Jerusalem under snow 2013

Jerusalem: Capital of non.

“What would be the truly radical ethico-political act today in the Middle East? For both Israelis and Arabs, it would consist in the gesture of renouncing (political) control of Jerusalem, that is, of endorsing the transformation of the Old Town of Jerusalem into an extra-state place of religious worship controlled by some neutral international force. What both sides should accept is that by renouncing political control of Jerusalem, we are effectively renouncing nothing. We are gaining the elevation of Jerusalem into a genuinely extra-political, sacred site. What we would lose is precisely and only what already, in itself, deserves to be lost: the reduction of religion to a stake in political power play. This would be a true event in the Middle East, true political universality in the Paulinian sense of “there are for us no Jews and no Palestinians.” Each of the two sides would have to realise that this renunciation of the ethnically “pure” nation-state is a liberation for themselves, not simply a sacrifice to be made for the other.

Excerpt From: Zizek, Slavoj. “Violence.”

Jerusalem streets

Eternal Jerusalem

Jerusalem | Filmed in Imax 3D from JerusalemTheMovie on Vimeo.

"New talks about Jerusalem". "Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on the issue of Jerusalem will be postponed by five years". Declarations from Shas, and new rounds of issues such as the Refugees...

All these delayed strategies about Jerusalem seem to me as to kick the ball out of the game, to save time, until some political situation can be more settled. May be is the right thing to do because the matters are still "immature"? But I do not believe that the issue should be whether it belongs to Israel or to the Jordanians or the Palestinians, but that it clearly belongs to the world as a World Heritage.

We are guardians of our patrimony, whether is the land, the air, the water, or what our ancestors left to us, not to a group, but as a part of the development as a human race.

The walled area of Jerusalem, which constituted the entire city until the 1860s, is now called the Old City, and was indeed added to the "List of World Heritage Sites in danger" in 1982.

There are certain issues that cannot be debated in isolation. That require an interdisciplinary approach.

So when we are debating political issues, lets not forget that there are things that will go beyond politics. Things that will stand, as a Testimony of how great or how stupid we were. I want to be optimistic about us, humans. It is so very hard sometimes...

A.O. 

From East Jerusalem . Phograph by Mo'h abu Ghazi

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Who does Jerusalem belong to?

October 4th, 2008

How did Jerusalem come to be so holy to Muslims?
or: Why and when was the myth of al-Aqsa created?

"New talks about Jerusalem". "Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on the issue of Jerusalem will be postponed by five years". Declarations from Shas, and new rounds of issues such as the Refugees...

All these delayed strategies about Jerusalem seem to me as to kick the ball out of the game, to save time, until some political situation can be more settled. May be is the right thing to do because the matters are still "immature"? But I do not believe that the issue should be whether it belongs to Israel or to the Jordanians or the Palestinians, but that it clearly belongs to the world as a World Heritage.

We are guardians of our patrimony, whether is the land, the air, the water, or what our ancestors left to us, not to a group, but as a part of the development as a human race.
The walled area of Jerusalem, which constituted the entire city until the 1860s, is now called the Old City, and was indeed added to the "List of World Heritage Sites in danger" in 1982.

There are certain issues that cannot be debated in isolation. That require an interdisciplinary approach.
So when we are debating political issues, lets not forget that there are things that will go beyond politics. Things that will stand, as a Testimony of how great or how stupid we were. I want to be optimistic about us, humans. It is so very hard sometimes...

A.O.J.