As previously noted, the goal of the Holy Sites Project is to help facilitate and support the development of a legal regime to protect the sites separable from – though complementary to – the peace process as a whole. Our object is not to impose a solution to the problem of the holy sites. History amply demonstrates the futility of such an effort. The ultimate success of any legal regime depends upon the people who must live under its authority. It is they who must be the principal authors of its creation. The goal of the Holy Sites Project is simply to assist these interested parties in negotiating to create an effective legal regime. In this report, we are seeking to: provide the necessary background for the negotiating process; identify and highlight relevant problems and issues of concern; highlight possible options and alternatives; and suggest an appropriate process. In this section, we begin the process of issue identification and consideration of how problems raised in that connection might be resolved.

Developing a legal regime to protect the holy sites requires that we confront a complex set of interrelated and interactive problems. The difficulty is not simply to protect the religious sites and institutions of a minority religion(s) within the dominion of a theocratic state or a religiously identified state. It is the need to find a way to respect a diversity of faiths while both separating and integrating those faiths within a diverse, amorphous, and ever-changing society.