Today on the MERIP Podcast we have another installment of our In the Archive series, featuring an interview with Ammiel Alcalay about his essay “Jerusalem, the Islamic City,” which appeared in Middle East Report Issue 182 Jerusalem and the Peace Agenda (May/June 1993). His conversation with James Ryan covers  what makes Jerusalem an Islamic City, as well as how the interplay between urban and rural, tradition and modernity that has been essential to the city’s character has been slowly eroded over the last 30 years of occupation in favor of what he calls a “Disneyfication” of the city. Alcalay also discusses how his view of Jerusalem in the pre-Oslo era was shaped by an interpretive generosity necessary to advance justice, not just in Jerusalem but in all of Palestine, and especially in Gaza today.

Previous Episodes of In the Archive: 

Episode 11: In the Archive with Beshara Doumani

Episode 15: In the Archive with Brahim El Guabli

Further Reading: 

Ammiel Alcalay, “Jerusalem, the Islamic City” Middle East Report Issue 182 (May/June 1993)

Ammiel Alcalay, After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 1993)

Ammiel Alcalay and Kholoud Hammad, Imperial Abhorrences / For Palestine (Birds LLC., 2026)

Nathan Thrall, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: An Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, (Macmillan, 2023)

Dina Matar and Venetia Porter, eds., Archiving Gaza in the Present: Memory, Culture and Erasure (Saqi Books, 2025)

Nasser Rabah, Gaza: The Poem Said its Piece translated by Ammiel Alcalay, Emna Zghal and Khaled al-Hilli (City Lights, 2025)