Haim Yacobi - The Jewish-Arab City: Spatio-Politics in a Mixed Community

Mixed city is a term widely used in Israel to describe areas occupied by both Jewish and Arab communities. In a critical examination of such cities, the author shows how a clear spatial and mental division exists between Arabs and Jews in Israel, and how the occurrence of such spaces is both exceptional and involuntary.

Looking at JewishArab relations in Israel in the context of the built environment, it is argued that there are complex links between socio-political relations and the production of contested urban space. The case study of one particular JewishArab mixed city, the city of Lod, is used as the platform for wider theoretical discussion and political analysis. This city has great significance in the present global context, as more and more cities are becoming polarized, ghettoized and fragmented in surprisingly similar ways. This book examines the visible planning apparatuses and the hidden mechanisms of social, political and cultural control involved in these processes.

Focusing on the spatialities of power, this book brings to the fore a critical discussion of the urban processes that shape JewishArab mixed cities in Israel, and will be of interest to students and scholars of Urban Studies, Middle East Studies and Politics in general.

Dr. Haim Yacobi is an architect and lecturer at the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University. His main research interests are the production of urban space, social justice, the politics of identity, migration, globalization and urban planning.

The ArabIsraeli conflict continues to be the center of academic and popular attention. This series brings together the best of the cutting-edge work now being undertaken by predominantly new and young scholars. Although largely falling within the field of political science, the series also includes interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary contributions.

First published 2009
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2009 Haim Yacobi

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ISBN 0-203-87969-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-44500-0 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-87969-4 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-44500-9 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-87969-6 (ebk)

To Yael, Avigayil and Itamar

Lydda, 1918 aerial photograph

Lydda, 1900

Lydda junction. Plans of the proposed junior staff housing units and the recreation building

Clifford Hollidays urban scheme

Regional scheme beginning of the 1940s

Otto Polchecks urban scheme

Jewish refugees in Lod

Lod master plan scheme (19541958)

Lod: housing blocks

The wall between Nir Zvi and Pardes Shanir

Jewish and Arab inhabitants in Lod

Advertisement for Ramat Elyashiv

The road between Pardes Shanir and Ganey Aviv

Arab informal housing (on the left) attached to Ganey Aviv

Arab women in Ganey Aviv

Boulders in the Rakevet

Neve Shalom, winter 2003

Grocery shop in Neve Shalom

Shig-al-mikaad, in Neve Shalom

Covered external staircase in Neve Shalom

Lods city center 2008

The Jewish and Arab population of Lod

This book is about a city, a JewishArab mixed city, located in the core of my country, Israela territory which is experiencing ongoing conflict. As an architect and planner who specializes in the study of politics, I have discovered in my visits to the city of Lod a multi-layered built environment and a diverse human landscape that contains many of the issues that stand at the center of political debate in Israel, which must be seen as part of the Middle East, as well as part of the growing process of globalization. This book is an attempt to understand such a cityscape and its production vis--vis both power mechanisms and numerous acts of protest, and is the culmination of three years of extensive fieldwork in the city as well as my study of historical documents from a variety of archives.

The intellectual and emotional process of writing such a book, which touches on some of the fundamental tensions of Israeli society, has not been easy. My personal identity as a Jewish-Israeli academic who studies an ethnically mixed city has been shaped through the years of research and writing. It seems to me that this process could not have been realized without some wonderful and generous people whom I have met during my work in Lod: Busayna Dabit, Aref Muhareb, Maha al-Nakib, Edward Thanus, Lia Steinberg and Yaron Turel, who guided me through the spatio-political labyrinth of this city and shared with me their knowledge and thoughts. This process was made even more constructive by other friends and colleagues who accompanied me on this journey; I would like especially to thank Oren Yiftachel for his endless support and time, which enabled me to explore new geographical and political destinations, and Erez Tzfadia, Tovi Fenster and David Newman, who accompanied me with a continuous exchange of ideas and comments. I have also been assisted during the writing of this book by the editorial skills of Tresa Grauer and Galit Gelbort, who helped me to fine-tune my arguments and to express the ideas presented in the book more clearly. To Ananya Roy and Mina Rajagopalan, I am grateful for the support and important comments about my initial idea for writing this book.

This is also an opportunity to thank the different bodies that supported my research: the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC), the Hertzog Center for Diplomacy and Middle East Studies and the French Embassy Grant. Thanks go also to the generous support of Professor Rivka Carmi, the President of Ben Gurion University, and Professor Jimmy Weinblatt, the Rector of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben Gurion University.