Jerusalem was reunified under Israeli rule as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War launched against Israel by the Arab world. Despite Israel's appeal to Jordan to stay out of the war, Jordanian forces fired artillery barrages at Israeli cities and also attacked and occupied the UN headquarters in Jerusalem.
Historically, Jerusalem became the capital of Israel by decree of King David 3,000 years ago, based on his understanding of God's own choice. It has remained Israel's capital ever since, and though other nations conquered and settled in the Land of Israel, none ever declared Jerusalem as their capital.
After World War I, Great Britain took over Jerusalem, which was part of Palestine at the time. The British controlled the city and surrounding region until Israel became an independent state in 1948.
In July 1980, the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Law as part of the country's Basic Law, which declared Jerusalem the unified capital of Israel.
In 1917, in order to win Jewish support for Britain's First World War effort, the British Balfour Declaration promised the establishment of a Jewish national home in Ottoman-controlled Palestine.
Palestine's Early Roots
From about 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the region. When World War I ended in 1918, the British took control of Palestine.
While the State of Israel was established on 15 May 1948 and admitted to the United Nations, a Palestinian State was not established. The remaining territories of pre-1948 Palestine, the West Bank - including East Jerusalem- and Gaza Strip, were administered from 1948 till 1967 by Jordan and Egypt, respectively.
David is said to have conquered these in the siege of Jebus, and transferred his capital from Hebron to Jerusalem which then became the capital of a United Kingdom of Israel, and one of its several religious centres.
Its capital, for the most part, was Samaria (modern Sebastia).
The statement, which became known as the Balfour Declaration, was, in part, payment to the Jewish people for their support of the British against the Turks during World War I.
The British controlled Palestine until Israel, in the years following the end of World War II, became an independent state in 1947.
Archaeological work in the area suggests that the city was inhabited as far back as 4000BC. Its earliest known name may be Jebusite, the translation of a Canaanite town. Together with the later arriving Philistines, they are believed to be the earliest known ancestors to present day Palestinians.
The earliest human remains in the region were found in Ubeidiya, some 3 km south of the Sea of Galilee, in the Jordan Rift Valley. The remains are dated to the Pleistocene, c. 1.5 million years ago. These are traces of the earliest migration of Homo erectus out of Africa.
God Chooses the Nation of Israel
So Israel's role is to reconcile all the nations to Yahweh. Again, God chooses one out of the many, so that the many would be blessed. )? Israel is meant to faithfully represent God by how they live as a community of love, justice, and worship of Yahweh alone.
Aramaic is best known as the language Jesus spoke. It is a Semitic language originating in the middle Euphrates. In 800-600 BC it spread from there to Syria and Mesopotamia. The oldest preserved inscriptions are from this period and written in Old Aramaic.
The Islamic history of Jerusalem begins with the conquest of the city by Caliph Umar in 635 (or 638). Umar had been one of the prophet Muhammad's closest companions and served as his second successor (khalifa) after Abu Bakr.
3,000 to 2,500 B.C. — The city on the hills separating the fertile Mediterranean coastline of present-day Israel from the arid deserts of Arabia was first settled by pagan tribes in what was later known as the land of Canaan. The Bible says the last Canaanites to rule the city were the Jebusites.
After the death of Solomon, a schism over taxation divided the nation into two kingdoms. Rehoboam, Solomon's son and anointed successor, ruled over the Southern Kingdom, which was composed of the territory belonging to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
Jerusalem, Hebrew Yerushalayim, Arabic Bayt al-Muqaddas or Al-Quds, ancient city of the Middle East that since 1967 has been wholly under the rule of the State of Israel.
The small town od Ramla, less than five kilometres from Tel Aviv International airport, was once the capital of Palestine, yet today it is a rundown area neglected by the modern state of Israel. Ramla was founded as a new town in the early eighth century by the Umayyad prince (later caliph) Sulayman ibn 'Abd al-Malik.
Jerusalem was their capital. The northern region was called Israel which comprised the remaining ten tribes. They had the capital at Samaria. Israel, which was a part of Palestine, is now a republic in the Middle East.
For the Christian, the Holy Land is birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth and the site of his ministry; for the Moslem, Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock marks the spot from which the Prophet Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven.
The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region.
After Herodotus, the term `Palestine' came to be used for the entire region which was formerly known as Canaan.
The 1948 war ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan. In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria.