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The Status of the Palestinian Minority in the Israeli Planning System

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The Status of the Palestinian Minority in the Israeli Planning System Adalah’s Newsletter, Volume 34, March 2007 The Status of the Palestinian Minority in the Israeli Planning System By Hana Hamdan1 "Neither cities nor places in them can be unordered; the question is only whose order, whose planning, for what purpose." (Peter Marcuse, 1995)2 Introduction Spatial patterns are generated by human actions, which illustrate and bring to fruition the interests of the dominant group, and mirror a hierarchy based on different power structures.3 Generally speaking, the dominant group wishes to preserve and reproduce the built-up environment that reflects this group’s values and norms and leads to the alienation and exclusion of the oppressed groups.4 The increased popularity of the planning profession has led to new forms of dominance, which encompass the techniques that enable the dominant group to control others: different ethnic groups, women and children.5 According to Healy (1995)6, urban planning and management are inherent in the government’s “top-down” or “command and control” model. This “top-down” model did not allow the involvement of the weak and oppressed groups in designing the available space. This perception was also based on determinism, power, exclusion and failure to involve “the other”. The outcome is the creation of a space that serves the existing balance of powers, reproduces it and is instrumental in continuing to exclude women, ethnic minorities and other weak and oppressed groups from the public space and the core of decision making. Hence the need to take the voices of the different groups in the urban space into account, to heed the voices of the oppressed, and to involve them in designing and managing the urban space.7 Young (1990)8 claims that involving the oppressed in the decision-making process is an act that promotes justice and therefore democratic institutions must commit to listening to the voice of “the other”: If city politics is to be democratic and not dominated by the point of view of one group, it must be a politics that takes account of and provides voice for different groups that dwell together in the city without forming a community. (p. 227) Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the planning system has discriminated against Palestinian citizens and their towns and villages by failing to provide them with the same planning and development options as those granted to Jewish citizens and Jewish towns and villages. Moreover, the Palestinian minority was systematically excluded from the public 1 The author is Adalah’s Urban and Regional Planner. 2 Marcuse, Peter, (1995), “Not Chaos, but walls: postmodernism and the partitioned city”, in Postmodern Cities and Spaces, ed. Watson Sophie. & Gibson Katherine, Oxford: Blackwell. 3 Castells, Manuel, (2003), “The new historical relationship between space and society”, in Designing Cities, Critical, Readings in Urban Design, ed. Alexander R. Cuthbert, Oxford: Blackwell. 4 Sibley, David, 1995. Geographies of Exclusion – Society and Difference in the West, London and New York; Routledge 5 Sandercock, Leonie, 2003. Cosmopolis II Mongrel Cities of the 21st Century. London and New York: Continuum. Fenster, Tovi, (2002), “Planning as control-cultural and gendered manipulation and mis-use of knowledge”, Hager: International Social Science Review, 3 (2), pp: 98-114. And see footnote 2, above. 6 Healey, Pasty, (1995), “Discourses of Integration: Making Frameworks for Democratic Urban Planning”, in Managing Cities, the New Urban Context, ed, Healey, P, Cameron, S, Davoudi, S, Graham, S, & Madani-Pour, A, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. 7 Sandercock, Leonie, (2000) “When strangers become neighbors: managing cities of difference”, Planning Theory and Practice, 1 (1), pp; 13-20. Fincher R, & Jacobs J, (1998), Cities of Difference. New York: Guilford. 8 Young, Iris M. (1990), Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1 Adalah’s Newsletter, Volume 34, March 2007 discourse on the planning and design of the urban space and disappeared entirely from the various levels and realms of the planning discourse. This article will address the status and position of the Palestinian minority in the Israeli planning system historically, and especially in the local planning committees, focusing primarily in the northern district, by analyzing the composition of these committees. The Planning System in Israel The Israeli planning system adopted the Zionist ideology that perceives Jewish settlement throughout the state as a supreme goal, which also has the practical purpose of achieving geopolitical control. The geopolitical agenda yielded intense public focus on the “population distribution” project, which led to a policy of establishing new Jewish villages and towns throughout Israel. The project was designed to enable and ensure a “Jewish presence” and a Jewish majority in most of the state. A planning system made up of a large number of planning institutions compared to Western countries was set up in keeping with this ideology.9 The following diagram indicates the organizational structure of the planning system in Israel, which is founded on the Planning and Building Law, 1965 (hereinafter: “the law”). The government is at the head of the diagram and is involved in the planning stages through: (1) the extensive power it is granted and the option to supervise the various planning-related decisions also at the local level; and (2) the power to plan a variety of national land-use plans.10 Almost all of the committees are comprised of governmental representatives, primarily the National Council for Planning and Building and the district committees. In practice, the government approves national master plans and makes various decisions pertaining to the establishment of new settlements.11 9 Alterman Rachel, (2001). “National-Level Planning in Israel: Walking the Tightrope Between Government Control and Privatisation”, in National-Level Planning in Democratic Countries, an International Comparison of City and Regional Policy-Making, Edited By Alterman, Rachel, Liverpool University Press. 10 See footnote 9, above. 11It is worthy of note that a Palestinian citizen of Israel is serving as the Minister of Science, Culture and Sport in the Israeli government. His appointment was only recently approved, on 29 January 2007. 2 Adalah’s Newsletter, Volume 34, March 2007 Diagram 1: The Organizational Structure of the Planning System in Israel According to the Planning and Building Law, 196512 Government Ministry of the Interior Territorial Committee for Waters Preservation of National Council for Planning and Committee Agricultural Building Land Appeal Committee District planning and building committees (6) Local planning and building committees (113) Local licensing authority The National Council for Planning and Building: Chapter 2, Article A of the Planning and Building Law The National Council for Planning and Building (NCPB) is ranked third in the hierarchy of Israel’s planning system, after the government and the Ministry of the Interior. By law, the NCPB must be composed of thirty-two members headed by the Minister of the Interior or his or her representative. The NCPB also consists of eleven members of government, local authority representatives, non-governmental organizations, including representatives of the younger generation and one representative from women’s organizations. It should be stressed that the law does not compel the Council to include a representative of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel, even though this minority amounts to almost 20% of the state’s total population. Among the NCPB’s thirty-two members, there are currently only three Palestinians; moreover, they are members of the NCPB as local authority representatives rather than as representatives of the Palestinian minority and they are all men. There are no Palestinian women on the NCPB. The role of the NCPB is to advise the government on the general guidelines for implementing the Planning and Building Law. It must advise both the government and the Minister of the Interior over the adoption of regulations and is in charge of drafting national master plans. The inadequate representation of the Palestinian minority in the NCPB makes it difficult for this group to defend its needs and interests and to ensure that these are reflected in the planning principles and national master plans. The District Committees: Chapter 2, Article B of the Planning and Building Law In Israel there are six district planning and building committees: Northern, Haifa, Jerusalem, Central, Tel Aviv and Southern. By law, each committee must consist of seventeen members, and the head of the committee is the official responsible for the district within the Ministry of the 12 See footnote 9, above. 3 Adalah’s Newsletter, Volume 34, March 2007 Interior. Each committee also contains a district planner, eight governmental representatives and five representatives from the district’s local authorities. The district committees’ tasks involve drafting district master plans, entrusting the local committees with preparing local master plans, and approving detailed local master plans. I have chosen, as an example, to examine the composition of the Northern District Committee for Planning and Building (NDCPB). The committee consists of seventeen members. The two senior positions on the committee with decision-making power – namely the committee’s chairman and the planner, respectively – are held by two Jewish men. There are only two Palestinian representatives
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