Which Jerusalem?

Jerusalem Day - the Israeli national holiday that commemorates the reunification of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War after 20 years of being divided, is celebrated every year on the 28^th day of the Jewish Month of Iyar. This year it fell on Sunday, May 17^th.

As tens of thousands of Jews and supporters from around the world poured into Jerusalem carrying blue and white Israeli flagsand singing Israeli songs praising the city, it was impossible not to reflect back to the weeks and months right after the war, when we all poured into the Old City, prayed at the Western Wall for the first time in twenty years, climbed the ramparts to see West Jerusalem from "the other side", and walked through the narrow streets of the Arab Market, where Middle aged merchants enticed us into their shops with broad smiles and Hebrew phrases they still remembered from before 1948.

And who can forget Naomi Shemer's two versions of "Jerusalem of Gold" - sung hauntingly by Shuly Nathan . The first on May 15, with verses of longing for sites in and around the city we could not access then, and the second version (in the link above) just one month later, after the war, with the additional stanza affirming that: "we have returned" to those sites.

But not all Jerusalemites celebrated on Sunday. Many of the Arab citizens of the city, bolstered by residents of neighboring Arab villages and left wing Israelis demonstrated against the unification. Waving large Palestinian and black Jihadist flags, they protested the annexation of East Jerusalem by the Israeli government following the Six Day War, and called for re-dividing the city.

Before we get to the question of if that is even feasible, let alone physically possible, we have to clarify that, depending on which period in history one looks at, there is no "one" Jerusalem.  

When the Israelis talk about Jerusalem, when the Arabs talk about Jerusalem, when the Palestinians talk about Jerusalem and when the Europeans and Americans talk about Jerusalem...they are referring to five different geographical locations in the same general location, with some overlapping areas. To understand that, we have to know the (abridged) evolution of the city.  

Remember - Jerusalem was always a small, backwater town, not on any main highway, topographically inferior and difficult to defend, with one small spring that provided enough water for a few dozen families only (until Solomon built an aqueduct from Bethlehem):

• Probably first settled around 3,000 BCE (1,000 years before King David). Small, possibly fortified Jebusite town, restricted by water supply and topographical inferiority.
• Joshua's conquest - city was ignored. Not claimed by any tribe.
• 1,000 BCE King David needs a "District of Columbia" for his capital. Sends forces to conquer the little forgotten townlocated on a small hill between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Keeps the Jebusite name Jerusalem, but adds "City of David". Builds a palace, administration buildings and fortifications. Total area less than half a square mile around the spring.
• 970 BCE: Solomon slightly expanded the city and its fortifications, and built the First Temple.
• 586 BCE: Jerusalem and First Temple were destroyed by the  Babylonians. The intelligentsia, royalty and priests were exiled to Babylon, while the majority of the Jewish population remained in Judea and the Jerusalem area.
• 538 BCE Some of the Exiles are allowed back to rebuild the Temple.
• 445 BCE, King Xerxes I of Persia issued a decree allowing the city and its walls to be rebuilt. Jerusalem resumed its role as capital of Judah and center of Jewish worship. City area expanded.
• 152 BCE: After the Maccabees' victory, Hasmonean kings expanded and strengthened Jerusalem's area, water supply and fortifications.
• 60 BCE: Roman rule. King Herod expands Jerusalem greatly, renovates the Temple and Temple Mount, builds major structures including the Citadel (today's Jaffa Gate area) and brings water in large aqueducts from Bethlehem.
• Jerusalem reached a peak in size and population of 200,000 at the end of the Second Temple Period, when the city covered over two square kilometers (more than one square mile).
• 70 CE - Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans during the Jewish revolt.
• In the Byzantine period the city remained pretty much in ruins, with the exception of the construction of the Church of the Nativity and other Christian sites by order of Emperor Constantine.
• 638 CE - After the Muslim conquest Jews and Christians were allowed to reside in the city and practice their beliefs. Though several large buildings were constructed within the city, including the Dome of The Rock on Temple Mount - it did not return to its grandeur or size during Herod's time.
• From 640-1516 Jerusalem was conquered and reconquered, at various times, by: Byzantines; Crusaders; Muslims; Mongols and Mameluks, and was decimated in 1347 by the Black Death.
• Important note -During 1,500 years of Muslim rule (the early Caliphates; the Mamelukes and the Turkish Ottoman Empire) Jerusalem never served as a capital of a Muslim state, region, kingdom, caliphate, or seat of government.
• 1516: The Ottoman Empire replaced the Mameluks in Palestine.
• 1538: Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilds wallsaround Jerusalem, creating the Old City as we know it today.
• As the Jewish population grew in the Old City during the 19^th and 20^th centuries, new suburbs and communities were built outside the walls by both communities - Jews to the West, and Arabs to the East of the Old City Walls.
• In the temporary armistice agreement after the 1948 War of Independence, a cease-fire line divided, for the first time in history, between the Jewish and Arab sectors, leaving the Old City, with its evacuated Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, in the hands of the Jordanians.
• The city was, as celebrated on Sunday, reunited after the Six Day War.

So before we can argue about whether or not Jerusalem can be re-divided in an eventual "two state" solution with the Palestinians...we have to first agree as to which historic and geographic area of Jerusalem (move the slide on the picture in this link) we are talking about...