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Negotiating
Jerusalem April 2002 (English, Pp. 127)
Israel and the PLO have decided to exclude from the framework of the interim peace agreements the discussion over the highly sensitive and strategic issue of Jerusalem until the beginning of the permanent status negotiations. Introducing two opposite - and specular - models of collective identity may offer one possible explanation for this decision. The first, the territorial/national approach emphasizes the special importance of Jerusalem as the national capital for two warring parties. The second model follows a universalist-religious approach. This view stresses Jerusalem's significance as a spiritual center for Christians, Jews and Muslims spread throughout the world. The paper's basic assumption is based on the premise that "[a]ll Western nations tend to think and behave in bipolar terms." The resulting dichotomist approach characterizes Western culture in many different fields, influencing its scholarly language and current popular terminology. Examples include Particular/Universal, Secular/Religious, Profane/Sacred, Public/Private or Territorial/Trans-territorial. Without going back to Emmanuel Kant's apriori, it is sufficient to mention, more recently, the outstanding contribution of George Simmel to stress the importance of pre-constructed views in the interpretation of social and cultural phenomena. In the context of this dichotomist approach to the issue at hand, a 'religious and cultural status quo' (in the broad sense) in respect to the city as well as the Status Quo in the narrow sense applied to the major Holy Places located in the area govern the relations between the members of the religious orders that reside there as well as their relations with the territorial authority. These explanations allude to the various claims made on the city. Their determination as well as the exact definition of the parties who make them is a complicated task. One of the reasons is the complex interweaving of both the aforementioned territorial/national and the universalist-religious discourses. An apparent clear-cut dichotomy emerges between the two described models of collective identity. This work aims at awakening awareness of this dichotomist approach, with the ambitious goal of helping to better understanding of the issue at hand. The drafters and supporters of the Palestinian-Israeli agreements and the Oslo Peace Process tend to stress the territorial/national discourse. However, they have an interest not to overlook the possibility of incorporating the universal/religious discourse to achieve a successful compromise in the negotiations process. Western and European conquerors, especially in the last two centuries, have influenced models of collective identities in the Middle East, which were organized in more flexible frameworks, such as the Millet system. An exhaustive study of this phenomenon would go far beyond the limited scope of this work. Nevertheless, it is important to stress the fact that models, however sophisticated and complex they may be, always contain an element of abstract simplification. Human reality is much more complex and, by definition, dynamic. For example, different models of collective identity and corresponding symbols are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One may adopt either a national territorial-oriented or a universalist-oriented approach - whether religious or not - as a heuristic tool to interpret social realities as long as it works and makes sense. However, this does not necessarily imply that the resulting models are the reality. The same cautious attitude is required when considering the models of governmental power described in this paper along different criteria of jurisdiction or authority. When incorporating the universalist-religious model of identity into the policy process, negotiators may focus their attention, its very symbols in the area, namely Jerusalem and the Holy Places. In this respect, negotiators may try to take into account - as much as possible - temporary 'status quo' arrangements in order to avoid the obstruction of peace compromises by religious conflicts. The author, to address this issue, has developed policy options potentially applicable to the current permanent status negotiations. These include creative solutions such as the replacement of controversial words by alternative terms (for example 'sovereignty' or 'status quo') that otherwise in the negotiations could become the source of political manipulation. The author has discussed his ideas in several international conferences and seminars with the participation of Arab, Israeli, European and American diplomats and academics, including, in the year 2000, the Committee on Jerusalem chaired by Dr. Moshe Amirav on the request of the Israeli Prime Minister. Several governmental and academic bodies funded his research, including the Holy See, the Royal Court of Jordan, the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at the Tel Aviv University as well as the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University. It should be mentioned here that the work presented in the following is based on a lecture given by the author for PASSIA on 23 August 2001. It includes updated portions of the following articles by the author: "Alternative Definitions of Sovereignty: An Analysis of Coexisting of National and Religious Identities in Jerusalem" , and "Creative Approaches for the Coexistence of National and Religious Identities in Jerusalem." Last but not least, the author would like to acknowledge the help of his research assistants who contributed as well as were involved in the reviewing and editing process of this work - Devorah Brous, Brendon Carlill, Kristopher Colbert, Svetlana Greenfield, Ephraim Mor, Jacob Raver, Marco Zarfati - as well as the team's coordinator Merav Barlev.
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