Suchergebnisse

Succinct historical overview of the struggle for control of Jerusalem. Based on the author's lecture at CCAS's April 1996 symposium, "Arab Jerusalem

Abstract
The significance of the Western Wall in Jerusalem has undergone numerous transformations over time. Originally a supporting wall for the Temple Mount, it became the focus of mourning after the Temple's destruction, and later a symbol for national rebirth; after the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel reclaimed it as part of its capital. Since then, two trends have been notable: strict religious authorities have taken charge of the site, and this transfer has been portrayed as part of an overall and purportedly inevitable shift in modern Israeli history. But the subsuming of national-historical significance of the Western Wall into a narrower religious one was not inevitable, and this article presents a number of viable policy alternatives that were available in 1967. Moreover, it suggests that the current status of the wall and policy towards it are outliers relative to mainstream public opinion, an example of political expediency conflicting with public interest.

This volume is a critical study of recent archaeology in the Western Wall Plaza area, Jerusalem. Considered one of the holiest places on Earth for Jews and Muslims, it is also a place of controversy, where the State marks 'our' remains for preservation and adoration and 'theirs' for silencing.Based on thousands of documents from the Israel Antiquities Authority and other sources, such as protocols of planning committees, readers can explore for the first time this archaeological 'heart of darkness' in East Jerusalem. The book follows a series of unique discoveries, reviewing the approval and execution of development plans and excavations, and the use of the areas once excavation has finished. Who decides what and how to excavate, what to preserve – or 'remove'? Who pays for the archaeology, for what aims? The professional, scientific archaeology of the past happens now: it modifies the present and is modified by it. This book 'excavates' the archaeology of East Jerusalem to reveal its social and political contexts, power structures and ethics. Readers interested in the history, archaeology and politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will find this book useful, as well as scholars and students of the history and ethics of Archaeology, Jerusalem, conservation, nationalism, and heritage.

Sozialgeschichtliche Daten über Jerusalem zeigen, dass das 1948er "Arab Jerusalem" keineswegs auf den Teil der Stadt beschränkt ist, der 1967 von Israel besetzt wurde und über den in den Verhandlungen über den endgültigen Status der palästinensischen Gebiete entschieden werden soll. Eine Korrektur dieser räumlichen Dimension hat Implikationen für die Verhandlungspositionen sowohl in der Jerusalemfrage wie auch in der Flüchtlingsfrage. (DÜI-Hns)

This project compares two Separation Barriers and their urban landscape, in two very different cultural contexts: in the cities of Jerusalem and Berlin. The focus is on how different mapmakers cartographically represent both physical divisions - such as walls and barriers, as well as imaginary divides - such as geopolitical or socio-ethnic divisions in divided cities. Jerusalem and Berlin are particularly powerful symbols of political partition as the Berlin Wall split the city of Berlin for over 26 years and Jerusalem remains a divided city to this day. In particular this paper addresses such questions as: how do map-makers across the divides use representational strategies of inclusion or exclusion, mapping and naming to either unify or split divided cities and claim or expunge urban spaces? How do they cartographically represent, visualize or erase geopolitical walls and barriers? Also how has the rise of political tourism affected the visibility of geopolitical walls and barriers in maps and on the ground? By addressing these questions, this paper traces the changing politics of the visibility or relative invisibility of walls and the cityscapes they divide at any given time and place.