Myths & Facts Jerusalem

Jerusalem is an Arab City.
The Temple Mount has always been a Muslim holy place.
Jerusalem need not be the capital of Israel.
The Arabs were willing to accept the internationalization of Jerusalem.
Jordan ensured freedom of worship for all religions in Jerusalem.
Jordan safeguarded Jewish holy places.
Israel limits religious freedom in Jerusalem.
Israel has refused to discuss a compromise on the future of Jerusalem.
Israel restricts the political rights of Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem.
Under UN Resolution 242, East Jerusalem is considered “occupied territory.”
East Jerusalem should be the capital of a Palestinian state because Jews never lived there.
The Israeli government wants to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque.
Palestinians treat the al-Aqsa Mosque with the reverence it deserves.
Jews have no right to pray on the Temple Mount.
The United States should not have recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

MYTH

Jerusalem is an Arab City.

FACT

Jews have been living in Jerusalem continuously for three millennia. They have constituted the largest single group of inhabitants there since the 1840s. Jerusalem contains the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.

Jerusalem was never the capital of any Arab entity. It was a backwater for most of Arab history and never served as a provincial capital under Muslim rule. While the entirety of Jerusalem is holy to Jews, Muslims only revere one site—the al-Aqsa Mosque. “To a Moslem,” observed British writer Christopher Sykes, “there is a profound difference between Jerusalem and Mecca or Medina. The latter are holy places containing holy sites….But to a Jew, Jerusalem is something very different, indeed unique. Not only is it a city founded by the Jews; it is at the center of Jewish being.”¹

Jerusalem’s Population²

*Total as of January 2021 and percentage based on 2019 Jewish population and 2021 total.

MYTH

The Temple Mount has always been a Muslim holy place.

FACT

During the 2000 Camp David Summit, Yasser Arafat said no Jewish Temple ever existed on the Temple Mount.³ A year later, the Palestinian Authority–appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrima Sabri, told the German publication Die Welt, “There is not [even] the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish temple on this place in the past. In the whole city, there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history.”⁴ Similarly, Sheik Raed Salah, a leader of the Islamic movement in Israel, said, “The Zionist movement has invented that this was the site of Solomon’s Temple. But this is all a lie.”⁵

These views are contradicted by the book entitled A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif, published by the Supreme Moslem Council in 1930. The Council, the principal Muslim authority in Jerusalem during the British Mandate, wrote in the guide that the Temple Mount site “is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest times. Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.”

In a description of the area of Solomon’s Stables, which Waqf officials converted into a new mosque in 1996, the guide states: “little is known for certain about the early history of the chamber itself. It dates probably as far back as the construction of Solomon’s Temple . . . According to Josephus, it was in existence and was used as a place of refuge by the Jews at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 A.D.”

More authoritatively, the Koran describes Solomon’s construction of the First Temple (34:13) and recounts the destruction of the First and Second Temples (17:7).

The Jewish connection to the Temple Mount dates back more than 3,000 years and is rooted in tradition and history. When Abrahambound his sonIsaac upon an altar as a sacrifice to God, he is believed to have done so atop Mount Moriah, today’s Temple Mount. The First Temple’s Holy of Holies contained the original Ark of the Covenant. The First and Second Temples were the centers of Jewish religious and social life until the Second Temple’s destruction by the Romans. After the destruction of the Second Temple, control of the Temple Mount passed through several conquering powers. During the early period of Muslim rule in the seventh century, the Dome of the Rock was built on the site of the ancient temples.

MYTH

Jerusalem need not be the capital of Israel.

FACT

Since King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel more than 3,000 years ago, the city has played a central role in Jewish existence. The Temple Mount in the Old City is the object of Jewish veneration and the focus of Jewish prayer. Three times a day, for thousands of years, Jews have prayed, “To Jerusalem, thy city, shall we return with joy,” and have repeated the Psalmist’s oath: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.”

MYTH

The Arabs were willing to accept the internationalization of Jerusalem.

FACT

When the United Nations took up the Palestine question in 1947, it recommended that all of Jerusalem be internationalized. The Vatican and many predominantly Catholic delegations pushed for this status. Still, a key reason for the UN decision was the Soviet Bloc’s desire to embarrass Transjordan’s King Abdullah and his British patrons by denying Abdullah control of the city.

The Jewish Agency, after much soul-searching, agreed to accept internationalization in the hope that, in the short run, it would protect the city from bloodshed and the new state from conflict. Since the partition resolution called for a referendum on the city’s status after ten years, and Jews comprised a substantial majority, the expectation was that the city would be incorporated into Israel later. The Arab states were as bitterly opposed to the internationalization of Jerusalem as they were to the rest of the partition plan.

In May 1948, Jordan invaded and occupied East Jerusalem, dividing the city for the first time in its history and driving thousands of Jews—whose families had lived in the city for centuries—into exile. Consequently, the UN partition plan, including its proposal that Jerusalem be internationalized, was overtaken by events.

MYTH

Jordan ensured freedom of worship for all religions in Jerusalem.

FACT

From 1948 to 1967, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan. Israel made western Jerusalem its capital;  Jordan occupied the eastern section. Because Jordan maintained a state of war with Israel, the city became two armed camps, replete with concrete walls and bunkers, barbed-wire fences, minefields, and other military fortifications.

Under paragraph eight of the 1949 Armistice Agreement, Jordan and Israel were to establish committees to arrange the resumption of the normal functioning of cultural and humanitarian institutions on Mt. Scopus, use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, and free access to holy places and cultural institutions. However, Jordan violated the agreement and denied Israelis access to the Western Wall and the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, where Jews have buried their dead for more than 2,500 years.

Under Jordanian rule, “Israeli Christians were subjected to various restrictions during their seasonal pilgrimages to their holy places” in Jerusalem, noted Teddy Kollek. “Only limited numbers were grudgingly permitted to briefly visit the Old City and Bethlehem at Christmas and Easter.”⁸

In 1955 and 1964, Jordan passed laws imposing strict government control on Christian schools, including restrictions on opening new schools, state control over school finances, the appointment of teachers, and the requirement that the Koran be taught. In 1953 and 1965, Jordan adopted laws revoking the right of Christian religious and charitable institutions to acquire real estate in Jerusalem.

In 1958, police seized the Armenian Patriarch-elect and deported him from Jordan, paving the way for the election of a patriarch supported by King Hussein’s government. Because of these repressive policies, many Christians emigrated from Jerusalem. Their numbers declined from 25,000 in 1949 to fewer than 13,000 in June 1967.⁹

Israel abolished these discriminatory laws after the city was reunited in 1967.

MYTH

Jordan safeguarded Jewish holy places.

FACT

Jordan desecrated Jewish holy places during its occupation in 1948–67. King Hussein permitted the construction of a road to the Intercontinental Hotel across the Mount of Olives cemetery. A highway that could easily have been built elsewhere destroyed hundreds of Jewish graves. The gravestones, honoring the memory of rabbis and sages, were used by the engineer corps of the Jordanian Arab Legion as pavement and latrines in army camps (inscriptions on the stones were still visible when Israel liberated the city).

The ancient Jewish Quarter of the Old City was ravaged, 58 Jerusalem synagogues—some centuries old—were destroyed or ruined, and others were turned into stables and chicken coops. Slum dwellings were built abutting the Western Wall.¹⁰

MYTH

Israel limits religious freedom in Jerusalem.

FACT

After the 1967 War, Israel abolished all the discriminatory laws promulgated by Jordan and adopted a strict standard for safeguarding access to religious shrines. “Whoever does anything that is likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the various religions to the places sacred to them,” Israeli law stipulates, is “liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.”

The State Department notes that Israeli law provides freedom of worship, and the Government respects this right.

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan permitted the Islamic authority, the Muslim Waqf, to continue its civil authority on the Temple Mount even though it is the holiest site in Judaism. The Waqf oversees all day-to-day activity there. An Israeli presence is in place at the entrance to the Temple Mount to ensure access for people of all religions.

Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christians—many from Arab countries that remain in a state of war with Israel—have come to Jerusalem to see their holy places. During Ramadan, as many as 150,000 Muslims pray on the Temple Mount.

For security reasons, restrictions are sometimes temporarily imposed on the Temple Mount. Still, the right to worship has never been abridged, and other mosques remain accessible even in times of high tension.

While it is the heavenly rather than the earthly Jerusalem that the Church emphasizes, places mentioned in the New Testament as the sites of Jesus’s ministry have drawn pilgrims and devoted worshipers for centuries. Among these sites are the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Garden of Gethsemane, the site commemorating the Last Supper, and the Via Dolorosa with the fourteen Stations of the Cross.

The rights of the various Christian churches to the custody of the Christian holy places in Jerusalem were defined in the nineteenth century when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire. Known as the “status quo arrangement for the Christian holy places in Jerusalem,” these rights remained in force during the British Mandate and are still upheld today in Israel.

MYTH

Israel has refused to discuss a compromise on the future of Jerusalem.

FACT

Jerusalem was never the capital of any Arab entity. Palestinians have no particular claim to the city; they simply demand it as their capital. Nevertheless, Israel has recognized that the city has a large Palestinian population, that the city is important to Muslims, and that making concessions on the city’s sovereignty might help minimize the conflict with the Palestinians. The Palestinians, however, have shown no reciprocal appreciation for the Jewish majority in the city, the significance of Jerusalem to the Jewish people, or the fact that it is already the nation’s capital.

The Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles (DoP) signed in 1993 left open the status of Jerusalem. Article V said only that Jerusalem is one of the issues to be discussed in the permanent status negotiations.

Most Israelis oppose dividing Jerusalem; still, efforts have been made to find some compromise that could satisfy Palestinian interests.

 Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered dramatic concessions at the White House Summit in December 2000 that would have allowed the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state and given the Palestinians control over the Muslim holy places on the Temple Mount. Yasser Arafat rejected the deal.

In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered a peace plan that included the partitioning of Jerusalem on a demographic basis. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spurned the offer.

MYTH

Israel restricts the political rights of Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem.

FACT

Along with religious freedom, Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem have political rights. Arab residents are given the choice of whether to become Israeli citizens. Most retain their Jordanian citizenship, however, increasing numbers have applied for Israeli citizenship, and Israel has expedited the process.¹³

Even if a Palestinian state were created, most Palestinians would choose to live in Israel, according to a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion in June 2015. The poll found that 52% of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem would prefer to be citizens of Israel compared with 42% who would choose citizenship in a Palestinian state.¹⁴ Regardless of whether they are citizens, Jerusalem Arabs are permitted to vote in municipal elections and play a role in the city’s administration.

MYTH

Under UN Resolution 242, East Jerusalem is considered “occupied territory.”

FACT

A drafter of the resolution, U.S. ambassador to the UN Arthur Goldberg, said, “Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate . . . Jerusalem was a discrete matter, not linked to the West Bank.”

In several speeches at the UN in 1967, Goldberg said, “I repeatedly stated that the armistice lines fixed after 1948 were intended to be temporary. This, of course, was particularly true of Jerusalem. At no time in these many speeches did I refer to East Jerusalem as occupied territory.” Goldberg added that in his speech on July 14, 1967, “I made it clear that the status of Jerusalem should be negotiable and that the armistice lines dividing Jerusalem were no longer viable. In other words, Jerusalem was not to be divided again.”¹⁶

Because Israel was defending itself from aggression in the 1948 and 1967 wars, former president of the International Court of Justice Steven Schwebel wrote, it has a better claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem than its Arab neighbors.¹⁷

MYTH

East Jerusalem should be the capital of a Palestinian state because Jews never lived there.

FACT

Before 1865, the entire population of Jerusalem lived behind the Old City walls (what today would be considered part of the eastern part of the city). Later, the city expanded beyond the walls because of population growth, and Jews and Arabs began to build in new areas.

By the time of partition, a thriving Jewish community lived in the eastern part of Jerusalem, including the Old City’s Jewish Quarter. This city area also contains many sites of importance to the Jewish religion, including the City of David, the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall. In addition, major institutions such as Hebrew University and the original Hadassah Hospital are on Mount Scopus—in eastern Jerusalem.

The only time that the eastern part of Jerusalem was exclusively Arab was between 1949 and 1967, and that was because Jordan occupied the area and forcibly expelled all the Jews.

MYTH

The Israeli government wants to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque.

FACT

In August 1929, the Mufti of Jerusalem spread rumors of Jews killing Arabs and a Jewish plot to seize control of Muslim holy places on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. With a rallying cry to defend the al-Aqsa Mosque, Arab mobs looted Jewish shops and attacked Jewish men, women, and children throughout the country. By the end of the rioting, 135 Jews (including eight Americans) were killed and more than 300 wounded.

News report August 30, 1922

This was the first time during the British Mandate that religion directly provoked the conflict in Palestine. However, it would not be the last, as Muslim leaders have found it advantageous to make similar accusations to arouse the local population and the Muslim faithful worldwide.

Similarly, “secular moderates” such as Mahmoud Abbas continue to stoke the religious war between Muslims and Jews. They hope to incite a new Palestinian uprising and, ideally, to inspire a fight to prevent the Jews from destroying the al-Aqsa Mosque. They also seek to prompt negative media coverage of Israel, inspire condemnation from the UN and politicians, and tar Israel’s image. Middle East scholar Bassam Tawil explained:

For example, Abbas’s Adviser on Jerusalem Affairs, Ahmed al-Ruweidi, warned on April 3, 2022, that a “massacre” of worshippers at the mosque would be conducted “by the occupation and its settlers.” Abbas’s Fatah Party said that continued visits of Jews to the Temple Mount would “turn into an open religious war” and that Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid had promised to allow “Jewish extremists to break into the al-Aqsa Mosque.”²⁰

The “Al-Aqsa is in danger libel” frequently is used when Israel engages in any archaeological activity in Jerusalem, even as Palestinians have damaged and discarded relics. For example, when an underground mosque was built, 13,000 tons of dirt containing artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods were sent to garbage dumps, rendering many ruins useless.²¹

The Palestinians often regurgitate the libel even when Israel is engaged in activities outside the Temple Mount and nowhere near the mosques. For example, an Islamic group protested Jewish actions in the nearby village of Silwan because it is “the gateway to al-Aqsa Mosque.”²²

The most significant international uproar occurred in 1996 when Israel completed digging a tunnel along the length of the Western Wall, revealing two thousand-year-old stones where the street had once been. The project was nowhere near the Temple Mount; nevertheless, the Arab League falsely claimed Israel wanted “to cause the collapse of the al-Aqsa Mosque so that it can build the Third Temple in its stead.”²³ Palestinians rioted, and attacks on soldiers and civilians resulted in the deaths of 15 Israeli soldiers and dozens of injuries.

Jews, like other non-Muslims, have been going to the Temple Mount since 1967. Still, the Israeli government limits visits by non-Muslims to specific times and insists that visitors show sensitivity to Muslims by dressing modestly, refraining from bringing any Jewish sacred objects with them, or praying. Jews do not enter the mosque; nevertheless, they are often falsely accused of “storming” al-Aqsa.²⁵

Palestinians have also begun to refer to the entire Temple Mount as the “al-Aqsa mosque complex” to justify their objections to Jewish visitors and rationalize violence against them.

Extremist Jewish groups suspected of plotting against Muslim shrines are prohibited from the Temple Mount. When their schemes are uncovered, they are arrested.²⁶

MYTH

Palestinians treat the al-Aqsa Mosque with the reverence it deserves.

FACT

With the approval and sometimes incitement of the Waqf and Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, many Palestinians have desecrated their holy places by using them as armories and instigating riots against non-Muslim visitors and the police trying to protect them.

Screenshot from @FahmiLwa (April 16, 2022)

“We contaminate our mosques with our own hands and feet, and then blame Jews for desecrating Islamic holy sites,” according to Middle East scholar Bassam Tawil. “If anyone is desecrating Islamic holy sites, it is those who bring explosives, stones, and firebombs into Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Jews who visit the Temple Mount do not bring with them stones, bombs, or clubs. It is young Muslim men who are desecrating our holy sites with their ‘filthy feet’” (a reference to Abbas’s slur against Jews visiting the Temple Mount).²⁸

As Tawil noted, Palestinians sometimes stockpile stones inside the mosque to throw at Jewish tourists and worshippers praying at the Western Wall. Israeli police were accused of desecrating the mosque when they were sent to prevent Palestinians from attacking Jews in April 2022; however, photographs and video revealed that Palestinians displayed disrespect for the holy place. In addition to using the mosque as an arsenal, some Palestinians were seen playing soccer and wearing shoes, which is not permitted in the mosque.²⁹

MYTH

Jews have no right to pray on the Temple Mount.

FACT

Critics of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem inevitably raise the issue of freedom of worship. They are only interested, however, in the rights of Muslims and Christians, ignoring the fact that they are protected by Israeli law. It is hard to find non-Jews who defend the right of Jews to pray at their holiest site – the Temple Mount.

The Israeli government has prohibited Jews from praying on the Temple Mount out of fear that it will provoke violence by Muslims who deny the holiness of the area to Jews and rewrite history to erase the existence of the first and second temples that stood on the Temple Mount, insist that Jews have no right to pray at an Islamic holy place, and refuse to accept Israeli or Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem or any other part of “Palestine.”

After a court ruled in favor of four teens who had been arrested for praying on the Temple Mount, a higher court reversed the decision, with Judge Einat Avman Muller saying that freedom of Jewish worship on the Temple Mount “is not absolute, and it should be superseded by other interests, among them the safeguarding of public order.”

Before the ruling, police sometimes turned a blind eye to discreet Jewish prayer services, typically held in secluded areas on the 30-plus acres of the Temple Mount that have no significance to Muslims. Still, Palestinian and Muslim officials complained.

“We face constant racist discrimination and infringement on our human rights,” Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, the director of the al-Aqsa Mosque, told the New York Times without explaining how a handful of Jews exercising their freedom of religion encroached on Muslims’ opportunity to do the same.

Azzam Khatib, the deputy chairman of the Waqf council, complained, “Now they’re taking over the whole plaza, with the protection of the police.”³⁰

The Palestinians want to redefine the entire Temple Mount as holy and associate it with their identity. “Many Palestinians consider the Aqsa compound the embodiment of Palestinian identity, the animating force behind the aspiration for a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.”³¹

The Temple Mount has an association with Islam but has nothing to do with Palestinian identity, which is one reason why the Palestinians raised no objections to the Jordanian occupation of the area for 19 years or its continuing administrative oversight.

The reaction to Jews praying on the Temple Mount raises several questions:

• Why should anyone accept this as a provocation when it does not infringe on the rights of Muslims?
• Why should Jews be denied the freedom to worship at Judaism’s holiest place in the capital of Israel?
• If Palestinians react violently, shouldn’t they be condemned rather than the Jews engaged in prayer?
• What does it say about the prospect of freedom of religion in a Palestinian state if Jews are told they are not permitted to worship at their holy places?

MYTH

The United States should not have recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

FACT

“International law makes states the sole determinants of their own capital.”³² Nevertheless, of the 190 nations with which America has diplomatic relations, Israel was the only one whose capital was not recognized by the U.S. government before President Donald Trump’s announcement on December 6, 2017. The president’s recognition of Jerusalem was a long overdue step, which came months after Russia announced its recognition of Israel’s capital.³³

The president’s actions were consistent with the will of Congress, which passed a resolution in 1990 declaring that “Jerusalem is and should remain the capital of the State of Israel” and “must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected.” Trump also adhered to the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which required the embassy to be moved to Jerusalem, but had been ignored by successive presidents who used a waiver provided by the legislation to postpone the move if they deemed it in the best interest of the United States.

Critics of the president’s action made dire predictions of the Middle East going up in flames because outraged Muslims would violently protest the decision. They also insisted all hope for peace between Israel and the Palestinians would be dashed.

The Muslim world was unhappy with the U.S. decision but did not erupt in violence. The Palestinians declared three “days of rage,” and some violent protests occurred, many staged for the benefit of journalists; however, the reaction in the rest of the Middle East was muted.³⁴ This was partly because most Arab leaders have reconciled themselves to the reality that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. They also have no interest in upheaval in their countries, especially given their existing domestic problems and external threats from Iran and radical Islamists.

The recognition of Jerusalem did not affect peace negotiations because there were none at the time of the announcement. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to enter talks with Israel since 2008. If anything, Trump’s decision may have enhanced the prospects for peace by making clear that the United States believes Jerusalem should remain unified under Israeli sovereignty and that Palestinian demands to have a capital in the city’s heart are unrealistic.

As President Trump said, U.S. recognition does not preclude the parties from agreeing on future borders. Indeed, the Trump peace plan offered the Palestinians a state with a capital in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis, where the Palestinians have already constructed a parliament building.