Don't Divide Jerusalem: A Border Through the Old City

The putative dividers of Jerusalem - the sincere ones, at any rate - don't really have much idea about what the place looks like. That's the only explanation I can think of for their breathtaking disregard of what the division will mean in reality. This is true for many parts of town, but nowhere more than in the Old City.

When historians tell that there has been a Jewish majority in Jerusalem since the mid 19th century at the latest, they mean the Old City: that was all there was in those days. From the 1870s the Jews seemed to have left the Old city in larger numbers than the Arabs, building new and less cramped neighborhoods outside the walls, so that eventually there probably was an Arab majority inside the walls. After the Arab riots of 1929 the British ethnically cleansed the Jews from most of the old city, leaving them only in the historical Jewish quarter so as to reduce tensions. Green: Muslim Quarter, with no Jews after 1929. Red: Christian Quarter. There seem to have been few Jews there if at all. Blue: Armenian Quarter, with Jews populating its eastern area, adjacent to the Jewish Quarter, in violet.

The Clinton parameters of December 24th 2000 foresaw the re-enacting the British move: moving Jews out of the Muslim Quarter, where they're a minority, and drawing a border around the Jewish Quarter. The Geneva Accord website offers an aerial photo with the division superimposed:
I've added six colored spots to their map, each signifying a short video I've made recently, i.e. April and May 2010. I hope each of them explains itself.

I've described the nine logical scenarios of dividing Jerusalem, here. In most of them the border will have to be real, not a notional line on a map. As these videos show, in the old city there are many places where such a border will run down narrow allies, through buildings, and in some cases (e.g. on Chain Gate street) it will require ground floors to be in Palestine, and upper floors of the same buildings in Israel.

This would be idiotic if it wasn't tragic.

Bikkur Cholim st, on the edge of the Armenian-Jewish quarter, red dot on the map:



This one is from a point where the Armenian and Jewish quarters are all jumbled together (green dot on the map):


Another film from the Western edge of the Jewish Quarter, on Chabad street as it descends to the Arab Market (light blue dot on the map):


This one is on the roof of a point where the Muslim and Jewish Quarters touch. (Dark blue dot on the map):


Finally, here are two films from Chain Gate street in the Muslim Quarter, where the upper stories, including a rooftop version of the same street, are slated to be in Israel, while the ground floors are to be in Palestine. (Dark and pale violet dots on the map):


the next installment in this series is here.