The purpose of this research is to examine the negative aspects of making Jerusalem an international city. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which the issue of declaring Jerusalem a city under some form of international control has surfaced in the modern period and then to address the historical, cultural/religious, political, and economic aspects of the issue, with a view toward demonstrating the disadvantages of reconfiguring jurisdiction over the city territory and population.
In recent years, attempts to reconcile the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East have floundered for a variety of reasons. One issue of central importance to both Israelis and Arabs has been the status of governance and character of Jerusalem, chiefly because of the significance of the city in both Arab and Jewish culture. But the difficulties of settling this issue have been quite pronounced, because of the "baggage" of cultural investment in the city and because of its history in the modern period. The religious culture in the Old City of Jerusalem has resonance for Christians, Jews, and Muslims: "to Christians as the site of Jesus Christ's last days on earth . . . to Jews as the historical symbol of the Jewish homeland and capital of the first Jewish kingdom . . . to Muslims as the site of the ascent into heaven of their prophet Muhammad" (Phillips, 1975, p. 189). Arabs (who are Muslim or Christian) and Jews have cultural claims on modern Jerusalem that intersect with political claims. As Gilbert points out (1994), Jews see Jerusalem as both spiritual and temporal foundation of the state of Israel, while Muslims claim ownership of Jerusalem based on events significant to their religious history.
Politics appears to have irrevocably complicated the status of Jerusalem in the modern period. When Israel was recognized by the United Nations in 1947, there was a formal partition of Jerusalem, with the eastern part of the city,...