Since 1967, despite international legal restrictions, Israel has sought to annex Eastern Jerusalem. Fifty-one years later, it publicly declared in its Nation State Law: “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.” In the West Bank, Israel initiated on the ground changes that furthered annexation without formally declaring any part of it as annexed. For decades, Al-Haq has documented the gradual encroachment of occupation by successive Israeli administrations. And yet the Palestinian leadership failed to successfully utilize the law to support its case. Nor could the 190 states, parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, be convinced to enforce the provision in the Convention which bids the High Contracting Parties to “ensure respect for the present convention in all circumstances.” During the Oslo negotiations, Israel succeeded in leaving Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements outside of the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. Given these patterns across nearly a half-century of history, it seems likely that Israel will declare the full annexation of the West Bank in part or in its entirety precisely because it has succeeded in accomplishing this in the case of Jerusalem.

Muslims have venerated Jerusalem since the seventh century. Their direct control of the city began in 638 and lasted, except for a few interruptions, until 1917. When we examine the evolution of an official Muslim attitude towards Jerusalem, it becomes clear that they perceived their role not as owners of the city but rather as custodians. This attitude was informed by the realization that Jerusalem was sacred to Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike, and that all three religious communities share many of the same sacred sites. As such, statesmanship and law obliged Muslim rulers to protect and defend Christian and Jewish sacred spaces, even against occasional Muslim mob behavior that called for the destruction, confiscation, or exclusive use of those places. The Trump administration's decision in 2017 to enact the 1995 decision of the U.S. Congress to move the American embassy to Jerusalem stands as a violation of this historical framework and of the rule of law and sanctions the eradication of Palestinian identity and historical memory.

The U.S. decision in December 2017 to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem recognizes the latter as the capital of Israel. While violating several UN resolutions and international law, it has in the short-term impacted the negotiations between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel. In the longer term we can see that the impact of the decision is also more complex and nuanced. There are three main areas which suggest this to be the case: First, the lack of clarity over the decision itself; second, the varying degrees of sovereignty exercised by Israel in different parts of Jerusalem due to the city's long and religiously diverse history; and thirdly, the contradictions inherent in imposing a nationalist ideology upon a cosmopolitan and heterodox city.

This article briefly reviews the faults and merits of peacemaking efforts anchored in liberal ideologies. It further calls for a shift in strategy and outlines an approach that seeks transformation of conflicts through acknowledging the ways in which contrasting worldviews undergird and sustain the political conflict.

The moving of the American embassy to Jerusalem coincided with the bloodiest day of the Great March of Return demonstrations. Each of these events had its own history and motivation but they tell the same story: as stable solution could be based only on reciprocal recognition of the attachment of both Israeli and Palestinians to the whole of historic Palestine/Eretz Israel

A new building for the National Library of Israel (NLI), scheduled for completion in 2021, is the culmination of a two-decade process of institutional transformation. Formerly known as the Jewish National and University Library, the NLI has historically served simultaneously as Israel's official state repository, as the Hebrew University's central library, and as a “library of the Jewish people.” Like other national libraries around the world, including elsewhere in the Middle East, the National Library of Israel has had to grapple with accelerated changes in management of library collections due to the proliferation of digital media. More fundamental, however, have been changes in the cultural expectations about how libraries should function. Since 1998, the NLI has sought to expand its mission to promote not only scholarship but also cultural “discourse” among Israel's diverse constituencies. The architectural design of NLI's new edifice was intended, therefore, to do more than house the functional requirements of a modern library. It was commissioned to express through its design the significance of the transformed institution for the Israeli public. Towards that goal, a highly publicized competition for the NLI's design was held in 2012. The original two-stage competition ended in controversy after the architect endorsed by the jurors was dismissed. Yet a review of designs submitted by four Israeli architects in that first competition shows how public spaces, affiliated with public institutions, are expected to foster public discourse in Israel. Whether that discourse is cultural or political, contentious or contradictory, these alternative designs for the NLI illustrate common themes based upon specific environmental tropes, familiar across a broad spectrum of Israeli society.

Our conference this year celebrates crossing borders with the theme “Without Boundaries: The Global Middle East, Then and Now.” In this spirit, I would like to reflect on some of what we have been facing recently in Middle East studies. We have seen challenges to the free circulation of people, ideas, and knowledge, and to the kinds of contacts and exchanges that invigorate our work. And, ironically enough, as restrictions on travel, study, and research have proliferated, the purloining of the cultural property of the region has been proceeding apace. Researchers, students, and scholars in general can move less and less, while the flow of cultural materials from the Middle East to the west has been moving more and more in ways that raise serious ethical questions. MESA and many of its members have been actively engaging these issues, and I will return to some of our accomplishments later in this piece.

Nearly nine years after a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in provincial Tunisia, a sense that the aspirations of the Arab Spring were always doomed to fail has set in among pundits and policymakers. The United States, and to a large extent the European Union, have all but given up on any pretense of democracy promotion in the region and have instead turned again to well-trodden policy repertoires emphasizing a realpolitik approach.