The Cultural Judaization of Jerusalem (1967-2022)

Abstract

The study deals with the Judaization of Jerusalem from a cultural aspect. In 1967, the occupation of Palestine and other Arab lands was completed, the year of the Arab and Palestinian defeat. New stimulating conditions arose to expand the scope of the Zionist project. Therefore, since the announcement of the annexation of Jerusalem on the twenty-eighth of June 1967, the occupying power began with a series of measures and enacted laws that pursue one specific goal: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population in Jerusalem and the replacement of the Jewish settlers in their place, in order to achieve complete Judaization and make Jerusalem Israeli city. Israel did concrete efforts to make Arabs as isolated and marginal minority in terms of housing, education, health, residency and movement laws, work, birth registration...

This study aims to investigate the historical and cultural events that centered in fifty-five years on the so-called setback in the contemporary history of the Palestinian cause. The study also aims to shed light on the most important practices and policies implemented by Israel after its control of the city of East Jerusalem in 1967, especially with regard to the Zionist side, which deliberately used a policy of Judaizing the city in all fields, especially in the cultural aspect. The study followed the methodology of descriptive historical research, and the researcher sought to rely on reliable sources and references, despite the lack of references and studies on the subject and the difficulty of accessing the city of Jerusalem. The researcher reached several results, the most important of which was that Israel was able to create geographical, demographic and political realities by changing many of the features of Jerusalem and part of its Arab-Islamic identity and dyeing it with the Israeli character. The researcher concluded with many recommendations, the most important of which was giving the city of Jerusalem greater importance by researchers and specialists in various fields, so that life in all its aspects in Jerusalem would be studied throughout history, and that there was no history of Jews in the city. The researcher also recommended the need for ministries of education and higher education in all Arab countries to introduce the course of the history of Jerusalem as a compulsory course for all students, whether in schools or universities. Among the other recommendations that the researcher referred to is the need to rehabilitate what can be rehabilitated from the Ayyubid and Mamluk schools in the city of Jerusalem, despite the difficulty of doing so due to the Israeli occupation measures in the city.