| Jerusalem and the Holy Places
Home > Resources > The Arab-Israel conflict > A brief history of the conflict > Jerusalem and the Holy Places
Of all the stipulations of the Partition Resolution, the exclusion
of Jerusalem from the Jewish State was, for the Jews, the most
painful, as much because of their historic, religious and national
attachment to their Eternal Capital, as out of their concern for
the Jewish population of the city. Since 1860, Jews have constituted
the majority of Jerusalem's inhabitants; in 1947, they numbered
100,000, 60 percent of the total. Aware of the association of
other religions with Jerusalem, the Jewish authorities were ready
to agree to an international control or administration of the
Holy Places but demanded that the Jewish Quarter be included in
the Jewish State. Only when it realised that a number of States,
mainly Catholic, made their support of Partition and the establishment
of a Jewish State contingent upon the internationalisation of
Jerusalem and its environs as a separate territorial entity, did
the Jewish Agency reluctantly agree to the proposal.
The Jews still hoped that a change in the status
of the city might be attainable at the end of the ten-year period
set for the possibility of revision. The Arabs rejected not only
the establishment of a Jewish State, but also an international
regime of any kind for Jerusalem.
When fighting broke out in Palestine, the United Nations proved incapable of protecting Jerusalem. The City of Peace, ward of the United Nations, became the scene of the bloodiest battles, in danger of destruction. On May 6, 1948, the Special Session of the General Assembly recommended that "the Mandatory Power appoint, under Palestine legislation, before 15 May 1948, a neutral acceptable to both Arabs and Jews, as Special Municipal Commissioner, who shall, with the co-operation of the community committees already existing in Jerusalem, carry out the functions hitherto performed by the Municipal Commission". (General Assembly Resolution 187 (S.II).) A Philadelphia attorney, Mr. Harold Evans, was appointed to the post, but he never set foot in Jerusalem. The General Assembly failed to decide on a Statute of Jerusalem, and turned down a proposal submitted at the decisive hour before the Mandate lapsed for a temporary trusteeship regime of the city. When the Mandate expired, internationalisation had not been implemented, nor had any alternative decision been adopted - a vacuum legis was caused.
The upshot of the fighting was a de facto partition of Jerusalem into an Israel- and a Jordan-held section. A no-man's-land in certain parts of the city and a demilitarised zone between the lines, including Government House, which later became Headquarters for UNTSO, were also created in the summer of 1948. In spite of the large Jewish majority, the United Nations Mediator on June 27, 1948 suggested handing over Jerusalem to the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan and, on July 26, proposed the demilitarisation of the city. Israel would have nothing of either proposal, emphasising that, after the exeriences of the last months, it could no longer agree to the Jewish quarters of Jerusalem being severed from the main body of Israel. At the same time, it expressed readiness to negotiate with the United Nations on the establishment of an appropriate international regime for the Holy Places. To leave the door open for such negotiations, the Israel Government refrained from taking any precipitate action on the permanent status of Jerusalem, and, on August 2, 1948, proclaimed the parts of the city under its control as Israel-occupied territory. This proclamation was revoked and the area integrated into Israel on January 30, 1949, after the Third General Assembly had reaffirmed its decision to internationalise Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, in December 1948, a Congress of Palestinian Arabs in Jericho resolved to request King Abdullah to unite the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) with Trans-Jordan in a single constitutional monarchy. Jerusalem was later declared Jordan's second capital. The Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement of April 3, 1949 further underlined the de facto partition of Jerusalem and, in Article VIII, provided for procedures for the solution of questions still outstanding.
The Fourth General Assembly (1949) again dealt with the Jerusalem issue. On the eve of the debate, the Knesset unanimously appealed to the Assembly not to insist on the unjust and unrealistic internationalisation idea. At the Assembly, a proposal for a functional international regime over the Holy Places was outvoted in committee, and a coalition of Catholic, Muslim and Communist States won a two thirds majority for a Resolution that Jerusalem "be placed under a permanent international regime." Israel rejected the Resolution and reacted by transferring the seat of the Knesset and of the Government to Jerusalem. Jordan, too, rejected it. At the Fifth General Assembly (1950), Sweden introduced a draft Resolution in favour of functional internationalisation, but could not muster the required support, and a Belgian attempt to revive the corpus separatum decision also failed, as did a Philippines move at the Seventh General Assembly (1952) to mention the principle of the internationalisation of Jerusalem. From then on, until 1967, the question of the status of Jerusalem was not dealt with at the United Nations. In theory, the 1949 Resolution to internationalise Jerusalem stands, since it has never been rescinded, but to all practical purposes it became a dead letter.
Israel quickly embarked on the task of rebuilding and rehabilitating the badly damaged city. Disrupted services were restored, transportation was improved and new roads laid, new enterprises opened, existing institutions of learning, culture and science expanded and new ones established. The population of Israeli Jerusalem, which, during the War of Independence, had dropped to 69,000, rose to almost 200,000 at the beginning of 1967. The international community gradually reconciled itself to accepting Jerusalem as Israel's capital. In January 1964, Pope Paul VI visited the Holy Places in both halves of Jerusalem. By 1967, almost a third of the foreign diplomatic missions in Israel had established their residences there.
Again a living and thriving city, Jerusalem was still divided, concrete barriers and barbed wire separating the Israeli from the Jordan-held parts. Jews had no access to East Jerusalem. Venerated synagogues, cemeteries and other places dear to them in the Old City and East Jerusalem were demolished, desecrated and despoiled. Jordan refused to honour its obligations under Article VIII of the armistice agreement.
At the outbreak of the Six-Day War, on June 5, 1967, Jordan attacked Jerusalem, ignoring a plea by the Prime Minister of Israel not to enter the war. Jerusalem was heavily shelled by Jordan, whose troops occupied the United Nations Headquarters. In a swift two days of heavy fighting, Israel repelled the Jordanian attack and liberated the whole of Jerusalem. On June 27, the city was statutorily unified. The situation in Jerusalem since unification has been described by Foreign Minister Eban in two letters to the United Nations Secretary-General.
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