Jerusalem has stood at the center of the Jewish people's national and spirtiual life since King David made it the capital of his Kingdom in 1003 BCE. They city remained the capital of the Davidic dynasty for 400 years, until the kingdom was conquered by the Babylonians. Following the retrun from the Babyloinans exile in 538 BCE, Jerusalem again served as the capital of the Jewish people in its land for the next five and half centuries.
The Christian link with Jerusalem is essentially a religious one. Except for the short-lived Crusader Kingdom, it has not assumed political or secular connotations. During the six centuries of Roman and Byzantine rule, Caesarea, not Jerusalem, was the capital.
During Muslim rule over the city, whether Arab or non-Arab, Jerusalem was never made the political capital of a Muslim entity or even a province within the Muslim Empire. Under Muslim Arab rule (638-1099) by the Umayyad, the Abbasid and the Fatamid caliphs, Jerusalem was ruled from Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo respectively. In the eight cenury, the city of Ramia was made the capital of the district which embraced Jerusalem.
During the period of Mamluk rile (1250-1516), the land was ruled from Damascus; in Ottoman times (1517-1917), from Constanitinople.
Under the British rule (1922-1948), Jerusalem was the seat of the High Commissioner and most adminstrative offices of the Mandate, as well as of the central institutions of the growing Jewish community.
From 1948-1967, Jerusalem was a city divided as a result of a war thrust upton her. For nineteen years, concrete walls and barbed wire sealed off one part of the city from antother. Its eastern section, including the Old City, was annexed by Jordan, and rulled from its capital Amman. The western sector of Jerusalem became Israel's capital.
Following another war in June 1967, Jerusalem was reunited. The barries dividing the city were demolished, the gates of the old city were opened to people of all faiths, adn eastern was reintegrated into the nation's capital.
In July 1980 The Kesset passed the Basic Law - Jerusalem, which restated Israel's rights and obligations concering the capital. The Law affirmed that the holy places of all religions be protected from desecration, free access to them be guaranteed, and the Goverment provided for the development and the prosperity of the city and the well being of its inhabitants.