THE FUTURE IS ALREADY WRITTEN

Sign Type

Zodiac

Celestial Position

Tribe

Living Creature

Fire

Leo

Fall Equinox

Judah

Lion

Air

Aquarius

Spring Equinox

Reuben

Man

Water

Scorpio

Winter Solstice

Dan

Eagle

Earth

Tarus

Summer Solstice

Ephraim

HAMAS

JERUSALEM (September 16) - About 1500 Palestinians, many supporters of Hamas, marched in a Gaza Strip refugee camp Friday, burning Israeli flags and . ...
www.greatdreams.com/hamas_database.htm

Jerusalem (Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם‎ (audio) (help·info), Yerushaláyim; Arabic: القُدس (audio) (help·info), al-Quds)^[ii] is the capital^[iii] of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with 732,100 residents in an area of 125.1 square kilometers (49 sq mi) if disputed East Jerusalem is included.^[1]^[4]^[iv] Located in the Judean Mountains, between the Mediterranean Sea and the northern tip of the Dead Sea, modern Jerusalem has grown up outside the Old City.

The city has a history that goes back to the 4th millennium BCE, making it one of the oldest cities in the world. Jerusalem has been the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center of the Jewish people since the 10th century BCE,contains a number of significant ancient Christian sites, and is considered the third-holiest city in Islam. Despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometer (0.35 square mile), the Old City is home to sites of key religious importance, among them the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque. The old walled city, a World Heritage site, has been traditionally divided into four quarters, although the names used today — the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters — were introduced in the early 19th century. The Old City was nominated for inclusion on the List of World Heritage Sites in danger by Jordan in 1982. In the course of its history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.

Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel's annexation of occupied East Jerusalem has been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations and related bodies, and Palestinians foresee East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state In the wake of United Nations Security Council Resolution 478, most foreign embassies moved out of Jerusalem.

"Yerushalayim" means the "perfect city," or "the city of he who is perfect". The ending -im indicates the plural in Hebrew grammar and -ayim the dual, possibly referring to the fact that the city sits on two hills. The pronunciation of the last syllable as -ayim appears to be a late development, which had not yet appeared at the time of the Septuagint.

Some believe that a city called Rušalimum or Urušalimum which appears in ancient Egyptian records is the first reference to Jerusalem.The Greeks added the prefix hiero ("holy") and called it Hierosolyma. To the Arabs, Jerusalem is al-Quds ("The Holy"). It was called Jebus (Yevus) by the Jebusites. "Zion" initially referred to part of the city, but later came to signify the city as a whole. Under King David, it was known as Ir David (the City of David).

Temple periods

According to Hebrew scripture, King David reigned until 970 BCE. He was succeeded by his son Solomon, who built the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah. Solomon's Temple (later known as the First Temple), went on to play a pivotal role in Jewish history as the repository of the Ark of the Covenant. For over 600 years, until the Babylonian conquest in 587 BCE, Jerusalem was the political capital of the Kingdom of Judea and a religious center of the Israelites.This period is known in history as the First Temple Period.^[37] Upon Solomon's death (c. 930 BCE), the ten northern tribes split off to form the Kingdom of Israel. Under the leadership of the House of David and Solomon, Jerusalem remained the capital of the Kingdom of Judah.

When the Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, Jerusalem was strengthened by a great influx of refugees from the northern kingdom. The First Temple period ended around 586 BCE, as the Babylonians conquered Judah and Jerusalem, and laid waste to Solomon's Temple. In 538 BCE, after fifty years of Babylonian captivity, Persian King Cyrus the Great invited the Jews to return to Judah to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. Construction of the Second Temple was completed in 516 BCE, during the reign of Darius the Great, seventy years after the destruction of the First Temple. Jerusalem resumed its role as capital of Judah and center of Jewish worship. When Greek ruler Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, Jerusalem and Judea fell under Greek control, eventually falling to the Ptolemaic dynasty under Ptolemy I. In 198 BCE, Ptolemy V lost Jerusalem and Judea to the Seleucids under Antiochus III. The Seleucid attempt to recast Jerusalem as a Hellenized polis came to a head in 168 BCE with the successful Maccabean revolt of Mattathias the High Priest and his five sons against Antiochus Epiphanes, and their establishment of the Hasmonean Kingdom in 152 BCE with Jerusalem again as its capital.

Jewish-Roman wars

As Rome became stronger it installed Herod as a Jewish client king. Herod the Great, as he was known, devoted himself to developing and beautifying the city. He built walls, towers and palaces, and expanded the Temple Mount, buttressing the courtyard with blocks of stone weighing up to 100 tons. Under Herod, the area of the Temple Mount doubled in size. In 6 CE, the city, as well as much of the surrounding area, came under direct Roman rule as the Iudaea Province and Herod's descendants through Agrippa II remained client kings of Judea until 96 CE. Roman rule over Jerusalem and the region began to be challenged with the first Jewish-Roman war, the Great Jewish Revolt, which resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. In 130 CE Hadrian Romanized the city, and renamed it Aelia Capitolina. Jerusalem once again served as the capital of Judea during the three-year rebellion known as the Bar Kochba revolt. The Romans succeeded in recapturing the city in 135 CE and as a punitive measure Hadrian banned the Jews from entering it. Hadrian renamed the entire Iudaea Province Syria Palaestina after the biblical Philistines in an attempt to de-Judaize the country.^[45]^[46] Enforcement of the ban on Jews entering Aelia Capitolina continued until the 4th century CE.

In the five centuries following the Bar Kokhba revolt, the city remained under Roman then Byzantine rule. During the 4th century, the Roman Emperor Constantine I constructed Christian sites in Jerusalem such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Jerusalem reached a peak in size and population at the end of the Second Temple Period: The city covered two square kilometers (0.8 sq mi.) and had a population of 200,000 From the days of Constantine until the 7th century, Jews were banned from Jerusalem.

Roman-Persian wars

Within the span of a few decades, Jerusalem shifted from Roman to Persian rule and returned to Roman dominion once more. Following Sassanid Khosrau II's early seventh century push into Byzantine, advancing through Syria, Sassanid Generals Shahrbaraz and Shahin attacked the Byzantine-controlled city of Jerusalem (Persian: Dej Houdkh).

In the Siege of Jerusalem (614), after 21 days of relentless siege warfare, Jerusalem was captured and the Persian victory resulted in the territorial annexation of Jerusalem. After the Sassanid army entered Jerusalem, the holy "True Cross" was stolen and sent back to the Sassanian capital as a battle-captured holy relic. The conquered city and the Holy Cross would remain in Sassanid hands for some fifteen years until the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius recovered them in 629.

Islamic rule

In 638, the Islamic Caliphate extended its dominion to Jerusalem. At this time, Jerusalem was declared Islam's third holiest city after Mecca and Medina, and referred to as al Bait al-Muquddas. Later, it was known as al-Quds al-Sharif. With the Arab conquest, Jews were allowed back into the city.The Rashidun caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab signed a treaty with Monophysite Christian Patriarch Sophronius, assuring him that Jerusalem's Christian holy places and population would be protected under Muslim rule. Umar was led to the Foundation Stone on the Temple Mount, which he cleared of refuse in preparation for building a mosque. According to the Gaullic bishop Arculf, who lived in Jerusalem from 679-688, the Mosque of Umar was a rectangular wooden structure built over ruins which could accommodated 3,000 worshipers.The Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik commissioned the construction of the Dome of the Rock in the late 7th century.The 10th century historian El Muqadasi writes that Abd al-Malik built the shrine in order to compete in grandeur of Jerusalem's monumental churches.Over the next four hundred years, Jerusalem's prominence diminished as Arab powers in the region jockeyed for control.

Crusaders, Saladin and the Mamluks

In 1099, Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders, who massacred most of its Muslim inhabitants and the remnants of the Jewish inhabitants. The Christians having been expelled and most of the Jewish inhabitants having already fled, by early June 1099, Jerusalem’s population had declined from 70,000 to less than 30,000. The surviving Jews were sold into slavery in Europe or ransomed to the Jewish community of Egypt. Christian Arab tribes brought to Jerusalem settled in the Old City.^] In 1187, the city was wrested from the Crusaders by Saladin who permitted Jews and Muslims to return and settle in the city.In 1244, Jerusalem was sacked by the Kharezmian Tartars, who decimated the city's Christian population and drove out the Jews, some of whom resettled in Nablus. From 1250-1517, Jerusalem was ruled by the Mamluks, who imposed a heavy annual tax on the Jews and destroyed Christian holy places on Mount Zion.

Ottoman rule

In 1517, Jerusalem and environs fell to the Ottoman Turks, who remained in control until 1917.With the occupation of Jerusalem by Muhammad Ali of Egypt in 1831, foreign missions and consulates began to establish a foothold in the city. In the 1860s, new neighborhoods began to go up outside the Old City walls to house pilgrims and relieve the intense overcrowding and poor sanitation inside the city. The Russian Compound and Mishkenot Sha'ananim were founded in 1860.According to the Prussian consul, the population in 1845 was 16,410, with 7,120 Jews, 5,000 Muslims, 3,390 Christians, 800 Turkish soldiers and 100 Europeans. The volume of Christian pilgrims increased under the Ottomans, doubling the city's population around Easter time. In 1836, Ibrahim Pasha allowed the Jews to restore four major synagogues, among them the Hurva. Turkish rule was reinstated in 1840, but many Egyptian Muslims remained in Jerusalem. Jews from Algiers and North Africa began to settle in the city in growing numbers. At the same time, the Ottomans built tanneries and slaughterhouses near Christian and Jewish holy places "so that an evil smell should ever plague the infidels." In the 1840s and 1850s, the international powers began a tug-of-war in Palestine as they sought to extend their protection over the country's religious minorities, a struggle carried out mainly through consular representatives in Jerusalem.

British Mandate and 1948 War

Further information: British Mandate of Palestine, 1947-1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, and 1948 Arab-Israeli War

Old City of Jerusalem on December 11, 1917

In 1917 after the Battle of Jerusalem, the British Army, led by General Edmund Allenby, captured the city. and in 1922, the League of Nations at Conference of Lausanne entrusted the United Kingdom to administer the Mandate for Palestine.

From 1922 to 1948 the total population of the city rose from 52,000 to 165,000 with two thirds of Jews and one-third of Arabs (Muslims and Christians).. The situation between Arabs and Jews in Palestine was not quiet. At Jerusalem, in particular riots occurred in 1920 and in 1929. Under the British, new garden suburbs were built in the western and northern parts of the city and institutions of higher learning such as the Hebrew University were founded.

As the British Mandate for Palestine was expiring, the 1947 UN Partition Plan recommended "the creation of a special international regime in the City of Jerusalem, constituting it as a corpus separatum under the administration of the United Nations." The international regime was to remain in force for a period of ten years, whereupon a referendum was to be held in which the residents of Jerusalem were to decide the future regime of the city. However, this plan was not implemented, as the 1948 war erupted while the British withdrew from Palestine and Israel declared its independence.

The war led to displacement of Arab and Jewish populations in the city. The 1,500 residents of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City were expelled and a few hundred taken prisoner when the Arab Legion captured the quarter on 28 May. Residents of many Arab villages and neighborhoods west of the Old City left with the approach of the war, but some remained and were driven out or killed, as at Lifta or Deir Yassin.

Division and controversial reunification

Further information: Positions on Jerusalem

See also: UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan

The war ended with Jerusalem divided between Israel and Jordan (then Transjordan). The 1949 Armistice Agreements established a ceasefire line that cut through the center of the city and left Mount Scopus as an Israeli exclave. Barbed wire and concrete barriers separated east and west Jerusalem, and military skirmishes frequently threatened the ceasefire. After the establishment of the State of Israel, Jerusalem was declared its capital. Jordan formally annexed East Jerusalem in 1950, subjecting it to Jordanian law, in a move that was recognized only by Pakistan.

Jordan assumed control of the holy places in the Old City. Contrary to the terms of the agreement, Israelis were denied access to Jewish holy sites, many of which were desecrated, and only allowed very limited access to Christian holy sites. During this period, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque underwent major renovations.

During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured East Jerusalem and asserted sovereignty over the entire city. Jewish access to holy sites was restored, while the Temple Mount remained under the jurisdiction of an Islamic waqf. The Moroccan Quarter, which was located adjacent to the Western Wall, was vacated and razed to make way for a plaza for those visiting the wall. Since the war, Israel has expanded the city's boundaries and established a ring of Jewish neighbourhoods on vacant land east of the Green Line.

However, the takeover of East Jerusalem was met with international criticism. Following the passing of Israel's Jerusalem Law, which declared Jerusalem, "complete and united", the capital of Israel, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that declared the law "a violation of international law" and requested all member states to withdraw all remaining embassies from the city.

The status of the city, and especially its holy places, remains a core issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jewish settlers have taken over historic sites and built on land confiscated from Palestinians in order to expand the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem, while prominent Islamic leaders have insisted that Jews have no historical connection to Jerusalem. Palestinians envision East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state and the city's borders have been the subject of bilateral talks.

Jerusalem is situated on the southern spur of a plateau in the Judean Mountains, which include the Mount of Olives (East) and Mount Scopus (North East). The elevation of the Old City is approximately 760 m (2,500 ft). The whole of Jerusalem is surrounded by valleys and dry riverbeds (wadis). The Kidron, Hinnom, and Tyropoeon Valleys intersect in an area just south of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Kidron Valley runs to the east of the Old City and separates the Mount of Olives from the city proper. Along the southern side of old Jerusalem is the Valley of Hinnom, a steep ravine associated in biblical eschatology with the concept of Gehenna or Hell.The Tyropoeon valley commenced in the northwest near the Damascus Gate, ran south-southeasterly through the center of the Old City down to the Pool of Siloam, and divided the lower part into two hills, the Temple Mount to the east, and the rest of the city to the west (the lower and the upper cities described by Josephus). Today, this valley is hidden by debris that has accumulated over the centuries.

In biblical times, Jerusalem was surrounded by forests of almond, olive and pine trees. Over centuries of warfare and neglect, these forests were destroyed. Farmers in the Jerusalem region thus built stone terraces along the slopes to hold back the soil, a feature still very much in evidence in the Jerusalem landscape.

Water supply has always been a major problem in Jerusalem, as attested to by the intricate network of ancient aqueducts, tunnels, pools and cisterns found in the city.

Jerusalem is 60 kilometers (37 mi) east of Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean Sea. On the opposite side of the city, approximately 35 kilometers (22 mi) away, is the Dead Sea, the lowest body of water on Earth. Neighboring cities and towns include Bethlehem and Beit Jala to the south, Abu Dis and Ma'ale Adumim to the east, Mevaseret Zion to the west, and Ramallah and Giv'at Ze'ev to the north.

In May 2007, Jerusalem had a population of 732,100—64% were Jewish, 32% Muslim, and 2% Christian. At the end of 2005, the population density was 5,750.4 inhabitants per square kilometer (14,893.5/sq mi).According to a study published in 2000, the percentage of Jews in the city's population had been decreasing; this was attributed to a higher Palestinian birth rate, and Jewish residents leaving. The study also found that about nine percent of the Old City's 32,488 people were Jews.

In 2005, 2,850 new immigrants settled in Jerusalem, mostly from the United States, France and the former Soviet Union. In terms of the local population, the number of outgoing residents exceeds the number of incoming residents. In 2005, 16,000 left Jerusalem and only 10,000 moved in. Nevertheless, the population of Jerusalem continues to rise due to the high birth rate, especially in the Arab and Haredi Jewish communities. Consequently, the total fertility rate in Jerusalem (4.02) is higher than in Tel Aviv (1.98) and well above the national average of 2.90. The average size of Jerusalem's 180,000 households is 3.8 people.

In 2005, the total population grew by 13,000 (1.8%) — similar to Israeli national average, but the religious and ethnic composition is shifting. While 31% of the Jewish population is made up of children below the age fifteen, the figure for the Arab population is 42%.This would seem to corroborate the observation that the percentage of Jews in Jerusalem has declined over the past four decades. In 1967, Jews accounted for 74 percent of the population, while the figure for 2006 is down nine percent. Possible factors are the high cost of housing, fewer job opportunities and the increasingly religious character of the city. Many people are moving to the suburbs and coastal cities in search of cheaper housing and a more secular lifestyle.

Demographics and the Jewish-Arab population divide play a major role in the dispute over Jerusalem. In 1998, the Jerusalem Development Authority proposed expanding city limits to the west to include more areas heavily populated with Jews.

Political status

On December 5, 1949, the State of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed Jerusalem as Israel's capital and since then all branches of the Israeli government — legislative, judicial, and executive — have resided there. At the time of the proclamation, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and thus only West Jerusalem was considered Israel's capital. Immediately after the 1967 Six-Day War, however, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, making it a de facto part of the Israeli capital. Israel enshrined the status of the "complete and united" Jerusalem — west and east — as its capital, in the 1980 Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel.

The status of a "united Jerusalem" as Israel's "eternal capital" has been a matter of immense controversy within the international community. Although some countries maintain consulates in Jerusalem, and two maintain embassies in Jerusalem suburbs, all embassies are located outside of the city proper, mostly in Tel Aviv.

The non-binding United Nations Security Council Resolution 478, passed on August 20, 1980, declared that the Basic Law was "null and void and must be rescinded forthwith." Member states were advised to withdraw their diplomatic representation from the city as a punitive measure. Most of the remaining countries with embassies in Jerusalem complied with the resolution by relocating them to Tel Aviv, where many embassies already resided prior to Resolution 478. Currently there are no embassies located within the city limits of Jerusalem, although there are embassies in Mevaseret Zion, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and four consulates in the city itself. In 1995, the United States Congress had planned to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with the passage of the Jerusalem Embassy Act.However, U.S. President George W. Bush has argued that Congressional resolutions regarding the status of Jerusalem are merely advisory. The Constitution reserves foreign relations as an executive power, and as such, the US embassy is still in Tel Aviv.

Israel's most prominent governmental institutions, including the Knesset, the Supreme Court, and the official residences of the President and Prime Minister, are located in Jerusalem. Prior to the creation of the State of Israel, Jerusalem served as the administrative capital of the British Mandate, which included present-day Israel and Jordan. From 1949 until 1967, West Jerusalem served as Israel's capital but was not recognized as such internationally because

The New Jerusalem (See The Spiritual - Heavenly New Jerusalem 9 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me[a] and talked with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.”

HAMAS