A New York Times dispatch from Jerusalem gives a brief history of the conflict over sovereignty in the city as follows:
Israel conquered Jerusalem's Old City and its environs, along with the West Bank, from Jordan in the 1967 war. Then it expanded the city limits, taking in 28 West Bank villages on the high ground surrounding the city, and annexed the territory in a move that was never internationally recognized. Ever since, its leaders have claimed sovereignty over what they deem Israel's "united capital."
The problem with these potted context paragraphs is what they leave out. No mention of the Jewish presence in Jerusalem's Old City for thousands of years, of that Old City's Jewish Quarter, of the Temple Mount. No mention of the fact that Jerusalem was Israel's capital before the 1967 war, and that many of Israel's Jewish institutions — Hebrew University, the Knesset, the Israel Museum, Hadassah Medical Center — were in Jerusalem before 1967, and in some cases even before 1948. No mention of the fact that Jordan's control of eastern Jerusalem only dated back to Jordan's own decision to reject the U.N. partition plan for British mandatory Palestine and to attack Israel when it was founded. The Times makes it sound like the Jews are some sort of new invaders in Jerusalem, like the crusaders or Romans or something, rather than returning longtime residents.