The Status Quo Solution for Jerusalem

Sharing sovereignty of political territory is not practiced often, yet it seems to be the only reasonable solution for the complex issue of Jerusalem. Using the holy places of Jerusalem as a model the author shows how sharing sacred space, albeit on a very small scale, can be done peacefully. For more than a century Greeks, Latins, Armenians, and Copts have shared the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in an interlocking system of scattered sovereignty. Such a system also could work between Israelis and Palestinians as they share the sacred space of Jerusalem.

CHAD F. EMMETT is assistant professor of geography at Brigham Young University.