Let’s start, watching the Pacific Ocean and seeking inspiration. Jerusalem is very far away, from here. Will it be difficult to explain Jerusalemites’ life and pain, historical and political paths, bleak present and the need for recognition, justice, lasting peace? I guess and I hope not.
Here is my schedule in the US.
Very thrilled to be in some of the most important, challenging and interesting centers specialized on Middle East issues. And today I will be at UC Irvine, with Mark LeVine.
Imagine a new paradigm for Israel/Palestine. Imagine today a new paradygm for Jerusalem. The Holy Places. How many hobstacles would you find?
These are few lines I wrote some months ago, after my recent journey in the Middle East and my visit to Jerusalem. I visited the Haram al Sharif, in November, and I met some of the leading religious Muslim figures. I walked on the same stones that where the tragic stage on the last attack on the Mosques’ Esplanade.
“any concession or abrogation of existing rights tended to become the thin end of a wedge before which other rights were apt to disintegrate. Chairs, they feared, would become wooden benches, wooden benches iron benches, iron benches fixed stone benches, with the corollary that covering from above against sun and rain and from the side against cold was equally a matter of humanity; so that the Waqf would one day find houses belonging to others erected against their wishes upon their own property. Such exaggerated suspicions had been for centuries at the root of most of the constantly recurring trouble between the various Christian rites at the Holy Sepulchre”.
I am glad to share with you the news that my book on Jerusalem is available in the North American bookstores. A first-hand account on the city’s political, social, human, urban situation, Jerusalem Without God highlights the political need by the international community to face the facts on the ground and change the paradigm. …