The UN Security Council is set to vote on a draft resolution nullifying any changes to Jerusalem's status, after the US policy change on the holy city. Protest against the US decision broke out in Jakarta on Sunday.
Image: picture alliance/AP Photo/A. Schalit
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The United Nations Security Council will on Monday vote on a draft resolution earlier next week that would consider any changes to the status of Jerusalem legally invalid and call on any such changes to be reversed,.
The draft resolution states that "any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council."
The draft also demands that states refrain from establishing diplomatic missions in Jerusalem in accordance with prior Security Council resolutions that declare any changes in the status of Jerusalem as a city divided between Israelis and Palestinians to be violations international law.
Jerusalem is one of the oldest and most contested cities in the world. Jerusalem is revered as a sacred city by Jews, Muslims and Christians alike. For this reason, there has been controversy over the city to this day.
Image: picture-alliance/Zumapress/S. Qaq
Jerusalem, the city of David
According to the Old Testament, David, king of the two partial kingdoms of Judah and Israel, won Jerusalem from the Jebusites around 1000 BC. He moved his seat of government to Jerusalem, making it the capital and religious center of his kingdom. The Bible says David's son Solomon built the first temple for Yahweh, the God of Israel. Jerusalem became the center of Judaism.
Image: Imago/Leemage
Under Persian rule
The Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II (3rd from the left) conquered Jerusalem in 597 and again in 586 BC, as the Bible says. He took King Jehoiakim (5th from the right) and the Jewish upper class into captivity, sent them to Babylon and destroyed the temple. After Persian king Cyrus the Great seized Babylon, he allowed the exiled Jews to return home to Jerusalem and to rebuild their temple.
The Roman Empire ruled Jerusalem from the year 63 AD. Resistance movements rapidly formed among the population, so that in 66 AD, the First Jewish–Roman War broke out. The war ended 4 years later, with a Roman victory and another destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. The Romans and Byzantines ruled Palestine for approximately 600 years.
Image: Historical Picture Archive/COR
Conquest by the Arabs
Over the course of the Islamic conquest of Greater Syria, Muslim armies also reached Palestine. By order of the Caliph Umar (in the picture), Jerusalem was besieged and captured in the year 637 AD. In the following era of Muslim rule, various, mutually hostile and religiously divided rulers presided over the city. Jerusalem was often besieged and changed hands several times.
Image: Selva/Leemage
The Crusades
From 1070 AD onward, the Muslim Seljuk rulers increasingly threatened the Christian world. Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade, which took Jerusalem in 1099 AD. Over a period of 200 years a total of nine crusades set out to conquer the city as it changed hands between Muslim and Christian rule. In 1244 AD the crusaders finally lost control of the city and it once again became Muslim.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
The Ottomans and the British
After the conquest of Egypt and Arabia by the Ottomans, Jerusalem became the seat of an Ottoman administrative district in 1535 AD. In its first decades of Ottoman rule, the city saw a clear revival. With a British victory over Ottoman troops in 1917 AD, Palestine fell under British rule. Jerusalem went to the British without a fight.
Image: Gemeinfrei
The divided city
After World War II, the British gave up their Palestinian Mandate. The UN voted for a division of the country in order to create a home for the survivors of the Holocaust. Some Arab states then went to war against Israel and conquered part of Jerusalem. Until 1967, the city was divided into an Israeli west and a Jordanian east.
Image: Gemeinfrei
East Jerusalem goes back to Israel
In 1967, Israel waged the Six-Day War against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Israel took control of the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. Israeli paratroopers gained access to the Old City and stood at the Wailing Wall for the first time since 1949. East Jerusalem is not officially annexed, but rather integrated into the administration.
Israel has not denied Muslims access to its holy places. The Temple Mount is under an autonomous Muslim administration; Muslims can enter, visit the Dome of the Rock and the adjacent Al-Aqsa mosque and pray there.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Gharabli
Unresolved status
Jerusalem remains to this day an obstacle to peace between Israel and Palestine. In 1980, Israel declared the whole city its "eternal and indivisible capital." After Jordan gave up its claim to the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1988, the state of Palestine was proclaimed. Palestine also declares, in theory, Jerusalem as its capital.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Jensen
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Security Council vote — and veto?
The one-page draft was circulated to the 15 members of the Security Council on Saturday. They are expected to vote on the resolution this coming week, perhaps as early as Monday.
The measure would need nine backing votes from the Council's 14 members in order to pass, including no vetoes from the permanent members: US, France, Britain, Russia and China.
Diplomats expect that most members of the council will vote in favor of the draft resolution. However, a veto vote is likely from the US Ambassador to the UN, Niki Haley. She has called Trump's decision "the just and right thing to do."
If the Security Council rejects the draft resolution, the measure could be taken to the General Assembly for a vote.
Palestinians have been calling for a toughly worded resolution that directly calls out the US and demands that the country rescind its decision.
However, some diplomats said that various US allies in the UN have called for a more toned-down approach, urging resolutions that instead reaffirm the international body's position on Jerusalem.
Protests in Jakarta
Palestinians and their supporters worldwide have taken to the streets in protest since Trump's announcement. In Jakarta on Sunday, more than 80,000 Indonesians took to the streets to protest against the decision.
Tens of thousands took to the streets in Jakarta in support of PalestineImage: picture-alliance/ZUMA Wire/D. Husni
"We urge all countries to reject the unilateral and illegal decision of President Donald Trump to make Jerusalem Israel's capital," the secretary general of the Indonesian Ulema Council, Anwar Abbas, told the crowd. Indonesia is home to the world's largest Muslim population.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also tried to take a leading role among Muslims to rally opposition to the new US position. On Sunday, he expressed hope that Turkey would soon open an embassy in east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
"Because it is under occupation we can't just go there and open an embassy," Erdogan said in a speech to his ruling party.
"But, inshallah (God willing) those days are near and ... we will officially open our embassy there," he said, without giving any precise timescale.
Holy to three religions
Jerusalem, a city holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians, has been divided between Israelis and Palestinians since 1948, with Israel taking control of east Jerusalem in 1967. The UN does not recognize this annexation or the city as the undivided capital of Israel.
The UN also insists that any changes in Jerusalem's status be achieved through negotiations.
