The claim to the Israeli capital Jerusalem is an example of the Palestinian reluctance to compromise.
Since the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, when the Israeli army liberated the eastern part of the city from the hands of the Jordanian occupiers, Jerusalem has again been the undivided capital of the Jewish state. Jerusalem has a special status for Jews of all faiths and political convictions: In its historic old town, with the so-called Western Wall, it houses the last component of the Second Temple, the holiest place of worship in Judaism.
For centuries, the saying “Next year in Jerusalem” has been an expression of the longing for Jews around the world to return to their Jewish homeland.
For Muslims, the so-called al-Aqsa mosque is an important place of worship: like the Dome of the Rock, it was built after the conquest of Jerusalem by the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab in the seventh century, more than half a millennium after the destruction of the Jewish temple its remains.
However, both Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque gained a political significance from 1967 that is presumably greater than their religious significance: the “liberation” of Jerusalem and its (Islamic) shrines is the pretext for anti-Israeli propaganda. Because Israel actually grants Muslim believers access to the al-Aqsa mosque, the entire area is also under the religious supervision of the Jordanian-controlled Waqf.
For the first time since 1967, Christians, Jews and Muslims have been able to pray at their holy places in Jerusalem. With the slogan “Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine”, radical anti-Zionists like the activist next to Thunberg protest against this religious freedom – and also against the existence of the Jewish state.
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