“The Jaffa Slope Project”: an Analysis of “Jaffaesque” Narratives in the New Millennium

Introduction “The Jaffa Slope Project”: An Analysis of “Jaffaesque” Narratives in the New Millennium Ravit Goldhaber Department of Geography, Ben-Gurion University Introduction The public discourse surrounding the The Jaffa Slope project is a development project and its implementation has plan that was drafted for the city of Jaffa constituted an arena in which Jaffa’s (Yaffa in Arabic) in the 1960s. It various actors (including the Jewish encompasses the Arab neighborhoods of establishment and the Arab population) Jabaliya and Ajami and the underlying have battled over the redesign of the space. shoreline, known as the Jaffa Slope. The The municipality presents the project as aim of the project is to create new land by part of its overall regional policy of land reclamation, thereby creating open integrated socio-urban rehabilitation and spaces for the public and land for building development, which ostensibly aims at apartments of a relatively high standard, enhancing the lives of those living in the and making greater use of the shoreline Arab neighborhoods and improving their (Local Master Plan – Jaffa Slope No. image and status. By contrast, the local 2236). The project serves as a “shadow Arab discourse reflects a sense that the plan,” and accordingly any project community faces an existential threat. implemented within its confines must In this article, I will argue that the conform to its directives. Although several implementation of the Jaffa Slope project stages of the project have been reflects a convergence of national, implemented over the past forty years, it economic and socio-urban interests that was only in 1995 that it received final has given rise to a struggle over spatial official approval. The project was identity. I will also contend that the implemented in accordance with the land competition over space and the use of policies adopted by municipal planners at space in Jaffa can be understood in the various stages. However, its basic context of Israel as a society that is based principles have remained unchanged since on a Judaizing spatial ideology (Yiftachel, its launch: namely, to alter the social and 1999; 2006) and has a liberal economic physical fabric of these neighborhoods. structure (Shalev, 2006). I shall further 47 examine the implications of this form of the city”. This right consists of openness, development on the indigenous Arab flexibility, the recognition of differences, population, as well as its impact on the right to be included, the right to relations between the Jewish and Arab develop an individual or collective residents of Jaffa. identity, and autonomous decision- I shall present my arguments through making, alongside an egalitarian an analysis of the discourse of the distribution of resources and capital. establishment, in order to cast light on the However, his vision of urban space has local spatial policy, alongside an analysis of remained confined to the realm of theory, the local Arab discourse, which reflects the as the right to the city of urban Arab struggle to hold onto the land and inhabitants is diminished by the underscore its Arab character. constantly shifting balances of powers The article contains five sections. The between social groups and their struggles first proposes “ethnic logic” as a over the control of spatial design. When theoretical framework for the occupation social groups do not belong to a single of indigenous cities by settler societies and ethnos, ethnic logic exacerbates the immigrants. Next follows an outline of the struggle over urban spatial design and principles of the Jaffa Slope project and control. This logic marginalizes vulnerable planning policy in Jaffa over time. ethnic groups and relegates them to the Thirdly, the article will address the city’s economic, political, social and national, economic and socio-urban spatial margins (Sibley, 1995; Yiftachel, interests that have been pursued through 1999). According to Yiftachel (2006), the Jaffa Slope project. The fourth section ethnic logic comes into play where there is focuses on the discourse of the an attempt to consolidate the establishment and the local Arab discourse independence of a nation, outline the surrounding the plan and its boundaries of a new country and populate implementation. The final section an external frontier (settlement in a considers the implications of the project different country or continent) or an for the native Arab population of Jaffa, internal frontier (settlement in mixed Jewish-Arab relations in the city, and the cities) with settler societies and future of Jaffa’s Arab community. immigrants (Yacobi and Zfadia, 2004; Roded, 2006). The external frontier is Ethnic logic and the occupation of populated by the settler society following indigenous cities their invasion of or immigration to an As indicated by Lefebvre (1996), urban area. A good illustration of this process is space offers its inhabitants “the right to European emigration to Australia and 48 “The Jaffa Slope Project”: An Analysis Introductionof “Jaffaesque” Narratives in the New Millennium Canada in the 18th century. territorial control, the “ethnic logic” of The internal frontier is populated by the capital flows, the legal system and the land settler society (the majority group) after planning regime, and establishes and their dispersion throughout and imposes the dominant culture, while settlement in the areas in which the state undermining – even eradicating – the wishes to reinforce the majority group’s indigenous culture (Benvenisti, 1997; control over the minority group. Examples Ben-Shemesh, 2003; Bar-Gal, 2002; are provided by Sri Lanka, Estonia, Greece Roded, 2006; Yiftachel, 2006). Yiftachel and Malaysia (Yiftachel and Kedar, 2003). (2006) and Roded (2006) illustrate the The settler society fosters its own ethno- process of settling and occupation by cultural structure within the country’s settler societies in the internal frontier in borders and establishes a hierarchy of Sri Lanka and Estonia, and demonstrate ethnic status. Within this context, the how planning is a crucial tool in settler society attempts to redesign the expanding the control exercised by cultural-national space in order to dominant groups. In Sri Lanka, a battle legitimize its appropriation and was waged over the division of space and occupation. The settler society power between the Sinhalese majority and appropriates the space in such a way as to the Tamil minority. In Estonia, the avoid mixing with the local population process involved an anti-Soviet land and and sometimes even to facilitate its ethnic planning policy that excluded Russian cleansing (Sibley, 1995). At the same citizens, who make up a third of the time, the dominant class gains in strength country’s population, and even revoked relative to the lower and middle classes, their citizenship. In parallel, a policy of thereby creating a society founded on “Estonia-ization” was adopted in the ethno-class stratification. Yiftachel and political, cultural and spatial system with Kedar (2003) indicate that this process the aim of reviving the Estonian nation leads to the creation of three main ethno- and culture. classes: the founding charter group, which A mixed city plays a significant role in acquires the dominant status; the shaping politico-spatial relations between immigrant group, which undergoes a ethnic groups and reproducing them process of upward assimilation within the through spatial planning and production, charter group; and the native group the dominant group’s control over the (considered to be “locals” or “foreigners”), accessibility and distribution of resources which is relegated to the economic, social and capital, and in forging symbolic and spatial periphery of the new society. contents for space and feeding off This exclusion is perpetrated through preferred cultural sources (Yiftachel and 49 Yacobi, 2003). In mixed cities, ethnic marginal phenomenon within Israel’s logic is exposed through urban policy. At urban space and incompatible with the times it is apparent, and at others it is ideology of Judaization and spatial concealed behind various interests. The segregation, there is a pressing need to concept of the “mixed city” describes a probe the overall interests that lie behind mixed living pattern in which several public planning policy in these ethnic groups inhabit a collective space. In communities. Israel it describes a living pattern for Jews This article seeks to demonstrate how and Arabs that is not prevalent: only the ethnic logic that guides public around 8% of Arabs live in mixed cities, planning policy in Jaffa (in the form of all of which have a clear Jewish majority national and economic interests) has (Hadas and Gonen, 1994; Monterescu contributed to the occupation of the city and Fabian, 2003; Hamdan, 2006; and to its transformation into a Jewish Yacobi, 2006; Falah, 1996; Yiftachel and city. It will also discuss how this logic has Yacobi, 2003). Most of the mixed cities in had a deleterious effect on the native Arab Israel came into being as a result of population of Jaffa, through the various geographic, historical and political spatial design and planning and the circumstances whose roots lie in the process of gentrification, on which I shall establishment of the state (Gonen and elaborate below, that began in Jaffa in the Hamaisi, 1992), and were not the product late 1980s. of planning or regulation on the part of the government. The Arab residents of the Main principles of the Jaffa Slope mixed cities tends to live in concentrated project and planning policy in Jaffa areas separate from the Jewish residents (a The Jaffa Slope project (Local Master frequent pattern among ethnic and racial Plan No. 2236), which covers the Jaffa groups in many cities worldwide [Ben Slope (the area west of Kedem Street Artzi and Shoshani, 1986; Boal, 1976]). down to the sea) and the Arab However, there are also mixed neighborhoods of Ajami and Jabaliya (east neighborhoods that contain both Jewish of Kedem Street) (Local Master Plan No.

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