West Jerusalem in the context of "East Jerusalem"

The status of Jerusalem has been described as "one of the most intractable issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" due to the long-running territorial dispute between Israel and Palestine, both of which claim it as their capital city. Part of this issue of sovereignty is tied to concerns over access to the holy sites of Jerusalem in the Abrahamic religions; the current religious environment in Jerusalem is upheld by the "Status Quo" of the former Ottoman Empire. As the Israeli–Palestinian peace process has primarily navigated the option of a two-state solution, one of the largest points of contention has been East Jerusalem, which was part of the Jordanian-annexed West Bank until the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967.

The United Nations recognizes East Jerusalem (and the West Bank as a whole) as the territory for an independent Palestinian state, thus rejecting Israel's claim to that half of the city. There is broader consensus among the international community with regard to West Jerusalem being Israel's capital city, as it falls within Israel's sovereign territory (per the Green Line) and has been recognized as under Israeli control since the 1949 Armistice Agreements.

Tel Aviv, officially Tel Aviv-Yafo, and also known as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a population of 495,230, it is the economic and technological center of the country and a global high-tech hub. If East Jerusalem is considered part of Israel, Tel Aviv is the country's second-most-populous city, after Jerusalem; if not, Tel Aviv is the most populous city, ahead of West Jerusalem.

Tel Aviv is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, headed by Mayor Ron Huldai, and is home to most of Israel's foreign embassies. It is a beta+ world city and is ranked 53rd in the 2022 Global Financial Centres Index. Tel Aviv has the third- or fourth-largest economy and the largest economy per capita in the Middle East. Tel Aviv is ranked the 4th top global startup ecosystem hub. The city currently has the highest cost of living in the world. Tel Aviv receives over 2.5 million international visitors annually. Tel Aviv is home to Tel Aviv University, the largest university in the country with more than 30,000 students.

The two-state solution is a proposed approach to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, by creating two states on the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. It is often contrasted with the one-state solution, which is the establishment a single state in former Mandatory Palestine with equal rights for all its inhabitants. The two-state solution is supported by many countries and the Palestinian Authority. Israel currently does not support the idea, though it has in the past.

The first proposal for separate Jewish and Arab states in the territory was made by the British Peel Commission report in 1937. In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a partition plan for Palestine, leading to the 1948 Palestine war. As a result, Israel was established on the area the UN had proposed for the Jewish state, as well as almost 60% of the area proposed for the Arab state. Israel took control of West Jerusalem, which was meant to be part of an international zone. Jordan took control of East Jerusalem and what became known as the West Bank, annexing it the following year. The territory which became the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt but never annexed. Since the 1967 Six-Day War, both the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza Strip have been militarily occupied by Israel, becoming known as the Palestinian territories.

Corpus separatum (Latin for "separated body") was the internationalization proposal for Jerusalem and its surrounding area as part of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly with a two-thirds majority in November 1947. According to the Partition Plan, the city of Jerusalem would be brought under international governance, conferring it a special status due to its shared importance for the Abrahamic religions. The legal base ("Statute") for this arrangement was to be reviewed after ten years and put to a referendum. The corpus separatum was again one of the main issues of the post-war Lausanne Conference of 1949, besides the borders of Israel and the question of the Palestinian right of return.

The Partition Plan was not implemented, being firstly rejected by Palestinian and other Arab leaders and then overtaken by the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which left Jerusalem split between Israel (West Jerusalem) and Jordan (East Jerusalem). In 2012, the European Parliament expressed majority support, and the UN General Assembly expressed overwhelming support for the view that Jerusalem should be a dual capital, with an even split between Israel and the State of Palestine, although exact positions are varied.

Mount Scopus is a mountain located in Jerusalem with an elevation of 826 meters (2,710 ft) above sea level. Between the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, it was an internationally protected exclave of Israel within Jordan, as it was geographically part of Jordan's East Jerusalem, but politically part of Israel's West Jerusalem. It is home to the main campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hadassah Medical Center. Since the collapse of the City Line in 1967, the area now lies within Jerusalem's Israeli municipal boundaries.
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During the 1947–1949 Palestine war, or the Nakba, around 400 Palestinian Arab towns and villages were forcibly depopulated by Israeli forces, with a majority being destroyed and left uninhabitable. Today these locations are all in Israel; many of the locations were repopulated by Jewish immigrants, with their place names replaced with Hebrew place names.

Arabs remained in small numbers in some of the cities (Haifa, Jaffa and Acre); and Jerusalem was divided between Jordan and Israel. Around 30,000 Palestinians remained in Jerusalem in what became the Arab part of it (East Jerusalem). In addition, some 30,000 non-Jewish refugees relocated to East Jerusalem, while 5,000 Jewish refugees moved from the Old City to West Jerusalem on the Israeli side. An overwhelming number of the Arab residents who had lived in the cities that became a part of Israel and were renamed (Acre, Haifa, Safad, Tiberias, Ashkelon, Beersheba, Jaffa and Beisan) fled or were expelled. Most of the Palestinians who remain there are internally displaced people from the villages nearby.

The Battle for Jerusalem took place during the 1947–1948 civil war phase of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. It saw Jewish and Arab militias in Mandatory Palestine, and later the militaries of Israel and Transjordan, fight for control over the city of Jerusalem. Under the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, Jerusalem was to be a corpus separatum (lit. 'separated body') administered by an international body. Fighting nevertheless immediately broke out in the city between Jewish and Arab militias, with bombings and other attacks being carried out by both sides.

Beginning in February 1948, Arab militias under Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni blockaded the corridor from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, preventing essential supplies from reaching the Jewish population. This blockade was broken in mid-April of that year by Jewish militias who carried out Operation Nachshon and Operation Maccabi. On 14 May and the following days, the Etzioni and Harel brigades, supported by Irgun troops, launched several operations that aimed to take over the Arab side of the city. In the meantime, the Arab Legion had deployed in the area of the former British Mandate that was allotted to the Arab state, not entering the corpus separatum but massively garrisoning Latrun to blockade West Jerusalem once again.

The Jerusalem District (Hebrew: מחוז ירושלים; Arabic: منطقة القدس) is one of the six administrative districts of Israel. The district capital is Jerusalem and its total land area is 652 km. The population of 1,159,900 is 66.3% Jewish and 32.1% Arab. A fifth (21%) of the Arabs in Israel live in the Jerusalem Municipality, which includes both East and West Jerusalem. Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem has not been recognized by the international community.

Most Arabs in the Jerusalem District are Palestinians, eligible to apply for citizenship under Israeli law, but either decline to apply or are unsuccessful in doing so. Arab citizens of Israel constitute a significant minority in the district, living in Abu Ghosh, Beit Safafa and East Jerusalem, where Arab professionals have settled since the late 1970s, mainly for the provision of legal and other services to the local population. The non-Jewish population is 95.2% Muslim, 3.5% Christian with the others unclassified by religion.