Controlling Jerusalem is a special obligation. Israel is up to it.

Last week I wrote about Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and how Jerusalem, like the Jewish people itself, has both a particular and universal identity. Abraham receives the promise that he will be both the father of a great nation (particular) and a blessing for all nations (universal).

How both of these dimensions ought to be lived is not straightforward. There are very few cities that have a universal dimension. Perhaps New York, as host to the United Nations officially, and as a crossroads of the world, unofficially. London is also a crossroads and, during its imperial days, served as a multinational, if not universal, capital. The Vatican City State was created in 1929 specifically to provide a particular (micro-) state in which the universal dimension of the pope’s ministry could be given suitable international legal expression.

But only Jerusalem is Jerusalem, spiritual capital of the human race, chosen not by statute or treaty, but divine election. I saw a rather churlish headline last week following America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital: “Why Evangelicals are obsessed with Jerusalem.” One might equally ask why God is “obsessed” with Jerusalem. Because God is, Jerusalem belongs in some way or another to all to profess faith in the one God, the God of Abraham.

How then should Israel, which since 1967 has exercised sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, recognize that its capital is also the universal spiritual capital for the whole world?

Many of my Israeli friends get very nervous about any talk about the “internationalization” of Jerusalem, fearing that the same UN officials who routinely denigrate Israel will have a say in the administration of the holy city. Internationalization though does not necessarily mean the UN. It can mean an amplification of arrangements that already govern the holy places in Jerusalem.

Israel has controlled all of Jerusalem since the 1967 Six-Day War. These five decades might mark the high point in secure access to the Holy Places — the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and others for Christians, the Western Wall for Jews and the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) for Muslims. Israel ought to be recognized for this good record. While Israel claims sovereignty over the Temple Mount — with its Dome of the Rock sanctuary and al-Aqsa mosques — it has long left the administration of the Temple Mount to Jordan’s ministry of religious affairs. After the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority assumed many of these functions.

In the long history of Jerusalem, there have been times where the dominant power has made ample space for other religious believers, including periods of Muslim rule after the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem in which Jews were allowed to return and build synagogues, and the Christian holy places were respected.

There have also been counterexamples too, most recently during the 1948-67 period of Jordanian control of the Old City, when Jews were not permitted access to the Western Wall, the synagogue in the Jewish Quarter was razed, and the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was desecrated.

Israel itself realized that there are limitations to what it can do on the Temple Mount earlier this year when it attempted to install enhanced security screening measures. The outcry from the wider Islamic world forced Israel to back down, acknowledging a certain de facto limitation of sovereignty.

It would be a step forward if Israel and Jordan (the Hashemite monarchy is the official Islamic custodian of the Haram al-Sharif) could conclude a formal agreement about the administration of the sacred Islamic places. There might even be a possibility of such an instrument holding the Palestinians to account for their own responsibility to maintain the archaeological integrity of the site, and its accessibility as a place of prayer for both Jews and Christians.

As the alliances in the Middle East shift, is it possible to imagine that even the House of Saud — custodian of the two holy mosques of Mecca and Medina — might conclude an agreement with Israel about the holy places? Even if largely ceremonial, its impact would be significant. As Israel and Saudi Arabia grow closer, both diplomatically and strategically, such a development is not as fanciful as it once would have been.

Such agreements might be a path to removing a principal irritant in Israeli-Palestinian relations, namely access to the holy places. Bethlehem is only a few miles from Jerusalem, yet Palestinian Christians living there find it difficult to visit the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. Solving that problem, which would require both accommodations by Israel and genuine goodwill from the Palestinians, would be no small diplomatic breakthrough, and would honour the spiritual patrimony of Jerusalem.

It is an obligation incumbent on whichever power controls Jerusalem to be generous, knowing that it must also prove a worthy custodian of the city’s universal dimension. Israel is that power now.

CHRIS MCGRATH / GETTY IMAGES FILES The Old City is seen from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Israel. In the long history of Jerusalem, there have been times where the dominant power has made ample space for other religious believers, Fr. Raymond de Souza writes.