The “Hope from Jerusalem” initiative of the Ir Amim organization seeks to restore Jerusalem to the heart of the political discourse and to articulate a framework that recognizes the city as the capital of both peoples. It rests on the understanding that resolving Jerusalem is the key to resolving the entire conflict, and offers a vision that aims to share the city — not divide it. In doing so, it joins the family of confederative initiatives, or those with confederative characteristics, such as “Eretz L’Kulam/Bilad lljamea’” (“Land for All”) and the Geneva Initiative (in its updated formulation regarding Jerusalem), which seek to conceptualize Jerusalem as a shared space of dual sovereignty and joint governance — while adding a distinct and original interpretive layer of its own.

The initiative’s core intellectual foundation is the relational meta-paradigm, which frames relations between Israelis and Palestinians not as a struggle between separate identities, but as a space of interweaving, interdependence, and co-constitution. This approach moves beyond the logic of symmetry, which seeks to establish two equal and separate sides, and instead emphasizes connection, reciprocity, and fluid boundaries. Rather than separation, it seeks to establish a discourse of integrated existence based on the notion of throwntogetherness — the recognition that, as a given historical condition, the destinies of the two peoples are inseparably bound together.

Accordingly, the initiative gestures toward the need to develop a new conception of citizenship — spatial citizenship, derived from relationships and attachments in a shared space and not merely from belonging to a national political community. In this sense, citizenship is conceived as a regime of movement — a system of mobility, access, and cooperation — that exists alongside political citizenship. The initiative’s vision of an open Jerusalem seeks to embed this principle in institutional mechanisms that guarantee equal access, rights, and freedom of movement for both peoples, thereby proposing a new model of shared sovereignty within a two-state framework, in a confederative form of “together and apart.”

To its credit, the initiative does not settle for sketching political imagination, but puts forward concrete steps that can be implemented immediately — strengthening civic institutions, halting displacement policies, and investing in shared infrastructure. In doing so, it turns political imagination into a tool for action rather than an escape: a call to begin climbing the arc of justice today.

Yet in the post-Gaza war era, amid unprecedented destruction, political imagination cannot be drawn without a clear demand for justice. Any vision of a shared future must include a call for prosecution for war crimes, alongside recognition, restitution, and repair for all victims. The past cannot be changed — but the future must not be taken from us.

For this reason, initiatives such as this — grounded in a realistic utopia that seeks to transform vision into practice — deserve praise. Nevertheless, we must continue to develop thinking that encompasses freedom of movement throughout the entire space between the river and the sea — not only in Jerusalem — as a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for the genuine realization of equality, shared sovereignty, and a just peace.