The conflict between Jews and the Palestinian people over Jerusalem Al Quds was fuelled by a long history of Western imperial intervention in the city, predating the establishment of the British Mandate, which started in 1922 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War One and ended in 1948 by the creation of the Zionist occupation state of Israel.
Prior to the collapse of the Othman Empire, British censuses stated that Jerusalem’s population was 62,700 consisting of Muslim and Christian Arabs. By the start of the British Mandate, five years after the Balfour Declaration, the number of Jerusalem’s population soared dramatically due to the Zionist Jewish immigration mainly from Central and Eastern European countries to become 164,400 in 1946.
In the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the Israelis occupied the western part of Jerusalem and the eastern part of the holy city along with the West Bank became under Jordanian control, including the old walled city containing important Muslim and Christian religious sites.
In 1967, Israeli occupation occupied the eastern part of the city, and its political leaders proclaimed the city Israel’s “eternal, undivided capital.” But the international community, including the United States, continued regarding east Jerusalem as occupied territory, and rejected the Israeli decision to settle its occupiers there.
The European Parliament, in March 2012, issued a briefing on Jerusalem, stating that “the year 2011 was recorded as the year of greatest expansion of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem since 1967.”
Many Palestinian families have been thrown out onto the streets in Jerusalem due to the Israeli policies of hegemony, expulsion and discrimination.
Opposing the international consensus, on 6 December 2017, US President Donald Trump announced the United States recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the occupation state of Israel and ordered the planning of the relocation of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The US administration officially relocated its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on 14 May 2018, fulfilling Trump’s promise. The move infuriated Palestinians and sparked international condemnation.
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the embassy move marked a “glorious day” that day, and as the US delegation posed for photos, Israeli occupation forces fired live ammunition at unarmed Palestinians demonstrating against the move and calling for the implementation of their right to return to the homes from which they were violently expelled from in 1948.
At least 52 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators were killed, and more than 2,000 were wounded, according to health officials in Gaza and hospitals called for urgent blood donations.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern about “the high number” of the unarmed Palestinian protesters, who were killed in Gaza as they protested against the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem.
However, sone of the European countries blocked the 28-nation European Union from publishing a statement about the relocation of the US embassy to the holy Palestinian city of Jerusalem, Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said the move “is inflaming already a very tense situation, and the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians.” His Dutch counterpart, Stef Blok, said: “We don’t consider it a wise decision to move the embassy.”
In August 2020, to end a controversy in Italy over whether Jerusalem is Israel’s capital or not, the Court of Rome’s Human Rights and Immigration said that “it is the Italian state that does not recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”
Hamas has several times announced its commitment to the international law and the UN resolutions related to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle and in relation to the Palestinian rights. So that, it has declared its commitment to the UN resolutions related to the status of the holy city, which do not recognise Jerusalem as the capital of the Israeli occupation state.
Responding to the US move, on 21 December 2017, the UN General Assembly held a meeting when 128 nations voted in favour of a resolution “Status of Jerusalem” declaring “null and void” any actions intended to alter Jerusalem’s character, status or demographic composition. Only nine countries voted against the resolutions and 35, under US threat, abstained.
Hamas calls for everyone to have a look at the history of Jerusalem in order to read about the golden era of justice and freedom of worship for all divine religions in the holy city under the Islamic rule.
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