Arab Palestinians in Jerusalem were not always concentrated in the eastern part of it, as it is today. Before 1948, Palestinians built and developed the emerging New City, including entire neighborhoods, and enjoyed cosmopolitan, bourgeoisie, even privileged urban life, living alongside Jews and other inhabitants.

Before the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, during and after it, the Palestinians were forced or decided to leave much of Jerusalem, which later came under Israeli control and began to be called West Jerusalem. They were also driven out of dozens of adjacent rural villages. They believed their absence would be temporary until the violence ceases. However, Israel quickly introduced legal mechanisms that prevented them from returning or reclaiming their property or assets, and instead allowed the State of Israel to seize all their property.

1 Palestinian from West Jerusalem has been “total transfer”; West Jerusalem has turned from a diverse and cosmopolitan city center to a Jewish-only center. Until today, the State of Israel has not allowed the Palestinians to return, despite having deep historical roots in Jerusalem and its surroundings. Palestinians from the areas that became West Jerusalem – which were several tens of thousands in 1948, as well as their descendants – cannot reclaim their confiscated property or property of their families, although some live just a short distance in today’s East Jerusalem.

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In today’s Jerusalem, the part that is “West Jerusalem” is exclusively Jewish, and the mainstream narrative accepts this without question—that somehow “East Jerusalem” is the Arab side because it was annexed by Jordan for 19 years between the wars of 1948 and 1967. But the true story, glossed over and erased from Israeli and world public awareness, is that the area that is today called West Jerusalem had an entirely different origin and character, until it was violently and forcibly emptied and reincarnated between 1947 and 1950, and the years that followed.

Jerusalem’s Arab Palestinians were not always concentrated in its east side as they are today. Before 1948, Palestinians built and developed the emerging New City, including entire neighborhoods, and they enjoyed a cosmopolitan, bourgeois, even privileged urban life, living side by side with Jews and others.

Before, during, and after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Palestinians were forced, or opted, to flee the large share of Jerusalem that later came under Israeli control and came to be known as West Jerusalem. They were also expelled from dozens of adjacent rural villages. They believed their absence would be temporary until the violence abated. However, Israel quickly set up legal mechanisms to ensure that they could not return or claim their property or assets, instead allowing the state to take possession of all of it.

A “total transfer”1 of Palestinians from West Jerusalem had been achieved; West Jerusalem was converted from a diverse and cosmopolitan urban center into an exclusively Jewish one. To this day, the state has not allowed Palestinians to return despite their deep historic roots in and around Jerusalem. Palestinians from the areas that became West Jerusalem—who numbered in the tens of thousands in 1948, as well as their descendants—cannot reclaim their families’ seized properties or assets, even if they live just a stone’s throw away in today’s East Jerusalem.