listen, i'm fairly sympathetic to palestinian sovereignty concerns - even if i think they're better off fighting for civil rights inside israel - but, they need to stop pretending they have any legitimate claim to jerusalem. when it was frankish knights trying to resurrect the roman empire, their arguments made sense. but, look at the name of the city. jew-rusalem. if there's anywhere in the region that should be under israeli occupation, it's this city that is the cradle of their civilization. even the muslim claims to the city are some kind of take on the jewish heritage. so, muslims the world over need to bend on this.
i understand that there isn't really anything left, if they give up jerusalem. but, the truth is that the united nations made a terrible mistake in trying to set the city up as a joint territory, and the palestinians followed the wrong tactic for decades in holding to it. they should have tried to use it as leverage, and ultimately sought abandonment. but, now, it's really too late: all they can do is exploit the demographic problem to their benefit.
gur rah
Your ignorance is towering and is based on Zionist propaganda. It's the Palestinians that has the ONLY legitimate claim to Jerusalem, which is recognized by international law and by the international community. Everyone knows that the land belong first and foremost to the people who live in it, cultivate it and have a history in it.Never in human history was a religion given the right to sovereignty. Jerusalem was named after the Jebusites, not Jews. Muslims aren't claiming Jerselum, Palestinians are, and only East Jerusalem which is universally recognized.
P. Thomas Garcia
Utter and complete nonsense. "Should be" and "under occupation" are two phrases, when met, that have no justification and amount to total nonsense, exceeded only in the attempt that one would use the name Jerusalem (misreading it and accentuating Jew) to authenticate Israeli or Jewish claim by heritage. Jerusalem predates ancient Israel and means the City of Shalim, named after a Canaanite god.
deathtokoalas
why do you idiots need to start every discussion with an ad hominem? it is your own ignorance that is staggering, and it is the idea that the jebusites and jews are different people that is zionist - and christian - propaganda. in order to accept that account of history, you have to believe that there was somebody named moses that led a tribe of escaped slaves across a desert to inhabit a land that was promised to them by god, and that is something that is utterly ridiculous on it's face. the reality is that there is no evidence that there was ever any migration into israel; the israelites are descended from the canaanites, and the jews are the jebusites.
moses never existed. joshua never existed. david never existed. and, there is no scientific evidence of any exodus from egypt, at all. all evidence suggests absolute continuity throughout the bronze and iron age, and the development of a purely local culture, from the very start. and, it follows that the most ancient inhabitants of jerusalem were the ancestors of today's jews - which are also the ancestors of today's colonized palestinians, who are in truth actually genetic hebrews.
however, there is staggering evidence - it is historical fact - that the city was conquered and colonized by arabs very early on in the muslim conquest. the arabs have no more of a legitimate claim to jerusalem than the english do to los angeles.
now, the point - which you missed entirely, in favour of kneejerking over some identity politics - i was making about jerusalem being partitioned is that the idea is unworkable. you can't split a city in half. if you want to throw around nonsensical allusions to biblical fabrications, consider the story of the judgement of solomon, where it was deduced that the rightful owner of a child is the one that would not cut it in half. it's a lot of nonsense, but i'll admit that i like this story a little better than the one where god trolls his dipshit slave into almost stabbing his son, and then glorifies the lack of critical thinking.
there is no solution in partition. there never was. there is only a recipe for conflict. and, you only support partition if what you actually want is conflict. if you want peace, you throw the idea in the trash heap of history, where it belongs.
also, i can think of lots of other examples where an area should be under occupation. and, if you'd stop to think for yourself for a moment, i'm sure you could, too.
(deleted response)
to be clear: it is not true that the city of jerusalem is named after jews, and that's not what i said. as jews are descended from canaanites, it could very well be true that it was named after a canaanite god by the canaanite ancestors of the modern jews, although that is really just another story and it probably isn't true. what i meant, and this is true, was that the religion of judaism was named after the city of jerusalem, even if it was mostly developed in exile from it.
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fwiw, i just did some cursory research into the etymology of 'jerusalem', and my slightly better than amateur analysis, as cursory as it is, would suggest that the common root 'ur' in the oldest references to the city suggest it was probably sumerian/caucasian in ultimate origin. this is admittedly circumstantial. but, the sumerians and their descendants, urartians, tossed this 'ur' around all over the place. and, as sketchy as the bible is as a historical document, it aligns with the basic truth that if the jews came from anywhere besides the levant, it was from modern day iraq.
al-Haider
Jessica you are really for a better lack of better word stupid as hell. How do the Palestinians how have called Jerusalem home for mellinium until the Israeli occupation stop their claim to the city. If someone came and evicted you out of your home claiming that your house once belonged to them 2000 years ago , would you give up your house and space for that ridiculous and non existing claim. BTW it's Jerusalem not jewrusalem
deathtokoalas
jerusalem had a christian phase, but, unless you're referring to the crusades, it was neither white nor on this side of a thousand years ago.
and, the palestinians do not call the city jerusalem. like all colonizing entities, they changed the name; they call it al-quds. that name change alone demonstrates the point about who is colonizing what. i don't think they should expel the palestinians, i believe in full civil rights for them as citizens of israel, but it is the idea that there is any future in a divided city that is stupid, and the unfolding of the last 70 years of history makes that abundantly clear.
i repeat: if the palestinians want peace in the region, they need to drop the idea that they have any legitimate historical claim to jerusalem as a basic pre-condition. there will not be peace here until they drop their historical delusions around this point.
there are no holy cities. there is no holy land. there is simply the cradle of an ethnic identity, which has been destroyed, paved over and colonized.