The Conflict over Jerusalem - Some Palestinian Responses to Concepts of Dispute Resolution
This paper has been written against the backdrop that Jerusalem’s historical,
religious and political significance to two peoples and three faiths, and its
ethnic diversity, have shaped it as a city fraught with a unique mixture of
conflicts, whether domestically, regionally or internationally. The paper looks
at the developments in the city in the late 1980s/early 1990s – i.e., prior to
the Oslo peace process and actual negotiations - and examines the various
approaches and proposals to solve the Jerusalem issue as well as their “real-world” applicability. The focus is thereby on main stream Palestinian and
Israeli views and proposed solutions. The present fourth edition, recognizing
the fact that since then, the Jerusalem Question has become a core agenda issue in the peace process and the subject of intense official and unofficial
negotiations, discusses developments of the past ten years and explores the
implications of the fact that dual Palestinian and Israeli capitals in Jerusalem
as the framework for a solution has today won widespread international
agreement.