ABSTRACT
In the closing stages of the Camp David summit in July 2000, leaks to the media indicated that there was a flurry of proposals to bridge the differences between the Israel and Palestinian positions on Jerusalem.1 Particularly dramatic were the various proposals of how to deal with the question of sovereignty over the Old City and the Haram ash-Sharif/Temple Mount. These included: dividing the Old City; recognizing Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram ash-Sharif/Temple Mount but allowing a Jewish place of prayer on a part of the enclosure; suspending sovereignty for an indefinite period; attributing sovereignty to God and allocating management functions to the two parties; entrusting sovereignty to an international religious council including Turkey under the auspices of the United Nations; dividing the Haram ash-Sharif/Temple Mount enclosure horizontally, with the Palestinian state having sovereignty over the surface to a certain depth, and the Israeli state having sovereignty over the lower reaches.2 The increasingly bizarre contortions which the negotiators were driven to consider were an indication of the desperation of the American mediators to secure an agreement. More importantly, these proposals pointed to the absence of a clear set of principles with which to approach the complexity of the Jerusalem question and the lack of clarity in international law over its resolution in a manner that respected the rights of all parties concerned.
