Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who several times in the past declared the Jerusalem is Israel's "undivided and eternal capital," said on Jerusalem Unification Day Monday only that it will be the country's capital forever. Speaking on Ammunition Hill, he referred to the city as having been "divided" but did not say it will not return to that status. He has proposed ceding parts of the capital to be the headquarters for a new Arab state.

However, he implied that the Temple Mount will remain under Israeli sovereignty. "Forty-one years ago, in a war that was forced upon us, Jerusalem was liberated and united," he declared. "Nearly 3,000 years after David and Solomon sanctified it as the capital of Israel and the city of the Temple, and nearly 1,900 years after it fell and was torn from us during the destruction of the Second Temple, Jerusalem--with Israel’s holy places contained within it--returned to the bosom of the Jewish people, who yearned and dreamed and prayed to it in endless longing. It was returned and cannot be undone."