What will happen the day after disengagement? Will disengagement bring peace and stability to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and promote negotiations towards a permanent status solution, or will the opposite occur reinforcing the radical Islamist factions who maintain that force alone will convince Israel?

This essay examines these questions from the viewpoint of four central and widely held geopolitical approaches in Israel: The Necessity of Separation; Two State Solution (“Two States for Two Peoples”); The Greater Land of Israel and a Bi-National State. It presents the different approaches, details the scenarios relevant to them, and analyzes the political options common to them and offers several recommendations.

The author of this study, Rabbi Bezalel Cohen is a graduate of the Lithuanian yeshiva world. From an insider’s perspective and through his involvement in advancing employment in ultra-orthodox society, he offers an analysis of the inherent economic deficiency and its root causes, chief among which is the issue of employment. The analysis raises a series of conceptual and inherent barriers in ultra-orthodox society, which  impede the transition of Haredi men, hitherto engaged in Torah study, into the labor market.

• This essay details the urban consequences of the Al Aqsa Intifadah and the separation barrier project on Jerusalem. In West Jerusalem, the onset of terror, and specifically a wave of suicide bombings, hastened the city’s decentralization. Rapid decline of the economy and the disappearance of tourism further battered the city’s vitality. Israel’s  increased barriering of the city, culminating in the separation barrier project, was a major low for the city’s Arab inhabitants, and the urban fabric of East Jerusalem. Neighborhoods inside and outside the barrier were divided, with massive effects on daily life, work opportunities, property values, and relocation patterns. The paper argues that without a strategic package of urban recovery measures, Jerusalem is in danger of becoming locked in a spiral of decline.