Armstrong, last chapters

Although there are many things that can be talked about in these last chapters in relation to the book as a whole, there is one phrase is particular that stood out to me. "...attitudes harden after an atrocity..." From the beginning of this book which chronicles Jerusalem's history, we have seen one atrocity after another concerning one or multiple groups of people. And as the final chapters and current news sources show, the atrocities continue. As such, it is much more understandable, given the immense spread of history leading up to the Jerusalem that is today, why there are such hardened attitudes on multiple fronts. It seems that at any given point in time, one or multiple groups of people within the city are being oppressed, disadvantaged, or outright persecuted. And as a result, attitudes of each group and groups within broader religious or ethnic groups have been hardened, leading to building walls and pointing fingers further diminishing hope for peace.
In this sense, Jerusalem seems to be a city painted of dark and bleak colors. However, I can't help but think of the vivid and colorful images from the video we watched in class at this point. Karen Armstrong does an amazing job in laying out a framework of the history of Jerusalem in a largely unbiased and complete manner. However, as is often the case in written history, the human aspect becomes hard to distinguish. I realized as I started writing this post that the entire time I read this book, I pictured the events in black and white. However, when I think about the video depicting life in East and West Jerusalem, the first thing that strikes me is the color. I like to think of color as the human aspect. Beyond religion, people share music, clothes, literature, customs, and culture. Many of these aspects of life are interconnected, but many also overlap across religious and secular divides.
Although history shows us how difficult peace in Jerusalem was, is, and will be, the present life in Jerusalem where the people of three distinct faiths and countless ethnic and racial backgrounds have lived for so long shows us that people are resilient and despite hardships and conflict have nonetheless managed to coexist in one holy city. Armstrong's book has provided a solid foundation for understanding why attitudes have been hardened and each group feels entitled to lay claim to the city. However, I think it's important to keep in mind that Jerusalem is as much a binding thread as it is a dividing factor and that people are multidimensional and by nature desire a peaceful existence.