The Battle for Jerusalem was been waged for many years.
In October 2014, the acting Palestinian Authority President Abbas took umbrage at Jews moving into homes they purchased in Silwan- an area that was originally settled by Jews. Abbas called for hard labor and life imprisonment (or death) for any Arab that sold land to a Jew. There was no reaction from the world to Abbas’s racist edict.
The October comments from Abbas continued with a call to prohibit any Jew from praying on the Temple Mount. He then insisted that no Jews should be allowed to live anywhere east of the 1949 Armistice lines, including in heavily populated Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
The stated rationale for the comments to try to mask the anti-Semitism was that such moves “threaten a two state solution”. That is absurd.
A two state solution can exist very easily- it just would not have a new Palestine with everything that Abbas would like. Specifically, Jerusalem.
The Israelis have already split the “Holy Basin” proposed in the 1947 UN Partition Plan by giving the Palestinians Bethlehem. The other half of the basin, Jerusalem, would remain Israeli. Keeping Jerusalem as the united capital of Israel in no way threatens the viability of a new Palestinian State.
Here is the music video (The Who) that reviews the tired and flawed arguments Palestinian supporters used in fighting the development of E1, east of Jerusalem:
