The hotel has hosted such royalty as the dowager empress of Persia, queen
mother Nazli of Egypt and King Abdullah I of Jordan, who arrived with
a retinue on horses and camels. The hotel afforded asylum to three
royal heads of state who had to flee their countries: King Alfonso
VIII of Spain, forced to abdicate in 1931; Emperor Haile Selassie of
Ethiopia, driven out by the Italians in 1936; and King George II of
Greece, who set up his government in exile at the hotel after the
Nazi occupation of his country in 1942.
During the British
Mandate, the entire southern wing became the administrative and
military center of British rule in Palestine and was blown
up in July 1946 by the Irgun.
The hotel subsequently became a British fortress until May 4, 1948,
when the British flag was lowered, and the building became a Jewish
stronghold. At the end of the War
of Independence, the hotel found itself overlooking "no-man’s
land" on the border that divided Jerusalem into Israeli and
Jordanian territory.
When Jerusalem was reunited in 1967,
the hotel reopened under new management and continues to serve as one of the finest hotels
in Israel.
