The graduate school of conflict resolution held a teachin featuring political science professor at Bar Ilan university, Israel Menachem Klein, an expert on Jerusalem, author of the book Contested City and advisor to the Barak delegation during the Camp David 2000 and Taba Peace talks. A tall and lanky man, Klein delivered a profoundly informative lecture on a very real city that has all too often been “mistaken for some dogmatic dream or Heavenly realm.” Using demographic maps, social statistics and news articles, Klein painted a portrait of the problems facing the city today, its archaic importance within both Israeli and Palestinian discourse and its status vis-à-vis the peace processes between the two sides.

After the capture of East Jerusalem from Jordanian rule in 1967, Israel’s aspirations of a “united Jerusalem- eternal Capital of Israel” were close to realization. International pressure has slowed this movement and, as a result, the city still has two sections, one the Old Arab/Orthodox Jewish East, the other the urbanized, burgeoning Jewish West complete with skyscrapers, inner city slums and cosmopolitan cafés, clubs and bars.

But times are changing, according to Klein. Just last year, East Jerusalem declared a Jewish majority over the Arab population at 52%, and her borders have expanded East during the Oslo process. Palestinian villages such as Abu-dis and Israeli settlements such as Beit El are now considered Jerusalem suburbs. With the expansion, however, comes increasing tension. The closure of the Orient house, once considered a symbol of Arab rule in East Jerusalem, and the accelerated pace at which Arab citizens are being stripped of their Jerusalem ID cards has raised eyebrows amongst the Palestinian populous and the Israeli center and left. “These policies are designed to alienate the Arab community in Jerusalem,” argued Klein. But it doesn’t end there.

According to Klein, East Jerusalem is lacking in parks, classrooms, day care centers and a cohesive legal system that serves a purpose other than “preventing terrorism from the Arabs.”

This declining infrastructure, according to Klein, is designed specifically to “contain the Arab demography while encouraging a supreme Israeli one” within what was once a predominately Arab section of Jerusalem. With the Intifadah raging on, the restrictions have increased. Jerusalem has become closed off to many Palestinians in the West Bank, and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, who constitute 10% of the total Palestinian population, have begun to face harsher restrictions by the local Israeli authorities. During the first Intifadah of 1987, Jerusalem was considered a haven away from the day-to-day street clashes between soldiers and Palestinian stone throwers. Nowadays, it seems as if the Intifadah has rocked Jerusalem’s foundations. Klein talked about the disintegrating relationships between Arab and Jewish residents of the city. “Arab taxi drivers will refuse to take you West and Jewish taxi drivers won’t go near an Arab neighborhood! Israeli neighborhoods are asking that they be fenced off [following the spate of terrorist attacks] and Palestinian shopkeepers have begun to boycott Israeli products and customers [in protest to the Israeli occupation and the lack of civil administrative support from the Israeli Jerusalem authorities]. The situation looks bleak.”

If history is any indication, future negotiations will be difficult. In the Israeli right-wing Likud administration, concessions are going to be very hard to come by. Palestinian negotiators have also adamantly refused to adress the issue of Jerusalem. Border control, boundaries and social/civil administration have been at issue from day one and are not set to change any time soon. Change, Klein argues, will only come about if the Palestinians present a more dynamic face-lift to their claims for Jerusalem and if Israel actually considers giving up Jerusalem territories for Palestinian rule. This, of course, is an unlikely prospect.