CIAO DATE: 03/2013
December 2012
Jerusalem no longer is the city it was in 2000, when Israelis and Palestinians first negotiated its fate. In the interval, much has changed, complicating the task of unscrambling the Jerusalem egg based on the formula presented by President Clinton in December of that year: what is Jewish would be Israeli; what is Arab would be Palestinian; and a special regime would govern sites holy to the three monotheistic religions. It has become commonplace in some quarters to decree that partitioning is now unfeasible given the pace and shape of settlement construction. Feasibility is an inexact science and, in theory at least, willing mapmakers and determined policymakers still could implement the same principle, if not draw precisely the same line, as twelve years ago. Yet, two things are incontrovertible. First, expansion of Jewish settlements or neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem raises the political price of partition and thus lowers its likelihood. The upshot is that the international community, and notably the U.S., will have to pressure Israel to limit further alteration to Jerusalem’s physical landscape; this challenge is particularly acute today in light of recent settlement announcements that many see as potentially fatal to any two-state solution. The second, less tangible but equally consequential reality is that changes in Israel and the region have intensified religious and historical claims to the city. Whenever negotiations resume, each side will need to acknowledge the other’s ties to Jerusalem and its religious sites, and both sides will have to be open to creative solutions in tune with this new, emerging climate.
Resource link: Extreme Makeover? (I): Israel's Politics of Land and Faith in East Jerusalem [PDF]