One reason that makes peace between Israel and the Palestinians so difficult to achieve is that both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the ongoing social and armed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that dates back to the early 20th century. In response to the growing anti-Semitism against Jews that was lived in Europe, at the end of the 19th century a Zionist movement emerged, which advocated the establishment of Jews in Israel. Many Jews emigrated to Israel after the First World War, but at the end of the Second World War and because of the commotion caused by the Holocaust, the partition of what had been the British mandate in Palestine was approved in two: the Jewish part and the Arab part. The Arabs did not accept it, and in 1948 they declared war on the newly created state of Israel, but were defeated by the Israelis.
The border of Jerusalem is a particularly sensitive issue. The three major Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - have Jerusalem as an important place for the establishment of their religious historical accounts. Israel affirms that the city should not be divided and should remain politically controlled only by Israel. The Palestinians claim at least the parts of the city that were not part of Israel before June 1967. As of 2005, there were more than 719,000 Jewish people living in Jerusalem (mostly living in western Jerusalem) and 232 000 were Muslims (mostly inhabitants of East Jerusalem).
