ABSTRACT
The Old City of Jerusalem is perhaps the most contentious issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its sovereignty, administration and control are questions of great dispute, and its Holy Sites resonate powerfully in the hearts and minds of Muslims, Jews and Christians everywhere. The Old City cannot be divorced from its political, social and economic links to Jerusalem as a whole, nor from its Israeli or Palestinian hinterlands. Different entry-exit criteria would likely be necessary for the Old City's various gates, depending on their uses. Certainly, nationals of one country would only be permitted to move to the other, via the Old City, when equipped with the necessary travel documents. For the purposes of the discussion document, people have used the more conservative estimate of three million tourists annually, and the corresponding number of 13,500 new jobs. The transfer of embassies and international organizations would create demands on the reservoir of land in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.
