Under Enormous Stress, Palestinian Jerusalemites Share Concerns about Societal Unravelling

Hajj Masoud Abd al-Rahman stood on the balcony of his Wadi al-Joz home, watching a raging street battle between two large groups of Palestinian men. Some were carrying sticks, some knives; others were throwing stones at each other. There were also a few handguns in sight.

When his son asked him what was happening, Abd al-Rahman explained that members of a family originating from Hebron were fighting a group of young men from the Palestinian neighborhoods of al-Sawahira and Jabal Mukabbir.

It was a scene that is far too common in East Jerusalem today.

Tensions are so high; Palestinians have been forced to stay locally within their communities in places due to closures after Israel opened a war with Iran on June 13, 2025. For example, Israeli authorities closed the Old City to all except residents. They also barricaded the main access roads to the neighborhood of al-Tur, making it difficult for residents to come and go from their own homes.

These more localized closures are an extension of the broader closures that Israel has introduced since October 7, 2023, which have prevented or greatly restricted movement between the rest of the West Bank and East Jerusalem—even more than usual. Consequently, Jerusalem residents are under stress and isolated.

The ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza is negatively affecting the Israeli economy, which impacts Jerusalem, too.

“This situation in Jerusalem is no longer tolerable,” Abd al-Rahman told Jerusalem Story. “Since the siege imposed by Israel on the city, represented by the Apartheid Wall [or Separation Wall], the overarching national Palestinian identity of Jerusalem’s residents has been fragmented. The city no longer unites its people, but clans and tribes have become the defining characteristic. This one is a Hebronite, this one is from al-Sawahira, this one is from Abu Tur, and that one is from Silwan. This one is Christian, and the other is Muslim. What a loss for the city! It has lost its people, who have lost their way.”1

Abd al-Rahman is from a small Jerusalem family with a long lineage in the city. “Where is the Arab identity that once united all of Jerusalem’s groups?” he asks. During the period from 1948 to 1967, when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem, he says, “We were all Arabs. I even remember that our ancestors, during the time of the Ottoman Empire, used the phrase ‘I am Ottoman,’ not ‘Arab’ or ‘Palestinian,’ because that was their identity. Now, look at what is happening to us. Even the word ‘Arab’ is no longer part of our name. We no longer say ‘Arab residents of Jerusalem.’ We are lost, and our identity has been lost.”

Walid Salem, a lecturer on democracy, human rights, and conflict resolution at Al-Quds University and managing editor of al-Maqdisiyya journal, has delved deeply into the identity of Palestinians from Jerusalem. He told Jerusalem Story that Jerusalemites are torn between being Palestinian and identifying as a unique group separate from the Palestinian identity.2

The Oslo Accords’ postponement of a final status for Jerusalem, which remains in effect to this day, and the resulting distinct reality for Jerusalemites, who remain under direct military occupation, created rifts with Palestinians in the rest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians there have some representation through the Palestinian Authority (PA), while remaining under Israeli occupation.

The result has been a de facto separation of the Palestinian Jerusalem experience from that of the rest of the Palestinian people, not unlike the separation of Palestinians in Gaza from those in the West Bank, he said.

Bernard Sabella, a retired professor of sociology, author, and elected (2006) member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) for Jerusalem (see Representation), said that he believes that Palestinian Jerusalemites have not lost their national identification with other Palestinians. “Rather, I see in this identity a state of adaptation, and I do not say normalization in the sense that the people of Jerusalem accept the conditions [of occupation] and are in harmony with them, but they maintain their identity as a confirmation of the environment imposed on them. . . . I do not see this as a loss, but rather a way to avoid loss. This method may be considered a social psychological tool that emphasizes rootedness, although appearances may be deceiving and give the opposite impression!”3

Fragmenting and weakening Palestinian identity has been a deliberate policy of the Israeli occupation since 1948, according to Lily Habash, an international post-conflict governance advisor.4 Habash told Jerusalem Story that, while there was a strong rise in national identity during the 1960s and the First Intifada, “decades of displacement, settler colonialism, apartheid, and the devastating consequences of the Oslo Accords—particularly their abandonment of refugee rights and Jerusalem—have deeply damaged our collective identity.”

She added that internal divisions, failed leadership, and the “genocide and politicide in Gaza and the West Bank” have left many Palestinians clinging to individual survival as their only option. “We know this project aims to turn us into the Red Indians [i.e., Native Americans] of modern times.”

Some feel the opposite: that global solidarity with Palestine has united them. Maha Khoury, director of the Jerusalem YMCA, says that she does not see a crisis of identity. “On the contrary, what has happened since October 7, 2023, has unified the national identity and conveyed the Palestinian narrative to the entire world.”5

Still, Habash believes any rifts can be salvaged through community-led efforts. “We must protect our collective memory with an independent, tech-based civil society curriculum—free from Palestinian Authority and donor censorship—that tells our story and centers our struggle,” she said. She feels that education on universal human rights, reinforcing Palestinian unity across 1948 lands and the diaspora, and investing in cultural heritage and economic empowerment are key. “We must build on the incredible success of Palestinian youth in the diaspora and connect them [with Jerusalem youth] globally, creating mentorship and funding opportunities to strengthen our future.”

While most Palestinian Jerusalemites continue to identify as a blend of Palestinian and Jerusalemite, some Palestinians in the city have adopted Israeli citizenship since 1967. This latter group constitutes no more than 5 percent of East Jerusalem residents, according to Israeli Ministry of Interior statistics from April 2022.6 This group is unable to attain the same citizenship rights as Jewish Israelis due to long-standing inequalities (see Precarious Status).

It is remarkable that Palestinians Jerusalemites continue to cling to the hope of a Palestinian national identity, despite the very visible efforts Israel is taking to squelch it. Perhaps this has to do with Jerusalem’s vibrant history as a commercial and social center for both Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world.

Salem, who previously addressed this history in detail in a study published in al-Maqdisiyya,7 told Jerusalem Story that during the period of Jordanian rule of Jerusalem, from 1948 to 1967, Jerusalemites were immersed in rebuilding the eastern part of the city after the war, and were not preoccupied with identity. Jerusalem at that time was a place of significance to all who lived, loved, worked, and made it their home. Pilgrims from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Cyprus arrived daily. The greatest obstacle for city residents was to restore Jerusalem to its former glory.

In a study of Jordanian Jerusalem between 1948 to 1967 developed at Al-Quds University, Nazmi al-Jubeh, Palestinian historian, archaeologist, and expert on Palestinian cultural heritage and its preservation with special expertise on Jerusalem, described in detail the challenges of restoring a city (East Jerusalem), scarred by war, with little existing infrastructure. Over 19 years, Jordan adopted the burdensome legacies of both the Colonial British Mandate and the 1948 War, but still managed to complete an impressive amount of restoration and development.8

The Jordanian government built facilities such as the governorate, post office, municipal slaughterhouse, fire department, government hospital, and electricity company, elevating the city closer to the status enjoyed by its capital, Amman. Jerusalemites were also integrated into Jordanian ministerial positions during a time when Jordan was a newly emerging state and its king was assassinated (in 1951).

Likewise, the local community invested in development projects that included St. John of Jerusalem’s Eye Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital (also called the French Hospital), and Makassed Hospital, as well as many of the hotels that are still running today. These projects were investments of Arab hotel companies, the Jerusalem Real Estate Company, Cinema al-Zahra (today Al Quds Cinema utilized by Yabous Cultural Centre),9 and the Jerusalem Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry. They included the restoration of Jerusalem’s water and electricity supply after the 1948 War.

Today, every effort by Palestinians and even Jordan, which still maintains oversight of al-Aqsa Mosque, to develop the eastern parts of the city is met with obstacles posed by the Israeli authorities.

"I remember Jerusalem—it means to go back thousands of years, where nostalgia overwhelms you,” says Gabriel Abdalla, owner of the Sindbad Travel and Tourist Agency and one of the most prominent figures in tourism in East Jerusalem, who grew up in the Christian Quarter of the Old City before moving north to the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Hanina. “It is the destination of hearts. Jerusalem inhabits me and I inhabit it, for I inhabit where history inhabits. How can I sum up an unforgettable love story?”10

“In every one of its neighborhoods, there is a human imprint and a story of time. Its ancient schools, its elegant churches, its abundant mosques, and its people are kind and united in goodness. Its alleys and neighborhoods tell the story of time, about people who departed and left behind symbols of civilization and architecture,” Abdalla shares.

He continues, “One is proud to be a Jerusalemite. It is a symbol and an identity, a mosaic of pluralism, where hearts participate, cultures and peoples meet, customs and traditions mingle, and hearts gather in love for it, adoration for it, and adherence to its soil. It is Jerusalem, a name that was not written in dry ink to be erased, nor in liquid ink to be melted, nor in secret ink to disappear; it is the past, the present, and the future.”

Renowned Palestinian Jerusalemite writer Mahmoud Shukair expressed it to Jerusalem Story this way: “Jerusalem has a national and cultural identity. It is the city of all . . . . It is an identity that is open to humanity’s culture without fanaticism, intolerance, or exclusion.”11

Jerusalem’s unique plurality and identity has been eroded over time by Jewish nationalism—Zionism—and the physical remaking of the city to minimize the Palestinian Arab population and its historical ties. Never has this been more evident than today, as the occupiers of East Jerusalem wall off the city to its natural hinterland and render it virtually forbidden to Palestinians outside, transform the curriculum of the schools in their image, and refuse the creation of public events and space. Further, the occupiers deny Palestinians building permits and demolish the homes of those trying to find space to grow, seize land secretly through land registration, hem in and close off Palestinian residential areas, establish new settlements in every corner—even inside Palestinian neighborhoods—and levy exorbitant taxes on impoverished communities.

Unfortunately, in the collective imagination of the peoples of Europe and North America, Jerusalem is now coming to be treated as a Jewish city, influenced by the texts of the Torah and Zionist propaganda visible in literature and history.

Iraqi novelist Ali Bader recounts how he met Israeli writer Amos Oz at a conference, who boasted to him that Israeli authors had written 100 novels about Jerusalem. “How many novels had Palestinian and Arab writers written about it?” Oz taunted.12

This question provoked Ali Bader, who began gathering information about Jerusalem before visiting it, to write Jerusalem Lamps (Masabih Urushalayem), a novel published in 2006 where Palestinian academic Edward Said engages his own ideas on Orientalism in the narrative. Bader’s was not the only fictional treatment of Jerusalem from the Palestinian or Arab perspective; there were many. But it was the forced competition that stung.

This crisis of the Jerusalem identity is not new. Israel’s war on Iran and the resultant movement restrictions have simply brought it more starkly into the light. The tribal nature of these street fights is the most visible sign of this crisis.

The presence of Palestinians in the city of Jerusalem, despite all the obstacles, is what prevents Israel from confidently declaring a sustainable victory over the city. Nevertheless, a unifying Palestinian Jerusalemite identity, one that brings together the city’s many families and neighborhoods to confront the cultural and social challenges they face, appears to be fraying by the day.