Jerusalem, a sanctuary for all
The conflict over the Temple Mount, or Noble Sanctuary, is over walls both literal and figurative — and until these separating walls come down, peace in the Middle East will remain just a dream.
What is to be done about Jerusalem? Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this region is witnessing new walls being built in vain attempts to contain problems between people. When will we realize that walls for separating cultures and people only exacerbate sectarianism and accelerate fragmentation? How long will walls, figurative and physical, continue to poison our humanity?
Rising tensions in the Old City of Jerusalem, which ostensibly is unified but actually never more divided, compound the debris left by military campaigns of past decades. These events typify this conflict as one not being played out in the courtrooms of a state or the international community, or even the ethical courtrooms in our minds. This is a conflict that uses instruments of aggression aimed at polarizing an already fragmented population. It causes us to wonder how long we will allow holy spaces to be used as tools of war.
Competing claims to Jerusalem as the capital for both Israel and a future Palestinian state reflect the need for a new architecture of comprehensive peace, where the cultural domain rises above geopolitics to become a template of hope.
A walk through Jerusalem is a tour of world religion, architectural ascendancy and the winners and losers of wars.
