두 민족과 세 종교가 서로 소유권을 주장하는 예루살렘은 결코 단순한 도시가 아니다. 그 곳은 오늘날 지구촌의 대표적인 분쟁 도시이다. 끊임없는 중동 분쟁과 이스라엘-팔레스타인 갈등은 민족적 주권과 영토권을 둘러싼 역사적 분쟁과 관련되어 있다. 어떤 장소에서 어떤 국가가 주도권을 장악하는가에 따라 분쟁과 협상의 조건을 규정해왔다. 예루살렘은 지리적, 역사적으로 적대관계에 있는 민족들과 신자들에게 깊은 의미를 가지고 있는 공간과 구조물이 복잡하게 연관되어 있다. 예루살렘을 수도로 주장하는 이스라엘과 팔레스타인 분쟁은 복잡성과 정치적 측면을 한층 확대시키고 있다. 예루살렘의 운명은 국제법과 기본적인 시민권을 보장하는 법에 의해 결정되어야 한다. 그러한 권리에는 평등, 정의, 그리고 국가적 정체성을 표현할 권리와 자신이 선택한 지도자에 통치 받을 권리가 포함된다. 예루살렘은 모든 순례자들에게 열려야 하며, 성지들은 이스라엘의 관할에 종속되어서는 안 되며, 도시의 문화적, 건축적 유산을 보호하기 위해 현 상태가 유지되어야 한다. 예루살렘의 해법은 결코 단순한 문제가 아니다. 하지만 예루살렘을 분쟁도시에서 평화도시로 만들기 위해서는 국제사회의 관심과 함께 거주민과 도시 자체에 대한 논의를 시작해야 한다. 즉, 국가가 아닌 도시 예루살렘을 통해 예루살렘의 대안적 비전을 제시할 수 있다. 도시 및 거주민의 관점에서 도시의 미래 대안을 논의해야 할 시점이다. 그것은 예루살렘을 둘러싼 분쟁과 갈등과 같은 정치적 제약으로 인해 초보적인 논의조차 이루어지지 않았다. 또한 도시 주민들이 도시를 위한 작고 지속적인 발전조차도 합의할 수 없게 만들었다. 따라서 지속가능하고 평화로운 환경에서 예루살렘 시민들을 분열시키지 않고 통합할 수 있는 새로운 제도, 대안적인 공간 사용과 같은 논의가 시작되어야 한다. 더불어 예루살렘의 미래를 위한 전세계의 이해 당사자들의 관심과 노력이 필요하다.
Jeruslem is both the nucleus of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the key to its resolution. A city of vital importance to Palestinians and Israelis and holy to the three major monotheistic religion, Jerusalem is destined to play a pivotal role in any future political agreement between Palestinian and Israeli peoples. Peace will be made or broken over Jerusalem. What would it take to make a city claimed by two nations and central to three religions "merely" a city, a place of difference and diversity in which contending ideas and citizenries can co-exist in benign yet creative ways? The intractable conflicts in the Middle East and the cycle of violence among Israelis and Palestinians are deeply embedded in historical struggles over national sovereignty and the right to territory. For this reason, questions about whose state will prevail in what physical location have defined the terms of conflict and negotiation. This also has meant that most proposed solutions to "the Middle East problem" have revolved around competing claims of nation-states, their rights to existence, and their physical and juridically-sanctioned relationships to each other. While true generally, this framing of the problem has been especially dominant in the case of Jerusalem, a city that is geographically and historically an overlay of spaces and artifacts that carry deep meaning for competing peoples and nations. During the Ottoman period, in fact, long before struggles for the creation of a single sovereign national state in this territory, a multiplicity of institutional arrangements governed servicing and representation in the city, and they operated in ways that led to relatively peacefully co-existence among the city`s Jews, Muslims, and Catholics. It is this undeniable historical fact and the promise that it holds for re-envisioning the city that offers some hope for Jerusalem`s future- and hopefully in ways that can help ease the Palestinian-Israeli conflict more generally. The larger point here is that Jerusalem`s destiny has never been defined through the democratic acts or locally-cast desires of residents who are struggling in and for the city itself. Rather, Jerusalem`s diverse peoples have been seen as portals-individually or collectively- to symbolic and power contestations much larger than themselves, be they imperialistic or religious or ethnic. One of the negative consequences of this practice is the loss of democracy, as residents are routinely denied access to the institutions and practices to self-determine conditions in their city. Instead, the role, character and meaning of the city, and ultimately the preferred `solutions` for its problems, have always been imposed from the "outside," on the basis of external reference points defined in terms of imperial, national, or religious aims. That is, we want to encourage and cultivate an autonomously urban vision of the city, one that would be meaningful to the social, cultural, ecological and economic life of Jerusalem and its own residents-regardless of how this proposal would be accommodated within the larger nationalist or imperial claims. Current Israeli policies in Jerusalem endanger the possibility of reaching a future political agreement, leading instead toward continued conflict and despair-in Jerusalem and in the region. Thus, Israeli and Palestinian Jerusalemites live their lives confronted, complicated and hindered by the difficulties of the conflict. In order to move toward a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Israeli policies in Jerusalem must be reversed, and an alternative policy framework desinged, so as to allow for the equitable, sustainable development of both peoples in the city as well as for the building of trust between them. This framework will enable the creation of institution and process that will allow each community to formulate its future in a manner that ensures the dignity and welfare of all residents, and safeguards their holy places and their historical and cultural heritages.