The Knesset passed Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel with a simple majority of 69 to 15. The text was brief and declarative: 'Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.' It mandated that state institutions—the presidency, parliament, government, and Supreme Court—must be seated within the city’s municipal boundaries. The law provided a legislative framework for a de facto situation that had existed since the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan and later expanded the city’s municipal borders.
The law’s passage was not a routine administrative act. It was a political statement of permanence aimed at both domestic and international audiences. For Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s Likud government, it solidified a core ideological tenet: that a divided Jerusalem was unacceptable. The timing, on the eve of the Hebrew calendar date of Tisha B'Av, a day mourning the destruction of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem, was symbolically potent.
The international reaction was swift and negative. Within two weeks, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 478, which deemed the law 'null and void' and a violation of international law. The resolution called upon member states with diplomatic missions in Jerusalem to withdraw them. Thirteen countries subsequently relocated their embassies to Tel Aviv. The United States initially voted for the resolution but its stance would later become a central and volatile point in foreign policy.
The Jerusalem Law’s enduring impact is its role as a legal and diplomatic fault line. It did not create new facts on the ground so much as it codified existing ones into Israeli constitutional law, making any future territorial compromise over the city’s status politically and legally more complex. Every American administration since 1980 has officially recognized Tel Aviv as the location of Israel’s capital, until the U.S. moved its embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, directly contravening the UN resolution and affirming the Israeli law’s long-fought claim.