Peace in Jerusalem

Peace in Jerusalem is possible with a few adjustments in ideas.  Perception is everything.

By whatever name, there must be some form of Palestinian autonomy.  The present disputes are between limited, extreme forms of power devolvement, or are ways of denying any such autonomy or making it total and absolute with Israel’s destruction.   Centrist positions based on a peaceful co-existence are rarely considered.   We must not be satisfied with a compromise that binds everyone into an unsatisfactory stale-mate indefinitely.  Political autonomy can belong to a sub-set of a society without needing territorial divisions.  Palestinian autonomy could be developed as Palestinian Statehood within a Greater Israel – a State within a State.  

Remaining un-divided, Jerusalem can also act as the Palestinian Capital, because it will be a shared capital, not a split city.  There are advantages of shared embassies and Israel is in control of security.  But it will take good will. The only way to achieve real Peace in Jerusalem is for the mutual denial of each other’s declaration of Divine Unity to end.  There must be genuine mutual religious acknowledgement.  It is time that Jewish Rabbis accepted that the Prophet of Islam pbuh is a true Prophet to the Gentiles while not a Jewish Prophet.  Islam is equivalent to Judaism, as for example, in the way that Halal and Kosher are one system within another.  

Our two religions should be in harmony with each other.  It could start anywhere.  It would be most excellent if a Yeshiva joined up with a college for the training of Imams, and in doing so the two religions would work together to find the deep similarity between them.  There is no end to the level of co-operation that might be achieved in centuries to come, once the process has begun.  It is possible to imagine Judea as a Theocracy, where everyone complies with Jewish Law or Sharia Law depending on their faith, and the two co-exist like fraternal siblings who love each other.  

Even though Judaism is much older, in a way Islam is more universal, so it is possible to see Judaism as another strand within Islam like Sunni and Shia; while they dispute the lineage of the Caliphate after the Prophet pbuh, Jews deny there was any such lineage at all, which is quite different from denying the Prophet phuh.  

If Jerusalem were to become a Palestinian Capital, it would be logical to extend that to any re-established Caliphate, which is a consideration that might frighten people more than a mere Palestinian State with its own little Capital within a walled ghetto of a split city.  It frightens me, I am stopping thinking of this now.