'Burning a flag is like burning one's own integrity,' says Israeli ambassador to Germany

City of strife: Jerusalem's complex history

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.

City of strife: Jerusalem's complex history

Under Roman and Byzantine rule

Since the year 63 CE, Jerusalem was under Roman rule. Resistance movements rapidly formed amongst the population, so that in 66 CE, the First Jewish–Roman War broke out. The war ended 4 years later, with a Roman victory and a renewed destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. The Romans and Byzantines ruled Palestine for approximately six hundred years.

City of strife: Jerusalem's complex history

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 CE. 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.

City of strife: Jerusalem's complex history

The Crusades

From 1070 CE onward, the Muslim Seljuk rulers increasingly threatened the Christian world. Pope Urban II finally called for the crusade. A total of five Crusades set out to conquer Jerusalem within 200 years. In 1244, however, the crusaders finally lost control of the city and it once again fell under Muslim rule.

City of strife: Jerusalem's complex history

The Ottomans and the British

After the conquest of Egypt and Arabia by the Ottomans, Jerusalem became the administrative seat of an Ottoman administrative district in 1535. In its first decades of Ottoman rule, the city saw a clear revival. With a British victory over Ottoman troops in 1917, Palestine fell under British rule. Jerusalem went to the British without a fight.

City of strife: Jerusalem's complex history

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.

City of strife: Jerusalem's complex history

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.

City of strife: Jerusalem's complex history

Muslim pilgrimage to Israel

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.

City of strife: Jerusalem's complex history

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.

Author: Ines Eisele