These include different denominations of Christians, African and Sufi Muslims, Gypsies (known as Rom) and Israeli Jews (largely Orthodox) who live in far better conditions with the backing of their controlling state. Much has changed since then, especially for the 32,000 Palestinians (about 90% of the Old City’s population) who now reside in what Teller defines as nine quarters. It occupied Palestine towards the end of the first world war, issuing the Balfour Declaration in November 1917, a landmark achievement for the nascent Zionist movement. The Old City is still enclosed by 16th-century walls built by the Ottomans and only started to expand beyond them in the 1860s when Britain, then the rising global superpower, began to take an interest, reinforced by its Protestant Christian identity.
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