Toby Atkin-Wright

The naive answer might be that the capital city of Israel is whichever city the Israeli government designates as its capital city; formerly Tel Aviv, it has been Jerusalem since 1980. But no, the BBC today consistently referred to Tel Aviv as the Israeli capital, later nuanced to call Tel Aviv the “commercial” capital. Like pretty much everything else to do with Israel, this is a highly contentious issue — the city of Jerusalem is also claimed as the capital of the (somewhat virtual) state of Palestine.

The United Nations position is that Jerusalem should be an international city, and that Israel claiming it as its capital is a violation of international law. This status as an international city was intended, but not enacted, at the time of Israel’s creation as a nation.

So, it is incorrect to refer to Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital, but internationally unacceptable to refer to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Does that mean that Israel doesn’t have a capital city?