Jerusalem, which is of great significance not only to the Palestinians and Arabs but also to Muslims worldwide, was offered to the Israelis as the biggest Yerushalayim in history, to use Erekat's words.
The offers were made in 2008-09, in the wake of George Bush's Annapolis conference, and were privately hailed by Erekat as giving Israel "the biggest Yerushalayim [the Hebrew name for Jerusalem] in history" in order to resolve the world's most intractable conflict.
To hear their chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, tell the Israelis that the Palestinians are ready to concede "the biggest Yerushalayim in Jewish history" – even using the Hebrew word for the city – will strike many as an act of humiliation.
Henceforth, however, the city is to be identified solely as Yerushalayim.
We won't allow anyone to turn Yerushalayim into al-Quds".
Don't get me wrong, Yerushalayim, al-Quds, the City of Gold, whatever you want to call it has a special place in the hearts of billions, but it is burdensome to actually live there.
Jerusalem, Hebrew Yerushalayim, Arabic Bayt al-Muqaddas or Al-Quds, ancient city of the Middle East that since 1967 has been wholly under the rule of the State of Israel.
His early Hebrew-language poetry, such as "Yerushalayim shel matah" (1924; trans. as "Jerusalem"), was influenced by Walt Whitman.
For "Hebrew Lesson," a repeating thirteen-second video, the Israeli artist Boaz Arad spliced together isolated words and syllables from films of Hitler's speeches to create a herky-jerky but intelligible sentence in Hebrew: "Shalom, Yerushalayim, ani mitnatzel" ("Hello, Jerusalem, I apologize").
May they be comforted among the mourners of Tzion and Yerushalayim.
