"Dividing Jerusalem: British Urban Planning in the Holy City," Journal of Palestine Studies 42, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 7-26. (original) (raw)

"Marrying Modern Progress with Treasured Antiquity": Jerusalem City Plans during the British

Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, 2003

British Mandatory schemes for developing Jerusalem have seldom been examined in the context of theories of colonial urban planning. In this article I show that the British approach to designing new urban schemes for Jerusalem deviated from the norms and concepts implemented in colonial cities. I examine three official British Mandatory publications that presented comprehensive urban programs for Jerusalem, comparing them to aspects of colonial city planning. Consequently, I interpret the plans as a renegotiation of Jerusalem's contested space, a renegotiation that erased controversy and subtly promoted an image of British supremacy.

The Context of Urban Planning in the Palestinian Struggle for Freedom and Independence under Israeli colonisation

2016

This dissertation talks about urban planning and how it is used by colonial powers to promote and sustain their colonies and powers, and whether urban planning can be used as a form of resistance. The main focus is the on-going Israeli colonial urban planning in Palestine, from its conception with the establishment of the Zionist movement till today; and its Palestinian counterpart. Conceptualisation of space, the definition and perception of it is key to understanding the colonial urban space. The theoretical frameworks applied to the concept of colonial urban space highlight the contradictions within it, all the more emphasised in complex and unique ‘trans colonial’ contexts such as Palestine. Whether urban planning can be seen as a form of resistance in this complex setting is reviewed through the case study of Rawabi, the first Palestinian planned city. Through a literature review and qualitative research, an understanding is gained of where such projects fit in the context of colonisation - with resistance and state building, or capitalism and with the normalisation with the Israeli colonisation. Perception of space is critical to understanding projects such as this, and the recognition that their development cannot be seen in binary or black and white terms.

Urban Planning and Land-Use Management in Jerusalem -Chronological Analysis: Urban Perspectives in Contested Cities

Polarized spaces and divided cities present a set of fast-changing urban policies and control powers. Of its tense history of complex spatial planning and land-use management, Jerusalem is not an exception. In less than 50 years, 1917-1967, Jerusalem was controlled by four variant regimes. The Ottoman Rule, the British Mandate, the Jordanian Control, and the Israeli Occupation respectively. In that sense, Jerusalem is considered a unique spatial entity in terms of its historical and physical development. This chapter explores the evolution of urban planning and land-use management in Jerusalem for these administrative authorities, underlining its impact on the city population and urban growth. During these subsequent administrative transformations, Jerusalem has witnessed quick and variant planning paradigms, and questionable development patterns, that produced numerous socio-spatial challenges. Principally, the altered composition of the population, as well as the paradoxical urban fabric of the city. Indeed, the successive authorities in Jerusalem, ending with the Israeli occupation of the eastern part of the city, have created a maze of wide-ranging rules and regulations, making the planning system complex, spatially unsustainable, and eventually in many ways, intensifying urban conflicts.

Building and planning regulations under Israeli colonial power: a critical study from Palestine

Planning Perspectives, 2018

Colonial regimes used urban planning regulations as a tool to control and dominate other people and natural resources. Since the beginning of the past century, Palestine represented a good example of where urban planning regulations played a major role in urban transformation and development. The Israeli regime has been using old regional plans that were prepared by the British Mandate, and issued many others to achieve its aim of establishing settlements and dominating the West Bank. Consequently, this study explores how urban planning regulations can become a tool for controlling and dominating people and natural resources. This study investigated how these tools were used by controlling authority during the past century.

The Jerusalem Master Plan: Planning into the Conflict

2012

This paper investigates the Jerusalem Master Plan with reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Master Plan is the first comprehensive plan for the “whole” city (both the western and the eastern parts): for the first time, the comprehensive spatial vision of Jerusalem in the twenty-first century that the Israeli authorities aim to realize is clearly expressed. In particular, the paper focuses on the theme of housing: it analyses in detail the contents of the master plan, showing the different treatment of the Arab and Jewish populations, and it reflects on the chances the different aspects of the plan have of being implemented. It is argued that the master plan is an integral part of a forty-year Israeli urban strategy concerning Jerusalem, aimed at encouraging Jewish residential settlement in the eastern part of the city (even if it presents some elements of discontinuity that are worth underlining).

Conflict of Sovereignties in the Urban Space of Jerusalem

Middle East Journal, 2014

This article examines the matrix of urban interventions and control through territorial and demographic engineering by Israel to transform Jerusalem into a closer approximation of Zionist colonialist ideology by various means. These include the deployment of archaeological, cultural, socio-political, territorial, and urban design instruments to de-construct or re-narrate the other histories and characteristics of the city in order to preempt alternative sovereignties. Competing visions and discourses are visually evident in urban spaces and practices. This process is a conflict that chooses "identity" as its overt manifestation and its "protection" is consequently used as justification for legal and political discrimination. The construction of this particular form of identity was and is inherently inescapable due to the colonialist basis and practices of the state.

Politics and Conflict in a Contested City. Urban Planning in Jerusalem under Israeli Rule

2012

This paper asserts that urban planning is a critical tool in designing an effective, attractive, functioning city. A strong urban planning system provides a way of balancing the interests of various groups (public and private) and communities within the city – under an umbrella that protects the public interest, and allows the city to flourish. In Jerusalem, where planning and ethno-national politics merge, the system of urban planning has been used over the last few decades to achieve Israeli national political goals, bolstering the Israeli population and its control of the land in the city, and limiting the urban development of, and control of land by, the Palestinian community. The paper starts with a brief review of contested cities literature, continues with an analysis of Jerusalem’s urban planning history and concludes with a more contemporary analysis of planning and politics in the contested city of Jerusalem.

Rokem, J. (2013) Politics and Conflict in a Contested City: Urban Planning in Jerusalem under Israeli Rule

Planning policy is a major tool determining development outcomes and shaping the built environment. It is commonly used to build better places and promote sustainable communities and development. However, in some extreme cases, the struggle over land has taken precedence. This is especially evident in the Middle East and particularly in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The continued international interest and media coverage from the region places the local geopolitical issues in the world’s spotlight; however, it rarely looks at the underlying conditions for the emergence of these turbulent circumstances. This paper affirms that planning policy holds a fundamental impact on the positive social and spatial development of urban areas; however, in some extreme cases, the politics of conflict produce different conditions as the case of Jerusalem will reveal.

The 1963 General Plan for Jerusalem The Unrealized Vision for the Eastern Part of the City (with Jawad Dukhgan)

Jerusalem Quarterly , 2022

This article attempts to analyze the comprehensive urban plan commissioned by the municipality of Jerusalem from Brown Engineers International in 1963 in light of the status of the city within Jordanian governance and politics, and also compared to earlier British plans. This plan was the basis for the 1966 town scheme submitted to the Jordanian government just one year before the 1967 war by Henry Kendall, who was in charge of city planning for the municipality between 1963 and 1966. Faced with the extreme reduction of the space for urban development after the division of the city, the plan ambitioned to lay the basis for a “complete city” and to compensate for the lack of vital infrastructures. For the Old City, the plan sought to further approaches to preservation initiated during the Mandate period, while calling for the creation of residential neighborhoods outside of it.