It is a well known fact that Jerusalem was the capital of Arab Palestine, the mayors of the city since the municipality of Jerusalem was established in 1863 and until 1948 were Palestinian Arabs. At the turn of the century, Yousef Dia el-Din El-Khalidi was the mayor of Jerusalem, he was mayor of the city between 1899 and 1906, Mayor Faidi el-Alami between 1906 and 1909, Mayor Aref el-Dajani until 1918, Mayor Mousa Kazem el-Husseini (Grandfather of Faisal Husseini) between 1918-1920 when he was forcibly moved by the British, Mayor Ragheb Nashashibi from 1920-1934, Mayor Hussein Fakhri el-Khalidi from 1934-1937.

Up until 1948, West Jerusalem never had a Jewish mayor, simply because the city was Palestinian. However, authentic Palestinian Jews were on the municipality board. As mentioned earlier, Jerusalem city council was first established in 1863 during the Ottoman rule on Palestine. The municipal council was then composed of five members, four Palestinian Arabs and one Palestinian Jew. At the end of the 19th century there was a small Jewish community in Palestine of around 20,000 and they were part of the Palestinian sociatissue.

These are facts known to some but are unknown many in this world, and as the Jerusalem question is on the Palestinian/Israeli final talks agenda scheduled to begin in May 1996, it is important to inform people of these facts.

In 1948 the Jewish state was established and the Palestinian Arabs were driven out of West Jerusalem, after which Jewish mayors took office in West Jerusalem. Palestinian mayors remained in charge in Arab East Jerusalem until 1967.

Pre 1948, the government of Palestine was a Palestinian government albeit ruled by the British who brought Palestine under their rule in 1918 after World War I. At the time, we had a Palestinian currency - the Palestinian pound.