 Hello there, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosal and on this YouTube channel you can find videos about Jerusalem Israel the interesting things I find in both places the interesting people I meet sometimes also further a field I do make it out of the country now and again But for the most part that is what is coming up on this YouTube channel And I want to just invite anyone watching these videos if you have a suggestion for a particular place I should go within Israel to film a video or Somebody I should interview because I want to have more interviews more Perspectives more people on this YouTube channel then do feel free to either leave that as a comment on the video or Send me an email if you want to get my email address or an email address That'll reach me or one of my secretary Secretarial pool. I don't actually have any secretaries Use the about tab on this YouTube channel and an email will pop up but the one that works for the moment or that I have set up as my YouTube filter in my Gmail is a public at Daniel Rosal dot com I'll put it up on the screen But public as in the public at Daniel Rosal the way I spell my name on the YouTube channel Dot com and two L's in in Rosal sometimes people Send to one and say oh the email didn't didn't get you so speaking of emails that got to me I got one yesterday from someone called Rudy in New York and this is a really good question But it's a really thorny topic So I figured I would take it on today just before we get into the Purim Festivities here in Jerusalem. We have a religious festival beginning today in Jerusalem. It's one day after the rest of Israel It's technically Shushan Purim and it's kind of for those who haven't heard of Purim sort of a carnaval Carnaval type experience here. So Rudy's question said he says shallow. I'm planning on visiting Jerusalem this summer I'm planning on staying in West Jerusalem and to read that Jerusalem is Israel's capital a Palestinian tour guide I am planning on hiring however says that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine and says that Israel does not own The city are there two different Jerusalem's Is or he doesn't he doesn't use the word or but I'm gonna put it, you know adding it for clarity or Is the city shared? I'm confused. I don't I don't blame this person How does the city function today now? It's actually that last I thank you for the thanks for the question Rudy and it's actually the last part of question that I'm going to talk about because the status of Jerusalem is extremely contested and very historic. This is one of the oldest Continuously inhabited cities in the world and if you go talking about the historical nature of Jerusalem We could go back literally thousands of years and there's a good book by a guy called Monte Fiori talking about Jerusalem for those who really want a deep dive on its history I will forewarn you that it is either good or bad bedtime reading depending on your perspective of what you want from a Bedtime reading book. It'll either put you to sleep very quickly, which is the effect It's had on me. It's a very dense historical text or you will be intrigued Go as you go to sleep and go to bed with being intrigued about Jerusalem But it covers the whole history of the city and there's also a Netflix series recently about Jerusalem as it was. I believe it's called the bright made of Jerusalem I hope I'm not getting the name wrong and it talks It shows Jerusalem through the end of the Ottoman era the British era and then the Jewish era if you want to call It that because that's the interesting thing is that not so long ago Jerusalem actually was part of the Ottoman a here's a fact that I find mind-blowing personally Jerusalem was a part of the Ottoman Empire for about four times I think as long as it's been under Israeli sovereignty So technically the Jerusalem we know today, which is Israeli Jerusalem is Actually more new than it was under the Ottomans. It wasn't under the British rule for all that long But there was there's still very much remnants of British rule in Jerusalem today For example, King George the Fifth Street, which was inaugurated by as the name was suggest Or honored at art. Sorry. I should say named in honor of King George But let's talk about the the question now You know if you ask if you look for the Jewish perspective the Jewish Israeli perspective and of course I try to mention whenever I present anything controversial that while I am a Jewish immigrant to Israel So my bias is going to be there if you want, we will say though Well, Jerusalem is a historically Jewish city and Palestinians will say but we want Jerusalem as the capital of our state And that's kind of the stalemate we find ourselves in today Jerusalem is kind of the flashpoint of the conflict the final status of Jerusalem is very much up for negotiations And I've done a video about Jerusalem status under International according to the international community today, and if you want to deep dive into this subject I recommend I'll put a link to my own video in the description But suffice to say that the international community if you look at why most embassies aren't in Jerusalem the reason is the status of Jerusalem is basically the majority of the world's nations hold the position that Jerusalem and Israel and The Israelis and the Palestinians need to work out between themselves come to a bilateral agreement About the status of Jerusalem and when you do so we're going to you know We'll accept that and we'll put our embassies and our consulates and our diplomatic representations and all the officialdom in West Jerusalem, but until you do that until the situation exists whereby Israel occupies East Jerusalem or annexes East Jerusalem or has taken over East of the Green Line in Jerusalem by itself. We're not going to have anything to do with Jerusalem We're going to maintain this kind of unworkable But technically on paper existing solution that Jerusalem should be a city under a special International regime something called the corpus separatum the best parallel today might be the city of Nicosia in Cyprus which exists halfway between Greek Cyprus and halfway between the mostly internationally unrecognized Turkish Republic of North Cyprus the TRNC Jerusalem is not like that and I'm going to again talk about just the status of Jerusalem today So you have in Jerusalem a line running through it Which you'll see on the map called the Green Line and that's over where it's considered East Jerusalem something you won't see on the line or maybe you will on Google Maps actually is the boundary of the Jerusalem municipality which is for all intents and purposes where Jerusalem is according to the Israeli position, but the whole city functions and this is kind of the spoiler alert to my video The whole city functions as one Undivided city everywhere everywhere within the Jerusalem municipality network is considered by Israel to be Jerusalem in 1967 Israel captured or took back the old city from Jordan there was a border running through Jerusalem between 48 and 67 or a demarcation line or armistice line maybe is the best term according to many and that was a physically demarcated border slash armistice line with Jordan holding the city to the east Israel holding to the west was the exception of a enclave in Mount Scopus In 1967 the situation changed Israel pushed out the Jordanians Not just from the old city not just from east Jerusalem But from what we the West Bank slash you don't show him in general and now those remain under Israeli control And that's kind of created or that's been the situation up until the present Which is sort of a bit of a stalemate and a point of contention in international politics But Jerusalem today functions as one city so you can go from west Jerusalem to east Jerusalem Without crossing through any board when the I'm just looking at the question again When you know the Israeli website will say that Israel if you ask if you pull the vast majority of Israelis Israelis will say Jerusalem is our capital Israel is legislated Jerusalem as its capital according to a basic law and according to the Long-standing Jewish tradition. However, if we put the international community as a site is kind of a third perspective Many of them will say well, that's not legitimate because it's a technically unresolved point of conflict between you and The group known as Palestinians the Palestinians will say well al-Quds or al-Uds Is a Palestinian city and Israel's no right to be anywhere here a more moderate viewpoint would be that well We hope to have part of it Maybe east Jerusalem and the old city as our future capital so there is you know There's nuances to opinion on both sides of the debate But that's why you're gonna get such conflicting information and just to directly answer the questions Are there two different? Jerusalem's know we're talking about the exact same place the exact same small city is the city share That's a much tougher question to answer So the way it works today is I mentioned that you can go from anywhere in west Jerusalem to anywhere in east Jerusalem without encountering a checkpoint border anything any Geopolitical a division let's say and everything will be under Israeli control as I mentioned the Jerusalem municipality which is the municipal government of Jerusalem the urban government the city is you know sort of Some people would refer to it as they control everything within the boundary of the Jerusalem municipality and whether you're an point X in the west of Jerusalem or point Y in the East of Jerusalem it doesn't make any difference there Their authority the sovereignty of Israel the sovereignty of the municipality is applied equally in both parts However, there is what you might call an invisible dividing line running through Jerusalem corresponding roughly to that 1967 border called in Hebrew hatefe which means the seam and basically the populations are different in west Jerusalem. It's a majority Jewish city east Jerusalem. It's a majority Arab Palestinian city There are some Jewish enclaves built in east Jerusalem built over the green line because the right wing Israeli position is that you know Jerusalem's a Jewish city and we should have every inch of Jerusalem. We want to populate, right? So you have those communities such as in my lazy team But they're relatively small relative to both the land area and the population existing in East Jerusalem, but when you go over the 1967 green line the tefer when you cross into east Jerusalem because the people have changed the National identity has changed from Israeli to Palestinian the political ideology has changed the language has changed from Hebrew to Arabic It's still kind of unmistakable as well as a state of development East Jerusalem is generally speaking a lot less developed than west Jerusalem Just in terms of the quality of the housing the quality the infrastructure Not of course across the board, but if you were to take a taxi from west Jerusalem to east Jerusalem Yes, you wouldn't go through a checkpoint. You wouldn't go through a border, but you would Probably be able to tell that at some point you'd crossed you would see Palestinian flags flying on the road You would see Arabic graffiti You would see you know Arabic people instead of Jewish people and then you would also if you went far enough You would see the security barrier which divides roughly follows the Municipal boundary line and divides between the city of Jerusalem and the west the rest of the West Bank They're now disconnected previously. They were connected. I hope that's given a bit of info about Jerusalem today I didn't actually talk about one other complicated dynamic Which is that Jerusalem also has a very religious Jewish population What would be known in Hebrew as Harry D. Which is just usually a basically a sort of lazy word for very religious, let's say And they also have sort of a nucleus in Jerusalem within West Jerusalem So I think the best way to look at today's Jerusalem is actually not as one city But as three cities that kind of tribal confederation of a Jewish population That is either a secular or moderately religious a very religious Jewish population a Palestinian population No borders between all three groups, especially not between Jewish and Palestine and and ultra religious Jewish But separate bus networks, although they are now more interconnected than they were separate hospital networks separate school systems basically parallel Societies existing out of volition because the two groups just really don't get on Final detail about the status of Jerusalem today is the Palestinian Authority the PA which controls Ramallah and the area a cities and in the Palestinian Authority is Forbidden by Israeli law from operating in Jerusalem. So Israel really kind of cements its authority over East Jerusalem Even though it's not really what the local population want and they regard Jerusalem municipality and Israel as illegitimate occupiers So it's a very very complicated situation, but there really is only one Jerusalem. I think anyone's gonna agree with that There's one city. We're not talking about two different places the same place on the map and no borders But two very different political identities on either side of that Hope that video is interesting and as I mentioned if you do have questions about the political situation or Israel or Suggestions for places that you think I should see I would be love to receive them whether whether other comment On the video or as an email. It doesn't matter. Both will probably get to me And thank you for watching the video and if you want to get more like this Please like the video and please subscribe as well. It helps the channel to keep growing. Thanks for watching