What Is the Issue Between Palestine and Israel? A Factual Background

Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock are among the most frequently depicted subjects in Islamic art, and customers regularly ask what they are actually looking at. This page is a factual background to Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa compound and the dispute surrounding them.

It is not a political statement, and it is not religious guidance. We are a wall art company; we have no standing to rule on contested questions of law, politics or fiqh, and this page does not attempt to. Where a matter is disputed, we say who holds which position rather than adjudicating between them.

What "Al-Aqsa" actually refers to

This is the most common confusion in the subject, and it matters directly if you are choosing a piece of art.

Al-Aqsa, in classical usage, is the whole walled compound — roughly 14.4 hectares (36 acres) in the Old City of Jerusalem, known in Arabic as al-Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, and in Jewish tradition as the Temple Mount. Inside it stand two quite different buildings:

Building	What it is	How to recognise it
The Qibli Mosque al-Jami' al-Aqsa	The congregational prayer hall — the mosque proper. It occupies about 0.46 hectares at the southern end of the compound.	Silver-grey dome, long rectangular building, arcaded front.
The Dome of the Rock Qubbat al-Sakhra	A commemorative monument, not a congregational mosque. Built around 691 CE under the fifth Umayyad caliph, Abd al-Malik.	Gold dome, octagonal, covered in blue and turquoise tilework.

The practical consequence: the great majority of artwork, photographs and posters labelled "Al-Aqsa Mosque" actually depict the Dome of the Rock, because it is the more photogenic of the two and stands at the visual centre of the compound. Both are within Al-Aqsa, so the label is not wrong in the wider sense — but if you specifically want the mosque with the silver dome, check the image rather than the title.

Why Jerusalem matters to three faiths

In Islam. Al-Aqsa was the first qibla: the earliest Muslims prayed facing Jerusalem before the direction of prayer was changed to Mecca. It is associated with the Isra, the night journey in which the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is described as travelling from the Sacred Mosque to "the farthest mosque" (Surah al-Isra, 17:1), and with the Mi'raj, the ascension that followed. The two are distinct events, often conflated in English writing.

In Judaism. The same platform is the Temple Mount, understood as the site of the First and Second Temples and the holiest place in Jewish tradition.

In Christianity. Jerusalem's significance rests on its place in the life and teaching of Jesus rather than on the compound itself; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, elsewhere in the Old City, is the principal Christian site.

The compound today is administered by the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, a body of the Jordanian government, with religious authority resting with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

How the modern dispute took shape

• Until 1917 the region was part of the Ottoman Empire.
• 1917–1948 it was administered by Britain under the Mandate for Palestine. Jewish immigration rose sharply over this period, particularly in the 1930s and in the aftermath of the Holocaust, and tension between the Jewish and Arab populations grew with it.
• November 1947 the UN General Assembly proposed partitioning the territory into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem under international administration. The Jewish Agency accepted the plan; the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab League rejected it.
• May 1948 Israel declared independence, and war with neighbouring Arab states followed. Around 700,000 Palestinians were displaced — the events referred to in Arabic as the Nakba, the catastrophe.
• 1967 in the Six-Day War, Israel took the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including the Old City, from Jordan, and Gaza from Egypt.
• 1993–1995 the Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority and a phased framework for self-government that was never completed.

What each side seeks

Stated at the level of declared positions rather than as our own assessment:

• The Palestinian position centres on a sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital, an end to the occupation of those territories, and a resolution of the status of Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 and after.
• The Israeli position centres on security and international recognition of the state's right to exist within recognised borders, and holds Jerusalem to be its undivided capital.

Jerusalem is the point where the two are least reconcilable, which is why it has been deferred in every negotiating framework to date.

Legal and diplomatic status today

• The Palestine Liberation Organisation declared the State of Palestine on 15 November 1988.
• In November 2012 the UN General Assembly granted Palestine non-member observer State status (Resolution 67/19), and in 2024 extended further participation rights short of a vote.
• More than 150 of the 193 UN member states recognise the State of Palestine. It is not a full UN member.
• Israel is a UN member state recognised by most of the world.
• Israel's 1980 declaration of Jerusalem as its "complete and united" capital, and its extension of Israeli law to East Jerusalem, are not recognised by most of the international community; the UN Security Council rejected the measure at the time.

The disputed questions

Serious allegations of violations of international law — concerning settlements in the West Bank, the blockade and military operations in Gaza, and the treatment of civilians — have been made by United Nations bodies, by international human rights organisations and by a number of states. Israel rejects those allegations and describes its actions as necessary for its security. Proceedings before international courts on some of these questions are ongoing.

These are matters for courts, governments and qualified specialists. We record that the dispute exists and who is on each side of it; we are not in a position to settle it, and a wall art company that claimed otherwise would be overreaching.

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Al-Aqsa and Palestine in Islamic art

Independently of the politics, Al-Aqsa has been a subject in Islamic art for centuries — alongside the Kaaba and Masjid an-Nabawi it forms the traditional trio of the three sacred mosques, and sets depicting all three are among the oldest formats in the genre.

• The three-masjid wooden set — Masjid al-Haram, Masjid an-Nabawi and Masjid al-Aqsa, from 30×37.5 cm each.
• The Dome of the Rock in historical sketch on canvas — the gold-domed monument described above.
• The Palestine wooden wall map — part of our wider map collection.

The full masjid collection gathers pieces depicting the three sacred mosques across metal, wood and canvas. For more on the building itself rather than the dispute, see our article on the importance of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

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Historical and statistical details in this article are drawn from published encyclopaedic and United Nations sources. This page describes history, religious significance and the stated positions of the parties; it does not offer legal, political or religious rulings.