around 586 BCE, as the Babylonians conquered Judah and Jerusalem, and laid waste to Solomon's Temple.[54] In 538 BCE, after 50 years of Babylonian captivity, Persian King Cyrus the Great invited the Jews to return to Judah to rebuild the Temple.[57] Construction of the Second Temple was completed in 516 BCE, during the reign of Darius the Great, 70 years after the destruction of the First Temple.[58][59] In about 445 BCE, King Artaxerxes I of Persia issued a decree allowing the city and the walls to be rebuilt.[60] Jerusalem resumed its role as capital of Judah and center of Jewish worship.

No commentary necessary.

With the annexation of Jerusalem by Muhammad Ali of Egypt in 1831, foreign missions and consulates began to establish a foothold in the city. In 1836, Ibrahim Pasha allowed Jerusalem's Jewish residents to restore four major synagogues, among them the Hurva.[89] In the 1834 Arab revolt in Palestine, Qasim al-Ahmad led his forces from Nablus and attacked Jerusalem, aided by the Abu Ghosh clan, entered the city on May 31, 1834. The Christians and Jews of Jerusalem were subjected to attacks. Ibrahim's Egyptian army routed Qasim's forces in Jerusalem the following month.[90]
Ben-Zakai Synagogue in 1893
Ottoman rule was reinstated in 1840, but many Egyptian Muslims remained in Jerusalem and Jews from Algiers and North Africa began to settle in the city in growing numbers.[89] In the 1840s and 1850s, the international powers began a tug-of-war in Palestine as they sought to extend their protection over the region's religious minorities, a struggle carried out mainly through consular representatives in Jerusalem.[91] According to the Prussian consul, the population in 1845 was 16,410, with 7,120 Jews, 5,000 Muslims, 3,390 Christians, 800 Turkish soldiers and 100 Europeans.[89] The volume of Christian pilgrims increased under the Ottomans, doubling the city's population around Easter time.[92]
In the 1860s, new neighborhoods began to develop outside the Old City walls to house pilgrims and relieve the intense overcrowding and poor sanitation inside the city. The Russian Compound and Mishkenot Sha'ananim were founded in 1860.[93] In 1867 an American Missionary reports an estimated population of Jerusalem of 'above' 15,000, with 4,000 to 5,000 Jews and 6,000 Muslims. Every year there were 5,000 to 6,000 Russian Christian Pilgrims.[94]

British Mandate

General Edmund Allenby enters the Old City of Jerusalem on December 11, 1917
In 1917 after the Battle of Jerusalem, the British Army, led by General Edmund Allenby, captured the city,[95]League of Nations at the Conference of Lausanne entrusted the United Kingdom to administer the Mandate for Palestine, the neighbouring mandate of Transjordan to the east across the River Jordan, and the Iraq Mandate beyond it. and in 1922, the
From 1922 to 1948 the total population of the city rose from 52,000 to 165,000 with two thirds of Jews and one-third of Arabs (Muslims and Christians).[96] The situation between Arabs and Jews in Palestine was not quiet. In Jerusalem, in particular, riots occurred in 1920 and in 1929. Under the British, new garden suburbs were built in the western and northern parts of the city[97][98] and institutions of higher learning such as the Hebrew University were founded.[99]

Division and reunification 1948–1967

Israeli policemen meet a Jordanian Legionnaire near the Mandelbaum Gate
As the British Mandate for Palestine was expiring, the 1947 UN Partition Plan recommended "the creation of a special international regime in the City of Jerusalem, constituting it as a corpus separatum under the administration of the United Nations."[100] The international regime (which also included the city of Bethlehem) was to remain in force for a period of ten years, whereupon a referendum was to be held in which the residents were to decide the future regime of their city. However, this plan was not implemented, as the 1948 war erupted, while the British withdrew from Palestine and Israel declared its independence.[101] The war led to displacement of Arab and Jewish populations in the city. The 1,500 residents of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City were expelled and a few hundred taken prisoner when the Arab Legion captured the quarter on 28 May.[102][103] The Arab Legion also attacked Western Jerusalem with snipers.[104] Arab residents of Katamon, Talbiya, and the German Colony were driven from their homes. By the end of the war Israel had control of 12 of Jerusalem's 15 Arab residential quarters. An estimated minimum of 30,000 people had become refugees.[105][106]
The war of 1948 resulted in Jerusalem being divided, with the old walled city lying entirely on the Jordanian side of the line. A no-man's land between East and West Jerusalem came into being in November 1948: Moshe Dayan, commander of the Israeli forces in Jerusalem, met with his Jordanian counterpart Abdullah el Tell in a deserted house in Jerusalem’s Musrara neighborhood and marked out their respective positions: Israel’s position in red and Jordan's in green. This rough map, which was not meant as an official one, became the final line in the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which divided the city and left Mount Scopus as an Israeli exclave inside East Jerusalem.[107] Barbed wire and concrete barriers ran down the center of the city, passing close by Jaffa Gate on the western side of the old walled city, and a crossing point was established at Mandelbaum Gate slightly to the north of the old walled city. Military skirmishes frequently threatened the ceasefire. After the establishment of the State of Israel, Jerusalem was declared its capital. Jordan formally annexed East Jerusalem in 1950, subjecting it to Jordanian law.[101][108] Only the United Kingdom and Pakistan formally recognized such annexation, which, in regard to Jerusalem, was on a de facto basis.[109][110][111] Also, it is dubious if Pakistan recognized Jordan's annexation.
After 1948, since the old walled city in its entirety was to the east of the armistice line, Jordan was able to take control of all the holy places therein, and contrary to the terms of the armistice agreement, Israelis were denied access to Jewish holy sites, many of which were desecrated. 34 of the 35 synagogues in the Old City, including the Hurva and the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue, were destroyed over the course of the next 19 years, either razed or used as stables and hen-houses. Many other historic and religiously significant buildings were replaced by modern structures.[112] The Jewish Quarter became known as Harat al-Sharaf and was occupied by refugees from the 1948 war. In 1966 the Jordanian authorities relocated 500 of them to the Shua'fat refugee camp as part of plans to redevelop the area.[113]
Jordan allowed only very limited access to Christian holy sites.[114] During this period, the Dome of the Rock[115] and al-Aqsa Mosque underwent major renovations.
Map of East Jerusalem
In 1967, the Six-Day War saw hand to hand fighting between Israeli and Jordanian soldiers on the Temple Mount, and it resulted in Israel capturing East Jerusalem. Hence Jewish and Christian access to the holy sites inside the old walled city was restored, while the Temple Mount remained under the jurisdiction of an Islamic waqf. The Moroccan Quarter, which was located adjacent to the Western Wall, was vacated and razed[116][117] Since the war, Israel has expanded the city's boundaries and established a ring of Jewish neighbourhoods on land east of the Green Line. Since 1967, Israel has gone to considerable lengths to make the sections of Jerusalem it captured in the Six Day War more Jewish.[118] to make way for a plaza for those visiting the wall.
However, the takeover of East Jerusalem was met with international criticism. Following the passing of Israel's Jerusalem Law, which declared Jerusalem, "complete and united", the capital of Israel,[119] the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that declared the law "a violation of international law" and requested all member states to withdraw all remaining embassies from the city.[120]

Today

The status of the city, and especially its holy places, remains a core issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli government has approved building plans in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City[121] in order to expand the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem, while prominent Islamic leaders have made claims that Jews have no historical connection to Jerusalem, alleging that the 2,500-year old Western Wall was constructed as part of a mosque.[122] Palestinians envision East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state,[123][124] and the city's borders have been the subject of bilateral talks. A strong longing for peace is symbolized by the Peace Monument (with farming tools made out of scrap weapons), facing the Old City wall near the former Israeli-Jordanian border and quoting from the book of Isaiah in Arabic and Hebrew.[125]

How could a wall of a group's mosque have existed 2500 years ago when the information above it clearly indicates they did NOT exist?


Under the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine passed by the United Nations in 1947, Jerusalem was envisaged to become a corpus separatum administered by the United Nations. While the Jewish leaders accepted the partition plan, the Arab leadership (the Arab Higher Committee in Palestine and the Arab League) rejected it, opposing any partition.[162][163] In the war of 1948, the western part of the city was occupied by forces of the nascent state of Israel, while the eastern part was occupied by Jordan. The international community largely considers the legal status of Jerusalem to derive from the partition plan, and correspondingly refuses to recognize Israeli sovereignty in the city.
Kiryat HaMemshala government complex
On December 5, 1949, the State of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed Jerusalem as Israel's capital,[164] and since then all branches of the Israeli governmentlegislative, judicial, and executive—have resided there, except for the Ministry of Defense, located at HaKirya in Tel Aviv.[165] At the time of the proclamation, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and thus only West Jerusalem was proclaimed Israel's capital. However, immediately after the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel took control of East Jerusalem, incorporating it into the Jerusalem Municipality, making it a de facto part of the Israel. Israel confirmed its annexation and enshrined the status of the "complete and united" Jerusalem—West and East—as its capital, in the 1980 Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel.[166] The status of a "united Jerusalem" as Israel's "eternal capital"[164][167] has been a matter of immense controversy within the international community. Although some countries maintain consulates in Jerusalem, all embassies are located outside the city proper, mostly in Tel Aviv.[168][169] Due to the non-recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, some non-Israeli press use Tel Aviv as a metonym for Israel.[170][171][172][173]
The non-binding United Nations Security Council Resolution 478, passed on August 20, 1980, declared that the Basic Law was "null and void and must be rescinded forthwith". Member states were advised to withdraw their diplomatic representation from Jerusalem as a punitive measure. Most of the remaining countries with embassies in Jerusalem complied with the resolution by relocating them to Tel Aviv, where many embassies already resided prior to Resolution 478. Currently, there are no embassies located within the city limits of Jerusalem, although there are embassies in Mevaseret Zion, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and four consulates in the city itself.[169] In 1995, the United States Congress had planned to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with the passage of the Jerusalem Embassy Act.[174] However, U.S. presidents have argued that Congressional resolutions regarding the status of Jerusalem are merely advisory. The Constitution reserves foreign relations as an executive power, and as such, the United States embassy is still in Tel Aviv.[175]
On 28 October 2009, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that Jerusalem must be the capital of both Israel and Palestine if peace is to be achieved.[176]
In 2010, Israel approved legislation giving Jerusalem the highest national priority status in Israel. The law prioritized construction throughout the city, and offered grants and tax benefits to residents to make housing, infrastructure, education, employment, business, tourism, and cultural events more affordable. Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon said that the bill sent "a clear, unequivocal political message that Jerusalem will not be divided", and that "all those within the Palestinian and international community who expect the current Israeli government to accept any demands regarding Israel's sovereignty over it's [sic] capital are mistaken and misleading".[177]
View of modern Jerusalem
The Israeli government has placed almost all of its institutions in Jerusalem. The city is currently home to the Knesset,[178] the Supreme Court,[179] the official residences of the President and Prime Minister, the Cabinet, all ministries except the Ministry of Defense, and the Bank of Israel. Prior to the creation of the State of Israel, Jerusalem served as the administrative capital of the British Mandate for Palestine, which included present-day Israel and Jordan.[180] From 1949 until 1967, West Jerusalem served as Israel's capital, but was not recognized as such internationally because UN General Assembly Resolution 194 envisaged Jerusalem as an international city. As a result of the Six-Day War in 1967, the whole of Jerusalem came under Israeli control. On June 27, 1967, the government of Levi Eshkol extended Israeli law and jurisdiction to East Jerusalem, but agreed that administration of the Temple Mount compound would be maintained by the Jordanian waqf, under the Jordanian Ministry of Religious Endowments.[181] In 1988, Israel ordered the closure of Orient House, home of the Arab Studies Society, but also the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization, for security reasons. The building reopened in 1992 as a Palestinian guesthouse.[182][183] The Oslo Accords stated that the final status of Jerusalem would be determined by negotiations with the Palestinian National Authority, which regards East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.[20][184] while Benjamin Netanyahu has similarly stated that Jerusalem would remain the undivided capital of Israel. Due to its proximity to the city, especially the Temple Mount, Abu Dis, a Palestinian town bordering Jerusalem, has been proposed as the future capital of a Palestinian state by Israel. Israel has not incorporated Abu Dis within its security wall around Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority has built a possible future parliament building for the Palestinian Legislative Council in the town, and all its Jerusalem Affairs Offices are also located in Abu Dis.[185] Mahmoud Abbas has said that any agreement that did not not include East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine would be unacceptable,

Absolutely clear...Jerusalem was always set to be the capital, and has ONLY not become so due to #PoliticallyCastrated #Islammunist #fagatronics.  AMEN.

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