May 18, 2007
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad (AP)
"This is still a clear case of two separate cities," says Shlomo Hasson, a geography professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "There are separate commercial centers, separate transport systems and separate cultures."Israel is facing a challenge it never expected when it captured East Jerusalem and reunited the city in the 1967 war: each year, Jerusalem’s population is becoming more Arab and less Jewish.
Jerusalem’s profound religious and historical significance makes its status perhaps the single most explosive issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict. And that status clearly would become even more contentious were the balance of the population to tip toward the Arabs. This is a specter that worries Israelis, even as the 40th anniversary of their victory in the June 1967 war approaches. Read more>>
Access the full story >>