This paper is founded on the theoretical analysis and the fieldwork evaluation reported on in my Ph.D. dissertation, which has just been published by Routledge in the form of a book entitled Women, Reconciliation and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Road Not Yet Taken. My paper deals with the complex reality of Jerusalem, which has been increasingly considered as the central core of tensions among the contrasting ethno-national and religious narrative identities, particularly related to the escalation of diverse forms of boundaries. In detail, this paper proposal focuses on the status of ‘in-between’ of the most contested neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah. Since the late 1990s Palestinian residents have faced up against Israeli Jewish settlers who have started to occupy Palestinian houses and buildings in order to increase their presence and their control all over the territory as much as possible: as a result of such a plan, any future prospect of sharing Jerusalem has been made unachievable. In recent years, Sheikh Jarrah - along with other similar contexts nearby such as Silwan and several villages across the West Bank - has become one of the most well-known symbols of popular resistance in the land of Palestine. Such a struggle, including both Palestinian women from the neighbourhood who have organised themselves into the Women’s Forum and Israeli women activists involved with the Solidarity Movement, represents one of the few remaining attempts able to challenge the status quo and to strengthen the importance of women’s role in civil disobedience and non-violent actions.

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