Positions are what individuals in conflict state they want. “I want custody of my child.” “I want you to demolish the garage you built on my property when it was incorrectly surveyed.” These are both positions. In some conflicts, the positions may seem to be directly at odds with one another. Imagine, for instance in the first example, that a divorcing spouse or a state agency also wants custody of the child in question, or that the owner of the shed wants to keep the garage intact where it is. Interests are the motivating factors that underlie positions. The parent may want to retain custody of her child because of feelings of love for her, because she wants the child raised within her own culture, and because of a desire to keep the child in the same school she has been attending. The two property owners may have some competing and some similar interests, such as having car storage space, maintaining the curb appeal of their neighborhood, and having space to build an addition on their own home where the garage is situated. When negotiators are able to separate positions and interests within a conflict, it is more likely that they will be able to come up with solutions that accommodate interests of both sides or creatively solve the conflict at hand.

For this Assignment, you analyze a case study about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a long-standing, ongoing, and sometimes seemingly intractable conflict. Specifically, you examine the application of Right to the City, or RTC, to the conflict, which is a concept developed by French Marxist sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre that challenges traditional property rights and calls for greater participation in decision making regarding space.