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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Jerusalem has for centuries been known as the spiritual center for the three largest monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yet Jerusalem’s other-worldly transcendence is far from the daily reality of Jerusalem, a city bombarded by conflict. The battle over who owns and controls Jerusalem is intensely disputed on a global basis. Few cities rival Jerusalem in how its divisions are expressed in the political sphere and in ordinary everyday life.
Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis is about this constellation of competing on-the-ground interests: the endless set of claims, struggles, and debates over the land, neighborhoods, and communities that make up Jerusalem. Spatial politics explain the motivations and organizing around the battle for Jerusalem and illustrate how space is a weapon in the Jerusalem struggle. These are the windows to the world of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Based on ninety interviews, years of fieldwork, and numerous Jerusalem experiences, this book depicts the groups living in Jerusalem, their roles in the conflict, and their connections to Jerusalem's development. Written for students, scholars, and those seeking to demystify the Jerusalem labyrinth, this book shows how religion, ideology, nationalism, and power underlie patterns of urban development, inequality, and conflict.
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Seitenzahl: 340
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Map of Central Jerusalem
1 Introduction: The Politics of Space
Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis
2 The Jerusalem Story: Theory and Methods
Introduction
The Making Place Project: Methods and Motivations
Understanding Jerusalem: Theoretical Perspectives
Theory and Method in the Making Place Project
3 What Is Jerusalem?
Introduction
International Jerusalem and the United Nations Partition
Jerusalem and the 1948 War: Constructing the Green Line
Constructing a Jerusalem of Memory
Moving Beyond the Green Line
United Jerusalem
West Bank Israel Settlements and Metropolitan Jerusalem
The Oslo Agreement, Jerusalem, and the Shifting Green Line
Center of Life
The Israeli Security Barrier/Fence/Apartheid Wall: A New Green Line?
The Old City, Silwan, and the City of David: Spotlight on the Green Line
The Jerusalem Light Rail
The Shifting Green Line
Notes
4 Who Is Jerusalem?
Introduction
Holy Jerusalem
The Demography of the Israeli Municipality of Jerusalem
Jerusalem: An Amalgamation of Difference
The Role of Social Groups in the Shaping of Jerusalem
Jerusalem for Whom?
Notes
5 The Palestinian Challenge and Resistance in Arab Jerusalem
Introduction
Arab Jerusalem and East Jerusalem
Is Jerusalem One Israeli City?
The Paradox of Municipal Elections and East Jerusalemite (Non-)Participation Practice
The First Intifada
The Oslo Agreement and Its Consequences for Arab Jerusalem
Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif – the Epicenter of Conflict
The Second Intifada
Planning Arab Jerusalem and the Battle over Collective Memory
Conclusion
Notes
6 Downtown Place Making and Growth in Israeli Jerusalem
Introduction
Jerusalem’s Growth
and Public Investment in Jerusalem
Redevelopment in Downtown Jerusalem
Conclusion
7 Conclusion
Coming Home to Jerusalem
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of figures
1.1 Jerusalem’s Old City and its downtown
1.2 Silwan, the City of David, and the Old City
3.1 The United Nations 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine
3.2 The Orient House
3.3 Greater Jerusalem
3.4 Areas A, B, and C in the West Bank according to the Oslo Agreement
3.5 Har Homa
3.6 The separation barrier/fence/wall that runs through East Jerusalem
3.7 City of David excavations
4.1 Haredi demonstration against their people being drafted
4.2 Signage in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods enforcing dress codes
5.1 Subversive Palestinian graffiti on the separation barrier/fence/wall
6.1 Jerusalem Light Rail, Jaffa Center downtown
6.2 Mamilla under construction
6.3 Machane Yehuda
List of tables
4.1 Defining social characteristics of people living in Jerusalem
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Jerusalem
The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis
Anne B. Shlay and Gillad Rosen
Copyright © Anne B. Shlay and Gillad Rosen 2015
The right of Anne B. Shlay and Gillad Rosen to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2015 by Polity Press
Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press350 Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-9602-7
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Shlay, Anne B., author.Jerusalem : the spatial politics of a divided metropolis / Anne B. Shlay, Gillad Rosen.pages cmIncludes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-0-7456-7103-1 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-7456-7104-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)1. Jerusalem--Ethnic relations. 2. Jews--Jerusalem--Attitudes. 3. Palestinian Arabs--Jerusalem--Attitudes. 4. Jerusalem--In Judaism. 5. Arab-Israeli conflict. I. Rosen, Gillad, author. II. Title.DS109.95.S55 2015956.94’4205--dc23
2014042514
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website:politybooks.com
Acknowledgments
Social research is by definition a community product. We relied heavily on a large number of people who provided data and information, interpretation and experience, and just plain time – a lot of it. Many people across the globe were generous as well as excited about what we were trying to study, even when we were not terribly clear about it or failed to understand it well ourselves. Since these research and writing activities span eight years, there was a great deal of time for others to be involved.
We thank our numerous respondents, over ninety, who gave us hours of their time over several years, some on multiple occasions. The information we collected reflects the enormous variation in individual views of Jerusalem. Our respondents shaped our thinking about Jerusalem, highlighting its eternal complexity. Our goal was to do justice to these complex renditions while writing an accessible Jerusalem story.
Many people provided counsel, advice, commentary, and support along the way. From the very start of our research activities, Chaim Fiakoff, former Director of the Ministry of Housing and Construction, was infinitely patient in explaining the intricacies and mysteries of housing development in Israel. We owe a special thanks to our colleagues in the Department of Geography of the Hebrew University, Eran Feitelson, Eran Razin, and Noam Shoval, for numerous meetings, dinners, and discussions. We thank the Germantown Jewish Centre for enthusiatically cheering us on from the very beginning. Others who contributed in various ways include Andy Clarno, Marsha Crawford, Nir Gazit, Lenny Gordon, Ayela Guy, Richard Immerman, Lori Lefkovitz, Laura Levitt, Aelon Porot, Malka Greenberg Raanan, Rickie Sanders, Hilary Silver, Yitzhak Sokoloff, Greg Squires, and Alan Walks. Julia Ericksen, now Professor Emeritus in Sociology at Temple University, gave essential guidance on the difference between writing a book and writing an academic article for a journal, and we expect our readers will be grateful for this as well.
Thanks are due to our splendid research assistants, Emma Giloth, Jennifer McGovern, Lauren Ross, and Matan Singer, who enthusiastically collected materials, managed and analyzed data, and helped with editing. A special thanks is due to the many Temple students who took Shlay’s course on “Jerusalem: The Politics of Space.”
Polity Editor Jonathan Skerrett provided the initial impetus for writing this book and gave critical support and guidance along the way.
Funded support for this work included a Fulbright Foundation Research Fellowship (2006–7), an Arie Shahar Fellowship (2008–9), a Temple University Summer Fellowship (2010), and a Lady Davis Fellowship (2013–14).
Over this period, three children were born (Rosen) and one graduated from high school and college (Shlay), with all providing endless richness and insanity in our lives. Our hope is for this book to be used as a vehicle to preserve Jerusalem for our children and for those across the globe, not just one group or another. Somehow Jerusalem survives, and we want it to continue.
Map of Central Jerusalem
1Introduction: The Politics of Space
The most dominant global trend today is the dramatic growth of cities. From the mega-cities of the third world to the sprawling hubs that define US cities, urban development has become rapid, irreversible, and endless. The question is not whether cities will grow but how will they grow and what form(s) they will take. Will city development practices embrace density, mass transit, and smart growth or will they hang on to the large, low-density homes that produce urban sprawl? The reigning definition of urban form in the twenty-first century is up for grabs.
The growing city is an increasingly unequal one. Escalating neoliberal urbanization has brought with it growing economic disparities and the heightened polarization of rich and poor. Gentrification has become a global force. The forces that transform urban areas into havens for the rich also create neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. Mirroring global trends, the city’s rich are getting more affluent and the poor more destitute.
The growing city is more and more a contested one. Cities used to serve as spatial vehicles for upward mobility and assimilation. Now, increased immigration along with urban growth has not homogenized ethnic and racial identities but strengthened them. Urban life is characterized by social and economic differences – differences that are both spatially visible and often polarizing.
The ultimate contested city is Jerusalem (Bollens, 2000; Nasrallah, 2003). Jerusalem is at the center of the geopolitical conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, who both consider the city to be their capital and integral to their respective national identities (see Figure 1.1). It is home for large numbers of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews – the Haredim, who battle for neighborhood dominance with secular Jerusalemites. Jerusalem is also a poor city in which its poverty is largely out of sight from its wealthy residents and the endless parade of tourists. It is an unusual place whose many divisions by religion, nationality, and class appear to define it as a place and community. Conflict over and within Jerusalem is its most prominent feature (Kliot and Mansfeld, 1999; Calame and Charlesworth, 2009).
At the apex of modern-day Jerusalem is its Old City – a place encased by thick walls of stone. The Old City is less than half a square mile in area but from the outside it appears much larger. Some people mistake it for a museum because it houses some of the most precious holy places for Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Although chronologically ancient, the Old City is very much alive, brimming with vital institutions for heathens and faithful alike and a place for tourists as well as local residents. It is a site for special occasions like Bar Mitzvahs but is also where everyday activities occur. Many people live in the Old City. Within its ancient walls a host of commercial activities take place. One can buy a wedding ring or cake, find a lawyer, buy shoes or a new dress, or have a festive meal. The Old City may be old, but it is still kicking.
Figure 1.1 Jerusalem’s Old City and its downtown (© Gillad Rosen)
On any given day, young children grace its walkways with their rambunctious energy as they go to and from the schools housed within its walls. Men of all ages rush to prayers. Young kids ride their bikes fast and furiously, almost hitting someone or something every few seconds. Old City rhythms keep time with the various calls to prayers, the bells of the cathedrals, and the setting of the sun. Sometimes the walkways appear dangerously crowded.
The Old City is formally divided into four quarters – Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian – each with its own sacred traditions. This is not some kind of Epcot Disney creation with imported authentic actors; it is the real deal. Shopkeepers routinely report that their business longevity encompasses two, three, and sometimes four or more generations of family commercial activity.
The Old City is a microcosm of and reference point for the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. With no resolution in sight, it is politically in the hands of Israel, which has absolutely no intention of giving up, dividing, or sharing it. Although political ownership of the Old City is theoretically up for negotiation, all wagers are on Israel to work to maintain its sovereignty and control. But good money is also on the Palestinians to effectively challenge Israeli sovereignty with their own political and religious claims.
Located on a hill, the Old City is bounded on its west side by the stone-encased Mamilla shopping mall, a collection of upscale chain stores and restaurants that provide panoramic views of the western part of Jerusalem. This view showcases the city’s splendor, affluence, and beauty as a world-class locale for visitors and residents alike.
Figure 1.2 Silwan, the City of David, and the Old City (© Anne Shlay)
On the other side of the Old City is a very large community of densely packed homes that appear to be built into the very hills on which they reside. This is the Palestinian village of Silwan, a longestablished community of over fifty-five thousand people. Israel annexed Silwan to Jerusalem after the 1967 war, an illegal move according to international law. Silwan’s proximity to the Old City, its militancy against the Israelis, and its location along a political faultline should Jerusalem ever be divided has propelled the village into the public eye (Pullan and Gwiazda, 2009; Mizrachi, 2012). This view of Jerusalem is one of many visible landscapes of the conflict between Jews and Palestinians (see Figure 1.2).
Immediately to the south is the City of David (in Hebrew: Ir David), a rich archaeological site that has produced evidence of the existence of a biblical Jewish city from many centuries ago (Reich et al. 2007). This place, according to biblical history, was captured for the Israelites from the Jebusites by King David (McKenzie, 2002). The conquest of Jerusalem by David is believed to have paved the way for his son, the future King Solomon, to build the First Temple.
The City of David has been designated a national park with the expressed intent to protect land outside the Old City walls. This park is officially known as the Jerusalem Walls National Park. The City of David also lies within the boundaries of Silwan, so parts of the village fall within the national park itself (Mizrachi, 2012).
Although the Israeli government is the legal administrator of national parks, for all practical purposes the City of David is run by a private entity, the Ir David Foundation, or, as it is called in Israel, El’ad. El’ad finances and controls City of David archaeological excavations and operates a center for educational tourism around the site. Over four hundred thousand people visit the City of David site on an annual basis. But in addition to the archaeology and tourist components of El’ad, it finances a residential program. El’ad purchases housing within Silwan and rents these homes to Israeli Jews (Pullan and Gwiazda, 2009).
The City of David nestled within the contours of Silwan provides another panoramic view of Jerusalem. This landscape is more complicated than the others. Closest to the Old City walls is the City of David visitors’ center, a glitzy entrance to what is billed as the birthplace of Jerusalem’s Jewish heritage. The glitz then gives way to the densely packed Palestinian homes of Silwan that are lined up along narrow streets. Dotted among the Palestinian houses are glimpses of Israeli flags that designate the presence of Jewish residents. This is contested space – a place of conflict between Palestinians and Jews; one managed by the Israeli government through its steward, El’ad (Greenberg, 2009). Here the public and private forces associated with money and power appear to gradually make their way down to the valley of Silwan, the location of the proposed King David’s Garden, intended to be a Jewishhistorical tourist site. For Israel, these developments are building up its tourism capacity by offering up access to the biblical heritage of the Jewish people. For Palestinians, they are nothing more than the Judaization of space – the process of conquering land, housing, neighborhoods, and communities through the in-migration of Israeli Jews (Bartal, 2012). Many speak of this as Israel creating “facts on the ground” (Zertal and Eldar, 2007): the physical development of infrastructure, buildings, and people to create the “fact” of Jewish control of place (Abu El-Haj, 2001).
Jerusalem is best known as the spiritual center for the three largest monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yet other-worldly transcendence is far from its day-to-day reality. Jerusalem is a city bombarded by conflict. These disputes are largely about the city itself – about the land on which it is built, its roads and transit systems, its neighborhoods and homes, its places of worship, the social and ethnic origins of its residents, who may live with whom, who gets what and when, as well as any other permutation that speaks to issues of land, space, and power. Visible struggles take place when the Israeli government swoops into Silwan and demolishes the homes of the Palestinian families living there on grounds of illegal developments. Jerusalemites witness conflict when Palestinians protest the Israeli government’s refusal to permit the residents of Silwan to build on their land or modify the physical dimensions of their housing. Jerusalem is filled with protests and demonstrations by everyone, about everything.
Yet some of the most important conflicts are latent or behind the scenes: for example, when the Israeli government transfers control over land and development to moneyed interests in the City of David. Some aspects of conflict are not manifested as battles at all, such as when people claim that an individual person (e.g. King David or the Prophet Muhammad) built a city or seized control of a place over three thousand years ago. Though no real proof of the activities of individual people can be obtained through archaeology, people accept false or nearly false claims and adopt them as true. The activities of the organizations around the City of David are able to manage conflict precisely through their ability to tell a compelling story about Jewish history – a story that mobilizes political acquiescence to the dominant point of view. In other words, Israeli Jews believe that Israeli domination of and destruction of the Palestinian village of Silwan is justifiable because Silwan sits in the way of Jewish access to their heritage.
The mobilization of public opinion is most powerful when it minimizes overt visible conflict and mimics consensus. The absence of overt conflict in situations of Israeli dominance over Palestinian development is precisely when the power equation is so one-sided that any explicit control is invisible. The flow of money from El’ad to ensure that archaeological efforts proceed unimpeded is one example of how global forces can work quietly and out of sight to move the conflict one way or another.
Jerusalem is the poster child for the divided city. It is divided over religion and religiosity as well as by race, ethnicity, and class. The battle over who owns and controls Jerusalem is the focus of national, regional, and international attention. Its fate in the world above may be the stuff of prophecy, but its destiny on earth is a fight that appears to have no limits. The struggle over who controls Jerusalem seems to be almost eternal. For those routinely engaged in this battle, there is little room for negotiation or conciliation. The struggle for Jerusalem is viewed as a zero-sum game, in which there are only winners and losers. Jerusalem is not a realm where compromise goes down easy, if at all.
Jerusalem is in the news internationally on an almost weekly if not daily basis. Sometimes it is because an American politician is visiting, usually a Secretary of State or someone else who is of importance. Sometimes there are complaints that the government is building housing in places deemed off limits by international law. The news focuses on Jerusalem because it is frequently the locale for violence, killing, battles, and war. Death and destruction do not get every country on the nightly news, but when Jerusalem is involved, its place in the media is virtually guaranteed.
Yet Israel as a country is an abstraction even to American Jews who are effectively initiated into the tribe of Israel from their moment of birth. People are citizens of countries but they live and love in cities. According to the old song by Roger Miller, “England swings like a pendulum do,” but everyone knows that it is in the global city of London that the swings are swung. The United States is a melting pot but American blending happens in places like New York, Los Angeles, or Miami. Political demands for democracy occur in countries but the ground zero for fighting for these rights happens in cities like Moscow, Beijing, Kiev, and Cairo. Citizens pledge allegiance to nation states, but their experience of homeland occurs closer to the earth in large urban centers. Amalgams of memories call up the particulars of the places in which people reside. People may die for countries, but living takes place in cities.
There is substantial disagreement about the basic facts of Jerusalem and there are a large number of claims and counterclaims. Located in the middle of Israel, Jerusalem is claimed as the nation’s capital. Yet the rest of the world does not recognize Jerusalem’s political status as the sovereign center of the country. Land adjacent to Jerusalem has been politically annexed and developed by Israel while others testify that the land was occupied and then stolen by Israel and is really part of some other country. Jews maintain that it has a historical affiliation with Jerusalem dating back three thousand years and that Jerusalem was the site of the First and Second Jewish Temples, which were themselves in place for over three hundred years. Others, however, deny the importance of Jerusalem to Judaism, suggesting that Jewish duration in the city was brief and casting doubt on the existence of the First and Second Temples. People even claim that the Western Wall in the Old City was not part of the Jewish Second Temple but instead belongs to Islam (Reiter, 2008).
The statuses of particular places within Jerusalem are intensely disputed. Virtually every idea about the city’s history generates a group or campaign that denies its legitimacy. Places deemed sacred by some are rendered profane by others, and vice versa. What some people might consider to be compelling ideas or simply facts about Jerusalem are treated as ideology and lies by others. There are virtually no truisms that hold about Jerusalem because anything that someone says is true about the city is immediately contradicted by someone else.
The most basic questions are political. Answers to fundamental questions that would seem politically neutral are not so easy to answer. For example, how big is Jerusalem? The answer depends on how one defines it. Whose definition of Jerusalem do you use? What parts do you include or exclude? Should settlements that encircle Jerusalem be considered part of the metropolitan area? How can one include places in Jerusalem when they are technically not even in the same country?
Inevitably the answers to basic questions reveal how people come down on one side or the other on the long-standing debate over who rules Jerusalem (Bollens, 1998; Friedland and Hecht, 2000). It is relatively easy to answer questions about the size of Chicago or Dallas because there is consensus over the boundaries of these cities. But no consensus exists over Jerusalem’s boundaries because the question “What is Jerusalem?” is a political one. Arguing for a larger definition supports an Israeli point of view by recognizing the legitimacy of Israel’s taking land acquired in the 1967 war as part of Jerusalem. Arguing for a smaller definition recognizes the Palestinian perspective that land occupied by Israel is not legitimately, or at least permanently, theirs. Debates over these fundamental questions associated with Jerusalem are nowhere near being resolved. The Jerusalem conundrum echoes the question asked by Pete Seeger in his famous song on the early violent days of union organizing, “Which side are you on?” And his declaration “There are no neutrals there” could also have been written about the city and reverberates across the globe. Should Israel’s claims on Jerusalem be challenged? Is Jerusalem as outlined by Israel a fait accompli? Is a divided Jerusalem still physically viable? Agreement over what Jerusalem is will eventually signify the denouement of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. What is Jerusalem is the central dilemma to the conflict over the city.
This book is about the politics of space and the conflict over space in Jerusalem. It examines the battles over the ownership and control of what many consider to be the most important city in the entire world. New York, Tokyo, and London may be the urban hubs in charge of global capitalism (Sassen, 2001). Jerusalem, however, is the analogous urban steward of eternal deliverance or damnation. Wealth and poverty may be the outcome of good and bad decisions on the world’s stock exchange. But good and bad acts that transpire in Jerusalem arguably affect what happens in the world to come. Macroeconomic trends, employment, and the cost of goods and services may depend on what occurs on the stock market. But at the end of the day, religion, as the source of human salvation, will trump capitalism every time.
Many people have heard of or know something about Jerusalem. It is often mentioned in songs and poetry in many different languages. Children grow up singing hymns and camp songs about Jerusalem. Some may not know why it is religiously important but most will certainly know that it is. Hands down, Jerusalem would win in terms of name recognition over Istanbul, Kabul, Amman, Beirut, and maybe even Toronto. Everyone everywhere has heard something about Jerusalem, and for that reason alone, they regard it as a special place.
Many have a one-dimensional understanding of Jerusalem, in part because the media deliver simplicity. People think of it as a holy place. Or they believe it is a dangerous place. Even those who pay a lot of attention to events in the Middle East may not be aware of Jerusalem’s complexity.
Religious tourists form the bulk of visitors to Jerusalem (Cohen-Hattab and Shoval, 2014). Not surprisingly, their knowledge about Jerusalem is largely gleaned from their own Jerusalem-based religious experiences. People learn about their religion, not necessarily about those of others. Jewish tourists quickly learn about the destruction of the Second Temple almost two millennia ago. Christians go to the Via Dolorosa, travel the path Jesus took with his cross, and visit the church where he died. Muslims go to the Dome of the Rock, the site from where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. Jerusalem is sliced and diced into digestible morsels for each group of the faithful.
But religious nuggets do not tell the Jerusalem story. Visits to holy places cannot explain the travails that represent the regional, national, and international standing of contemporary Jerusalem. Religious homage alone explains little about the contested world in which the city operates.
Of course, tourism, even religious tourism, is not geared toward examining cities but toward consuming them through personal experiences in those places. Through tourism, most people learn little about the cities they visit because the experience of place does not necessarily yield an understanding of them. For example, think of a visit to Westminster Abbey, the Liberty Bell, the Lincoln Memorial, or the Sistine Chapel. These experiences in and of themselves yield little information or understanding of the cities they are in, in these cases London, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Rome.
Through the eyes of religious tourists, Jerusalem may seem like an uncomplicated place. Yet its appearance of simplicity is deceptive. To be sure, no city is devoid of conflict and all have at least some issues to do with divisions, segregation, inequality, contested politics, and more (Allegra et al., 2012). But few cities rival Jerusalem in the intensity with which these divisions and conflicts are expressed both in the political sphere and in ordinary everyday life. Secular Jewish automobile drivers know that on Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath) if they drive through ultra-Orthodox religious neighborhoods they risk having stones thrown at their cars. Palestinian youth learn to not frequent downtown haunts like Ben Yehuda Street where they are likely to be harassed or provoked. Tourists (religious and secular) avoid Haredi neighborhoods, particularly if woman are not attired according to Haredi customs of modesty. Advertisers do not employ sexualized images of women or men on billboards and often avoid using women models altogether, not just in religious neighborhoods but in secular Jerusalem neighborhoods as well. Non-kosher restaurants (i.e. those serving food not prepared according to Jewish law) close on religious holidays to conform to local neighborhood standards, even though, by definition, non-kosher restaurants may open whenever they want to. Jews avoid traveling through Palestinian villages and vice versa. Jerusalem businesses, residents, and regulars know the necessary spatial practices to avoid problems ranging from social discomfort to physical violence (Friedland and Hecht, 2000).
Visitors are often surprised by the racial and ethnic diversity to be found in Jerusalem. Unlike contemporary Jewish communities in North America or Europe, Jerusalem (and Israel writ large) contains a panoply of difference in racial and ethnic origins. Like the United States or any other liberal democracy, the Israeli government is explicit that all citizens have equal political and civil rights. But the reality is that Israel privileges Jews over other religions and identities (Yiftachel, 1998; Yiftachel and Yacobi, 2003).
In Israel, greater privileges are granted to Jewish citizens because it is a Jewish state. The operation of a Jewish state by and for Jews holds ramifications for how race, ethnicity, and religion are perceived and evaluated. Overt discrimination is not legal, but preference along racial and ethnic lines is more or less the norm (Yiftachel, 1991, 2006). Instead of minimizing differences among varying races, ethnicities, and religions, Israel emphasizes and therefore reinforces difference. Difference is emphasized by virtue of the fact that Israel is a Jewish state, not a generic one. Israel is by definition a Jewish state to bring to the fore that Israel is by and for Jews.
Religious politics around differences seep into the broader culture. In everyday life, one often hears disparaging remarks about particular groups, comments that are made with relative ease. Every group is fair game – recent Russian immigrants, Ethiopians, Jews coming from North Africa and the Middle East, the Haredim, and more. Cultural stereotypes are often discussed as social facts in ways that would be far less socially acceptable within most Western liberal democracies.
The emphasis on social differences based on variations in Israelis’ ascribed characteristics is in part an artifact of the orientation of the Israeli government. The plethora of political parties do not unify people but rather divide them by nationality, religiosity, class, and their position on settlements, the conflict, and attitudes toward peace. Israelis are less tolerant of social difference because Israeli politics are based on recognizing and upholding difference. Israel’s acceptance of racial intolerance or that racial distinctions are normative legitimizes neighborhood segregation and renders it acceptable and even desirable. Racial and ethnic segregation is considered normal. The concept of socially mixed neighborhoods in Jerusalem is largely an anathema. The question is not why people would avoid racial and ethnic integration either socially or spatially. The question is why they would consider engaging in racial and ethnic mixing in the first place.
Independent of race and ethnicity, people across many groups are intensely committed to Jerusalem as a place. Unlike many American cities, Jerusalem has been the object of war and combat. Jews and Palestinians alike have died in armed struggles for Jerusalem in the last century and both sides claim it as the site for their nation’s capital. Jerusalem’s historical and religious history gives it very special significance. It is unique among cities and evokes unprecedented levels of sentiment and attachment.
The uniqueness associated with Jerusalem creates problems not only for those living in and governing the city but also for those trying to understand it. One reason why understanding Jerusalem is so challenging is that everything about the city is politicized. It seems as if every building, house, or location is claimed by one group or another. In Jerusalem, resource allocation and decision making are built into the organization and management of political and legal systems (Margalit, 2001). The government of the city does not transcend politics because the entire system relies on a politics of inequality.
This is a book about Jerusalem’s spatial politics and the social processes that emerge from this constellation of competing interests. Spatial politics are the seemingly endless sets of claims, demands, struggles, debates, and challenges over the land, developments, neighborhoods, and communities that make up Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s spatial politics are a window onto the world of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict because Jerusalem is ground zero for this struggle. Spatial politics explain the motivations for and organization around the battle for Jerusalem and illustrate the ways in which space itself is a weapon in this struggle. The activities operating on space, the constellations of interests around it, the ways in which different groups mobilize for action or fizzle out, and the use of various tactics, ranging from legal maneuvers to terrorism to simply staying put – all comprise the spatial politics that are evident in Jerusalem.
Like most cities embracing the neoliberal turn, Jerusalem is characterized by a large degree of economic inequality, which is manifested spatially (Choshen et al., 2013). These neighborhoodbased wealth disparities vary not only with location but also with residency status, nationality, ethnic identity, religion, and religiosity. In other words, economic inequality has its origins in non-economic realms. How such characteristics are connected to and produce varied socioeconomic and political outcomes is a major concern of this book.
Jerusalem is not like other cities, which makes this examination of socioeconomic inequality a bit different. The outcomes with which this book is concerned are not solely economic. Struggle over space in Jerusalem is political, either overtly, covertly, or both. It is about power, control, nationality, and religion. Some of Jerusalem’s battles are between people of the same religion, for example pitting Jews against Jews and Muslims against Muslims. Others are about the struggle for territory and national sovereignty: battles between Israel and Palestinians – including Palestinian Israelis whose identities and citizenship are in conflict. Moreover, Jerusalem’s struggles are not simply internal to Israel or even to Muslim countries in the Middle East. Jerusalem has a world-wide following and is a spiritual global city. In many ways, Jerusalem can be seen as the epicenter of extremism, intolerance, and fanaticism. Explaining how one place can embody so many seemingly contradictory forces operating around a spatial area just about the same size as the city of Chicago is one of the many challenges of this book.1
Jerusalem is not only a complicated city; it is a controversial city, one that evokes strong reactions from many people across the globe. Not everyone may have an opinion about Jerusalem; but for those who do, their points of view are often very strongly felt.
Large numbers of people have strong feelings about Israel – about the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, over the legitimacy of Zionism and the right of Jews to have their own country, and about Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Opinions about Zionism, the occupation, the conflict, and so on, are also opinions about Jerusalem. Jerusalem is neither an idiosyncratic case nor is it incidental to whatever happens with Israel and the Palestinians, with the Middle East, and with the rest of the world. We hope to show that one of the greatest tragedies and mistakes associated with the Oslo Agreement (the landmark but doomed agreement between Israel and the Palestinians) was to defer negotiating Jerusalem. Any kind of negotiation to end the Palestinian–Israeli conflict requires that the boundaries and ownership of Jerusalem be definitively resolved.
The goal of this book is not to inflame or incite but to analyze and inform. The book is intended to provide a comprehensive look at the spatial politics associated with the recent development of Jerusalem to encourage discussion that depends not on rhetorical devices but on carefully assimilated knowledge about the situation. Of course, Jerusalem will remain an emotional and volatile topic for most, not because people are irrational or bad, but because there is so much at stake. For this reason and more, this book is committed to telling a contemporary Jerusalem story that is as rigorous and balanced as possible.
Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis
This book is a social and political analysis of the spatial politics underlying the development of contemporary Jerusalem. The time period that we investigate largely begins with the creation of the State of Israel in 1947 with the United Nations resolution that stipulated boundaries to create two new states, one for Jews and the other for Palestinians. This initiation of what has been deemed “two states for two people” moved quickly into a war (1948) – what is commemorated as the Milhemet HaAtzmaount (the War of Independence) for Israel and the Nakba (disaster) for the Palestinians. Our work takes us through to 2014, a year that began with some hope for peace but descended into a war, relentless bombings and attacks, riots, kidnappings, murders, and violence.
The period we write about includes two intifadas (uprisings: 1987–93, 2000–4), many wars (the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the 1956 Sinai War, the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1982 and 2006 Lebanon Wars, the 2008 and 2014 Israeli–Gaza Wars), and the massive upheavals that occurred in and around Jerusalem through neighborhood and settlement construction, the initiation and expansion of checkpoints, and the building of walls and security barriers. The myriad of spatial transformations reflect defensive and offensive development and infrastructure activities undertaken by public and private actors in and around Jerusalem as well as the spatial manifestations of resistance. Each development represents some aspect of the struggle between different groups at war over who rules Jerusalem. The material foundation of every structure embodies several sets of political and social relationships with the goal of establishing or resisting domination, or both. Rather than settle the conflict once and for all, each new physical development has allowed one side or the other to politically dig in a little deeper.
The chapters that follow show the spatial politics associated with each set of developments, how the conflict has escalated and waned, and the making and remaking of the Jerusalem quagmire through using land and development as tools for conquest and resistance.
Chapter 2
