Backgrounder

Backgrounder The Destruction of Jerusalem’s Moroccan Quarter: From Centuries-Old Maghrebi Community to Western Wall Prayer Plaza

How Israel razed an 800-year-old historic Muslim neighborhood in the dead of night within hours of occupying East Jerusalem

An overview of the complex web of 18 military checkpoints around Jerusalem that control and constrain Palestinian access to the city

Backgrounder The West Side Story, Part 3: From Bourgeois Comfort to Untenable Peril: The Emptying of the New City

How the New City came to an abrupt and violent end

Backgrounder The West Side Story, Part 2: The Darkening Horizon: Jerusalem’s New City under the British Mandate

In the face of rising Jewish immigration, Jewish self-separation, and the looming end of the British Mandate, Jerusalem began to implode, placing the New City in peril.

Backgrounder Israel’s Vision of a Greater [Jewish] Jerusalem

How Israel seeks to reshape the broader Jerusalem region, ensuring permanent control and blocking the possibility of Palestinian communal life

Backgrounder Where Is Jerusalem? The Uncertain and Unfixed Boundaries of the City

Where is Jerusalem? The answer is a lot more complex and unclear than you might think.

Backgrounder Precarious, Not Permanent: The Status Held by Palestinian Jerusalemites (Pt. 2)

An in-depth look at the extraordinarily precarious legal status held by Palestinian Jerusalemites, and how it has become more precarious over time

Backgrounder The West Side Story, Part 1: Jerusalem before “East” and “West”

Before 1948, Jerusalem was not split between an “East” and a “West.” Rather, a cosmopolitan, multiethnic New City grew organically out of the Old City.

Backgrounder Al-Jidar: An Instrument of Fragmentation

Twenty years on, Israel’s Separation Wall has wholly reconfigured the geopolitical fabric of Jerusalem and its hinterland, shattering Palestinian communities, families, and lives.