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114 SHOFAR Fa111997 Vol. 16, No.1 Book Reviews Governing Jerusalem: Again on the World's Agenda, by Ira Sharkansky. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996. 245 pp. $36.00. For over three thousand years, the eyes ofthe rulers ofnumerous battling regimes were on the final prize-the City of Gold. For over three thousand years, the eyes of their negotiators were on the [mal reward-the City of Peace (the translation of its Hebrew name). The same prize of gold and the same reward of peace-the City of Jerusalem -is again the [mal agenda item of Israeli and Palestinian rulers and their slowly progressing negotiators. Can they experience anything that their predecessors of three millennia did not experience? Indeed, Jerusalem is "again on the world's agenda." Can students of the city learn anything they have not learned before? Governing Jerusalem answers these questions and many others by opening new avenues to understand Jerusalem through urban political science and political economy, disciplines that have devoted scant attention to the city in the past. This timely study might serve academics and politicians as well as urban policymakers and their constituents. It reviews the highest stake ofthe Middle East peace process from both its emotional and material dimensions. It analyzes these contested dimensions of Jerusalem in the context ofboth their historical and contemporary perspectives. Sharkansky sets the tone ofhis analysis in the first chapter. It is that of "Jerusalem below," with problems of municipal services, urban development, and political competition-a city with the same problems of many other cities, a city that was removed from power and economic centers, underpopulated, semi-abandoned, and that was also below the average standards of health and sanitation for lengthy periods in history. But the earthly Jerusalem, continues the author, is distinct from its numerous images of "Jerusalem above." Those are images of a "Holy City" with competing religions and cultures and of a "Spiritual City" with universal moral and ethical crossroads. Those images from the Canaanite, Israelite, Persian, Roman, Arab, Crusader, Ottoman, and British periods are still propelling the city's problems of today. The historical "below" and "above" layers ofJerusalem are umaveled in the second chapter, which focuses on the city's geopolitics in ancient and biblical times, and in the third chapter, which covers historical episodes that have impact on contemporary Jerusalem. The accommodation and domination strategies ofdifferent historical regimes are also analyzed in these chapters. The policy environment that shapes political decision-making in the city is the Book Reviews 115 subject of the fourth chapter. Jerusalem is part of the Israeli centralized national-local government system. Its mayor, city council, and municipal departments greatly depend on the decisions of national ministries and public bodies. At the same time, the city's distinct national and international status, as well as the public and private fmancial entrepreneurship ofMayor Teddy Kollek (1966-1993), enabled it to pursue a relatively independent urban development policy. The social, economic, and political traits of Jerusalem and their implications to its local, national, and international politics are the focus of the fifth chapter. Arabs and Jews, secular and religious Jews, different etlmic and class groups, are all territorially based in their homogenous neighborhoods. This social-geographic distribution simultaneously complicates and simplifies the conflicts among all these groups. And much of this local conflict bears national and international meanings. Key elements ofpolicyrnaking in Jerusalem are presented in the sixth chapter. The city's undefmed boundaries, its social tensions, and the "who governs" competition between local and national officials preclude a simple definition of policymaking. Nonetheless, contemporary urban policy goals are identified on the basis of political statements, actions, and episodes. Policymaking in the early 1990s as well as an evaluation of Jerusalem under the Israeli regime are summarized in the seventh chapter. Questions of"who gets what" and how do groups benefit or lose are treated. A discussion of the city's role in the current peace process and the lessons to other cities with similar severe constraints concludes this fmal chapter. Governing Jerusalem, in sum, is a useful and original analysis with an extensive coverage of the city and its politics. It is a welcome addition...

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