“Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.”
Why does that simple six-word statement raise such controversy? Can most of the world really be wrong to deny Jerusalem’s capital status? What exactly are the counter-arguments, and how effective is Israel at balancing principle and pragmatism in the city?
And does all the fuss — about the city’s political and legal status, the diplomatic missions, the conflicting claims — even really matter?
1. The basics of capital cities
Countries choose their capital and place most — if not all — of the main offices of government in that city. Period.
In most instances, the seat of executive, parliamentary, judicial and administrative authority is concentrated in that city. It’s where embassies are located and where visiting foreign officials meet the state leaders. Some capitals, such as London, Buenos Aires, or Bangkok, also happen to be the country’s center of population, economy or culture. Other capitals, such as Canberra or Brasilia, take a back seat to Sydney and Rio de Janeiro in those matters.
Countries which have changed capital cities are perfectly normal. Countries with multiple capitals are less common but accepted as well, dividing the seats of power executive, legislative, judicial and administrative power as they see fit.
Bottom line: The capital is wherever a country decides to make it. It makes no difference what other states say about that choice. That’s the standard behavior.
2. Jerusalem the capital: Historical context
So how did Jerusalem become the capital of ancient Jewish kingdoms and today’s modern Israel?
Jerusalem came under Israelite control when King David conquered the city (Samuel II, ch. 5.) and relocated his throne there from Hebron (ch. 6). His son, King Solomon, would build the First Temple years later. When the biblical kingdom split between Judah and Israel (Kings I ch. 12), Jerusalem remained the capital of Judah.
In 597 BCE, Nebuchanezzar sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and exiled the Jews to Babylonia. But Cyrus II of Persia allowed the Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the Temple, as described in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah..
Fast forward to 140 BCE, when the Hasmoneans, a priestly family, rebelled against the Seleucid King Antiochus IV and purified the Temple in events commemorated by the holiday of Chanukah. The Hasmonean dynasty ruled from Jerusalem for a little over 100 years before the family was destroyed by the Romans, who installed Herod the Great as king. The Jews revolted against Roman rule, but the uprising was crushed in 70 CE.
From 70 CE until 1948, a period of almost 2,000 years, Jerusalem was ruled by the Romans, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Seljuks, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottomans and the British. The city never served as a political, administrative or religious capital for any of its conquerors.
Jerusalem served as the capital for the Jews, and nobody else.
3. Jerusalem a capital again
In November, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states and establish Jerusalem as an international city under UN auspices. As British forces left the Holy Land in May, 1948, Israel declared independence and the Arabs attacked. Jordanian forces isolated Jerusalem, but failed to fully capture it.
Thus, Tel Aviv initially served as Israel’s capital, with the Provisional State Council (Moetzet Hamedina Hazmanit) convening at various Tel Aviv venues.
The War of Independence ended with an armistice in February, 1949. The armistice lines were far different from the borders envisioned by the Partition Plan. And Jerusalem, instead of being internationalized, was now divided between Israel and Jordan. After the war, the UN began discussions on how to implement the internationalization of Jerusalem, prompting prime minister David Ben Gurion’s announcement in December 1949 that the Israeli capital would be moved to Jerusalem:
A nation that, for two thousand and five hundred years, has faithfully adhered to the vow made by the first exiles by the waters of Babylon not to forget Jerusalem, will never agree to be separated from Jerusalem. Jewish Jerusalem will never accept alien rule after thousands of its youngsters liberated their historic homeland for the third time, redeeming Jerusalem from destruction and vandalism.
4. What about the Green Line?
In the 3,000 or so years of Jerusalem’s history, the city was only divided for a 19-year period. The armistice which ended the War of Independence left Israel in control of the city’s western neighborhood and Jordan in control of the city’s eastern neighborhoods. Israel made its capital in the western half of Jerusalem.
But that changed in June, 1967. While Israel launched a preemptive air strike on the Egyptian Air Force, Israel conveyed a message to Jordan’s King Hussein asking him to stay out of the fighting. But the king believed Egyptian president Gamel Abdel Nasser’s denials of significant Egyptian losses and ordered Jordanian forces to launch attacks on Israel. The Israeli Defense Forces counter-attacked, recapturing eastern Jerusalem and driving Jordanian forces to the Jordan River’s East Bank.
Jerusalem was reunited and entirely under Israeli control.
Professor Eugene Kontorovich explains why the 1949 armistice line — more commonly known as the Green Line — has no bearing on the city’s capital status.
The “Green Line” was created in the wake of Israel’s 1948-49 War of Independence. Upon the country’s founding, Jordan and its allies invaded, with the goal of preventing the creation of a Jewish state. Although they failed at that goal, the Arab armies did occupy significant territory when the armistice was called, including what is now widely referred to as the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Jordan subsequently expelled all Jews from the areas under its control.
In 1967, during the Six Day War, Israel recaptured these places. But in the war’s aftermath the United Nations invested the temporary 1949 armistice line with talismanic significance. The U.N. claimed Israel was “occupying” the territory that Jordan had forcibly seized not two decades earlier. Thus the international community came up with a unique demand: Israel had to keep the areas under its control, including East Jerusalem and the Old City, free of Jewish inhabitants. Any move to unify Jerusalem would be considered a war crime.
In international law, armistice lines are not borders; they merely mark breaks in the fighting. The claim that the Green Line created a permanent “Judenrein” zone in the area occupied by Jordan, or that it in any way changed the legal status of the territory on the far side, is unique and illiberal.
Thus, as Ambassador Alan Baker summed up:
The 1967 unification of Jerusalem by Israel through the extension of its law, jurisdiction, and administration to eastern Jerusalem, while not accepted by the international community, did not alter the legality of Israel’s presence and status in, and governance of, the city
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