Jerusalem unbound : geography, history, and the future of the holy city /

Jerusalem's formal political borders reveal neither the dynamics of power in the city nor the underlying factors that make an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians so difficult. The lines delineating Israeli authority are frequently different from those delineating segregated housing or...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dumper, Michael (Author)
Published: Columbia University Press,
Publisher Address: New York :
Publication Dates: [2014]
Literature type: Book
Language: English
Subjects:
Summary: Jerusalem's formal political borders reveal neither the dynamics of power in the city nor the underlying factors that make an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians so difficult. The lines delineating Israeli authority are frequently different from those delineating segregated housing or areas of uneven service provision or parallel national electoral districts of competing educational jurisdictions. In particular, the city's large number of holy sites and restricted religious compounds create enclaves that continually threaten to undermine the Israeli state's authority and control over the city. This lack of congruity between political control and the actual spatial organization and everyday use of the city leaves many areas of occupied East Jerusalem in a kind of twilight zone where citizenship, property rights, and the enforcement of the rule of law are ambiguously applied. Michael Dumper plots a history of Jerusalem that examines this intersecting and multileveled matrix and, in so doing, is able to portray the constraints on Israeli control over the city and the resilience of Palestinian enclaves after forty-five years of Israeli occupation. Adding to this complex mix is the role of numerous external influences -- religious, political, financial, and cultural -- so that the city is also a crucible for broader contestation. While the Palestinians may not return to their previous preeminence in the city, neither will Israel be able to assert a total and irreversible dominance. His conclusion is that the city will not only have to be shared but that the sharing will be based upon these many borders and the interplay between history, geography, and religion.
Carrier Form: xiv, 339 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-324) and index.
ISBN: 9780231161961 (cloth : alkaline paper) :
0231161964 (cloth : alkaline paper)
9780231537353 (e-book)
0231537352 (e-book)
Index Number: DS109
CLC: D815.4
Call Number: D815.4/D896
Contents: The hard borders of the city -- The softer borders of the city -- The scattered borders of holiness -- The international community and Jerusalem -- Jerusalem in the twenty-first century: what prospect of peace?.