Contents

Introduction

• Construction in Jerusalem until 1850
• Population in Jerusalem until 1850

• Construction in Jerusalem 1850-1914
• Population in Jerusalem 1850-1914

• Construction in Jerusalem 1917-1948
• Population in Jerusalem 1917-1948
• Various draft solutions on the status of Jerusalem (1932-1947)

Chapter Four : East Jerusalem 1948-1967

• Direct results of 1948 battles
• Construction in East Jerusalem
• Population in East Jerusalem

Chapter Five : East Jerusalem 1967-1996

• Israeli occupation changes features of the city
• Israeli measures and international legitimacy
• Land confiscation in East Jerusalem
• Arab construction and population in East Jerusalem
• Jewish construction and population in East Jerusalem

Jerusalem in history - Important years

Endnotes

References and bibliography in Arabic

References and bibliography in English

Directory of flags and places

List of Maps

• Map of Jerusalem and the West Bank
• Map of the Old City 1850
• Map of Jerusalem 1850 - 1914
• Map of Jerusalem 1917 - 1948
• Map of Jerusalem according to UN Resolution 181/1947
• Map of East Jerusalem 1949 - 1967
• Map of Old City ( Reconfiguration) 1968 - 1994
• Map of East Jerusalem, Confiscation of Arab land
• Map of East Jerusalem, the effect of Israeli occupation on population and housing

List of Charts

• Development of population in Jerusalem district 1872 - 1922
• Development of population in Jerusalem City
• by race and age 1894-1922
• Population growth in Jerusalem City 1922 - 1947
• Population growth in Palestine largest cities 1922 - 1945
• Land ownership in Jerusalem city in 1948 according to Armistice Line
• Development of construction in Jerusalem and suburbs 1952 - 1967
• Population (by quarters) 1952 - 1967
• Division of East Jerusalem lands according to public use 1994
• Arab lands confiscated in East Jerusalem according to
• date of confiscation and site
• Construction and population in Arab quarters of East Jerusalem
• Size of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem

Jerusalem has a central place in the lives of Palestinians, not simply because of its religious importance, but because of the city’s key role in their economic, social and cultural life throughout history until present day. To Palestinians, Jerusalem is their most important city, which is why they hold fast to Jerusalem as the capital of their future independent state..

Since the Palestine National Council adopted the Palestinian peace initiative in its 19th session, agreeing to resolve the historical Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the principle of two neighboring states -- one Palestinian and one Israeli -- on the lands of Mandatory Palestine, based on international legitimacy as exemplified by UN Security Council Resolution 242 issued in 1967 and considered the basis for the current peace process. It was clearly stated in the Palestinian-Israeli Declaration of Principles, signed in Washington on September 13, 1993, that the aim of the settlement to be negotiated is to implement Resolution 242.

Based on the principles of international legitimacy, Palestinians are demanding the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem; they are working on establishing their independent state on the lands in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with an area equal to 22 percent of the total area of Palestine under the British Mandate, next to the state of Israel, which was established in 1948. This settlement must be accompanied by a just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees who were evicted from their towns and villages in 1948, a solution which conforms to relevant UN resolutions.

Using the above approach as a foundation, Palestinians recognize the existence of two cities in Jerusalem, divided by the Armistice Line of 1948. The two cities are: West Jerusalem, located west of the Line, with an area of 53 square kms; Palestinian East Jerusalem, located east of the Line, under Israeli occupation with a total area of 70 square kms. Clearly, as can be seen from the current Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, the issue of Jerusalem, postponed until the final stage of talks, which is expected to be reached by the end of this century, will be one of the complex issues -- along with that of refugees, which was also postponed to final status talks -- which may explode the entire peace process. We believe that the Israeli negotiating mindset is based on power and the rejection of any awareness that this is a historical moment where a final settlement may be achieved between Palestinians and Israelis, thus bringing about a just and comprehensive resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The official Israeli position continues to reject the possibility of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state; it rejects any possibility of dividing the city of Jerusalem between the two peoples. The Israeli position continues to hold to its illegal parliamentary resolutions -- rejected by the world community -- which expanded the borders of Jerusalem, annexed East Jerusalem and declared it the “eternal” capital of Israel. The Israeli position also depends on Israel’s policy of altering the status quo, particularly through the settlements constructed on confiscated Palestinian lands, and denial of any Palestinian sovereignty rights in Jerusalem.

In light of such an official position, it is difficult to imagine the formulation of a permanent regional settlement which can finally bring an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The independent Palestinian state would constitute a major pillar of such a peace settlement, and East Jerusalem is an indispensable part of Palestinian history which began and has been evolving since the first human existence on the land some 1.2 million years ago, since the first society began to assemble several thousand years ago.

On its emergence over 4,000 years ago, Jerusalem constituted an important center for those living in the city and its surrounding areas. It is not true, as politicians and historians influenced by Zionist thinking, that Jerusalem has never been a capital except in the eras of two ancient Jewish kingdoms. Although the history of those two kingdoms is a part of Palestinian history, the reality is that Jerusalem had an important place in history even before and after the two kingdoms.

The city was established by the Amorians, and was sustained and developed by the Yebusites as their capital until King David entered it 2,000 years later. Jerusalem prospered during the Greek and Roman reigns, especially when Christianity was designated the official religion of the Roman Empire in 325 AD and the Holy Sepulchre was established. Jerusalem also prospered after it was embraced by Islam in 636 AD, and after al-Aqsa Mosque was built by ‘Abdul Malek Ben Marwan and his son al-Waleed ben ‘Abdul Malek at the end of the seventh century. Over the past 13 centuries, Jerusalem continued to occupy a central place in Palestine during the days of the Ayoobiyyeen, Mamelukes and Ottomans, who made the city the centre of an administrative unit (Sounjoq) under the direct supervision of the Ottoman Emperor in 1874. As a further proof of Jerusalem’s importance within the Ottoman Empire, Jerusalem was the second city, after Istanbul, in which administrative reforms were introduced. Moreover, there were nine foreign consulates in Jerusalem up until the end of the 19th century, including the British, Russians, French and Americans. When Palestine came under the British Mandate in 1917, Jerusalem was considered the capital of Palestine and thus central departments of the Mandate Authority were also established in Jerusalem. Under Jordanian rule, Jerusalem was declared Jordan’s second capital in 1959.

The history of Jerusalem and Palestine been subjected to distortion and theft, in an attempt to deprive Palestinianof their history through the projection of ideology on reality and history. In order to justify today’s reality, ancient history is twisted to coincide with what is going on now; one people are “replaced” by another -- the Palestinian people, the product of these lands for thousands of years, are labeled intruders, while the Israeli people, formed after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, are termed the natives. This is also accomplished using loopholes in approach and methodology approach that can be summed up as follows:

1. The conversion of legend to historical fact by treating writings in the Old Testament as if they were historical events, without any documentary support, either written or archeological proof. In other words, spiritual feelings, legends and stories of the forefathers are treated as if they are written history.
2. The separation of the history of those tribes which converted to Judaism from the history of other tribes which lived in Palestine and surrounding areas. In this way, current realities are portrayed as an extension of a 3,000-year-old history -- this bears little relation to the objective reality of the history of Palestine. The Iron Age was a continuation of the Bronze Age and what preceded it, as were the eras of the Greeks, the Romans and the Islamic period. Consequently, the Jewish history in Palestine is part of the heritage of Palestinian people; Palestinian heritage is not a contradiction or rejection of Jewish history and it should not replace it.
3. Thus, all attempts to differentiate between the ancient Israelite era and the preceding, contemporary and following eras appear quite shaky, since to chronicle the history of Palestine around only the Israeli era lacks any cultural justifications. The kingdom of David and that of Solomon, as well as the two kingdoms in the North and the South (after the split of Solomon’s Kingdom) were no different from the contemporary kingdoms of the Philistines, Adomians, Amonians and Muabians, neither in means of production nor in the level of civilization, since they are all the products of one phase of civilized history. It could even be said that because of the tribal structure, the Jewish Kingdoms were backward. The two kings David and Solomon protected the Yebusite civilization and its administrative apparatus. When King Solomon thought of building the Temple, he resorted to a representative of the ancient Phoenician civilization, Hiram, the King of Tyre.
4. The attempt to separate the ancient history of Palestine from the Arabs by the term “early Arab period” is simply a biased ignorance of the close relation between the people and the country, the ancient trade routes, the continuous emigration to the Fertile Crescent from the Arab Peninsula over thousands of years when regional temperatures increased after the end of the Ice Age.
5. The claim that Jews in Jerusalem and Palestine were oppressed under Arab rule. However, it is undeniable fact that historically the Arabs, namely Sultan Salah El-din al-Ayoubi and after him the Mamelukes and the Ottomans, following the Jewish flight from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1495 allowed Jews to come to Jerusalem. Any oppression of Jews during the Islamic period was part of widespread oppression of the entire population by an oppressive regime and was not directed towards Jews alone as was the case in Europe.
6. Using different statistical information to exaggerate the numbers of Jews in Jerusalem, in order to claim that Jews were the majority of the population in the city during the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th and to claim Jerusalem was “Jewish” even prior to the huge waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine. This study, using facts and figures, clearly demonstrates the inaccuracy of these claims.

This study, which benefited from the help of Palestinian researcher Khalil Tufakji, and Bisharah Gazaleh, who drew the nine maps, examines the construction and population status of Jerusalem as two major features in clarifying the city’s identity. The study is divided into different phases: constructions and population in Jerusalem prior to the year 1850, the period during which Jerusalem was limited to the area inside the walled city; 1850 to 1914, the final stage of the Ottoman era; 1917-1948, the period of the British Mandate; 1949-1967, which saw the division of Palestine and Jerusalem, and the creation of the state of Israel; and the final stage, from the Israeli occupation in 1967 to the year 1996.

Jerusalem as a living city has been affected by the events which have taken place inside and outside its borders, and thus its features have changed throughout the years. Therefore, in every period, we are talking about a different Jerusalem in terms of area, borders, size of population. The Jerusalem of 1996, for example, was 48 times bigger than the city inside the walls in 1850.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all those who provided help in carrying out this study. In particular, I would like to thank the Jordanian Geographic Center, which gave me the opportunity to look at its rich store of maps of Palestine and Jerusalem. Also, I thank Dr. ‘Adel Mana, the prominent Palestinian-Israeli researcher, for reviewing the draft of this study and his valuable remarks, most of which I took into consideration. I would like to thank Omar Musalam, who edited the language of the book and I extend my appreciation to the Moroccan camerawoman and researcher Ito Baradah, who provided the pictures of Jerusalem. Finally, I would like to thank Ghassan Khatib, director of Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre, hoping that we have achieved the goals we originally set for ourselves when planning to do a study about Jerusalem.