Jerusalem Day is Celebrated Amid Uncertainty over City’s Future

The 27th annual observance of Jerusalem Day was celebrated here on Monday with prayers, marches, flags and a pervasive sense of uncertainty about the future of the city as Israel attempts to establish peace with the Palestinians.

The day marks the anniversary of the reunification of the city during the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israeli forces captured the Old City from Jordan, which had ruled there since the 1948 War of Independence.

In a Jerusalem Day speech, Teddy Kollek, who was mayor of Jerusalem for close to 30 years, was adamant that no part of the city would become the capital of a Palestinian entity.

The dovish ex-mayor said Jerusalem had always been the Jewish people’s capital, but had never enjoyed that status among Muslims.

“Muslims don’t make holy sites their capital cities,” he stated.

Speaking at a ceremony of remembrance at Ammunition Hill, one of the most fiercely fought-over battle sites of the 1967 war, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was chief of staff during that war, spoke of Jerusalem as “the very heart of the Jewish people; the united, unique capital of the State of Israel. Jerusalem is, was and will always be ours.

“But we have and we will always ensure freedom of religion to all faiths and free access to all holy places. Today we remember and honor the memory of all those who fought so hard for this city and never lived to see it united. To them we owe our deepest thanks,” said Rabin.

One jarring note was struck during the day by an ultra-nationalist group known as the Temple Mount Faithful, who demonstrated in front of Orient House, the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization in eastern Jerusalem, to demand their expulsion from Jerusalem.

The group was dispersed by police.