Jerusalem Day in Israel

                                         

Women's section of wall in 1880's, when photography was possible.  

Remember that Jews could not see the wall because it was in Jordan's hands from 1948 until 1967's War in which many states attacked Israel but Israel won, anyway.  
 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

IDF Paratroopers seeing Wall for 1st time in their life at end of 1967 War.                                                                                       

Soldiers Dancing at the Wall when 1967 War ended and they could enter this part of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem Day (Hebrew: יום ירושלים, Yom Yerushaláyim) is an Israeli national holiday that commemorates the "reunification" of East Jerusalem (including the Old City) with West Jerusalem following the Six-Day War of 1967, which saw Israel occupy East Jerusalem and the West Bank, effectively annexing the former. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared Jerusalem Day to be a minor religious holiday, as it marks the regaining for Jewish people of access to the Western Wall.

Under the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which proposed the establishment of two states in British Mandatory Palestine – a Jewish state and an Arab state – Jerusalem was to be an international city, neither exclusively Arab nor Jewish for a period of ten years, at which point a referendum would be held by Jerusalem residents to determine which country to join. The Jewish leadership accepted the plan, including the internationalization of Jerusalem, but the Arabs rejected the proposal.

Now all you hear from Iran on TV  is prodding of the Palestinians, telling them they deserve all of Jerusalem-inciting war.  

A civil war between Jewish forces and Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine internationalized in to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War the day after Israel declared independence and the surrounding Arab states sent their armies in to the former Mandate territory. Jordan captured East Jerusalem and the Old City while Israel captured the western section of the city. Israeli forces made a concerted attempt to dislodge the Jordanians but were unable to do so, and the war concluded with Jerusalem divided between Israel and Jordan by the Green Line.                         

The Old City and the rest of East Jerusalem, along with the entirety of the West Bank, was occupied by Jordan, who forced the Jewish residents out, while the Palestinian Arab residents of western Jerusalem, at the time one of the more prosperous Arab communities, fled widespread looting and attacks by the Haganah, going from 28,000 to fewer than 750 remaining. Under Jordanian rule, half of the Old City's 58 synagogues were demolished and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was plundered for its tombstones, which were used as paving stones and building materials.

        The Kotel, now accessible, "Wall" 

In 1967, in the Six-Day War, Israel captured and occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank from Jordan on 7 June 1967. Later that day, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan declared what is often quoted during Jerusalem Day:

                        East Jerusalem 

This morning, the Israel Defense Forces liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned to the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again. To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour—and with added emphasis at this hour—our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights. We did not come to Jerusalem for the sake of other peoples' holy places, and not to interfere with the adherents of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and to live there together with others, in unity.

Jerusalem is a major part of Jewish history and religion. Psalms 137 says it all:  It's a prophetic lament of our exile to Babylon and was a charge to the Jews to never remove Jerusalem from their hearts and minds.   "If I ever forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill, Let my tongue adhere to my palate, if I fail to recall you, if I fail to elevate Jerusalem above my foremost joy." 

The war ended with a ceasefire on 11 June 1967 with Israel in control of the entirety of territory of Mandatory Palestine, including all of Jerusalem. On 27 June 1967, Israel expanded the municipal boundaries of West Jerusalem so as to include approximately 70 km² (27.0 sq mi) of territory it had captured in the war, including the entirety of the formerly Jordanian held municipality of East Jerusalem (6 km² (2.3 sq mi)) and an additional 28 villages and areas of the Bethlehem and Beit Jala municipalities 64 km² (25 sq mi). On 30 July 1980, the Knesset officially approved the Jerusalem Law, which called the city the complete and united capital.