Planning and Injustice in Tel-Aviv/Jaffa Urban Segregation in Tel-Aviv’S First Decades
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Planning and Injustice in Tel-Aviv/Jaffa Urban Segregation in Tel-Aviv’s First Decades Rotem Erez June 7th, 2016 Supervisor: Dr. Stefan Kipfer A Major Paper submitted to the Faculty of Environmental Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Student Signature: _____________________ Supervisor Signature:_____________________ Contents Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 1 Table of Figures ......................................................................................................................................... 3 Abstract .............................................................................................................................................4 Foreword ...........................................................................................................................................6 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................9 Chapter 1: A Comparative Study of the Early Years of Colonial Casablanca and Tel-Aviv ..................... 19 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 19 Historical Background ............................................................................................................................. 20 Precolonial Incorporation into the World Capitalist System .................................................................. 21 Prelude to Colonization .......................................................................................................................... 23 Association vs. Dissociation .................................................................................................................... 25 Early Colonial Settlement ........................................................................................................................ 29 Dual Cities ............................................................................................................................................... 31 Early Land Speculation ............................................................................................................................ 37 The Physical and Social Place of ‘Internal Others’ .................................................................................. 40 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 2: Urban Segregation in Early Tel-Aviv ................................................................................. 45 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 45 Sephardim and Ashkenazim – Conceptual Origins of the Terms ............................................................ 47 Zionism as Settler-Colonialism ................................................................................................................ 49 Zionist Orientalism .................................................................................................................................. 53 Segregation in Early Zionist Thought and Action .................................................................................... 56 Segregationist Tendencies in Early Tel-Aviv............................................................................................ 62 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 77 Chapter 3: Evictions Past and Present in Tel-Aviv-Jaffa ...................................................................... 79 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 80 Al-Jammasin al-Gharbi ............................................................................................................................ 81 Tel-Aviv .................................................................................................................................................... 81 Ottoman Land Designation and British Land Reform ............................................................................. 82 Town Planning Legislation under the British Mandate ........................................................................... 84 1 Tel-Aviv’s Growth at the Expense of Arab Villages ................................................................................. 84 The 1948 War and al-Jammasin al-Gharbi .............................................................................................. 86 Jewish Settlement in al-Jammasin al-Gharbi .......................................................................................... 88 From Arab Lands to State Lands ............................................................................................................. 90 From State Lands to Private Lands.......................................................................................................... 91 Who Benefits? ......................................................................................................................................... 92 Imagined Geography ............................................................................................................................... 93 Recent Developments ............................................................................................................................. 94 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 97 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................98 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 101 2 Table of Figures Figure 1 - The built up area of Tel-Aviv in relation to Jaffa on the eve of the First World War. Source: Survey of Egypt, June 1918, (as cited in Katz, 1986, p. 413) ....................................................................... 37 Figure 2 - Residents of Givat Amal being evacuated on 21 September 2014. (photo credit: Tomer Neuberg/Flash90) source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/police-clear-out-tel-aviv-neighborhood-for- second-time/ ............................................................................................................................................... 79 Figure 3 - Promotional sign for Park Bavli development. Captions read "High-End Residence in the Heart of Tel Aviv" and "We Won't Tell if You Won't Tell." Source: Rotem Erez ................................................... 96 Figure 4 - Promotional sign for Park Bavli development. Caption reads "No One Needs to Know That You Live Right above the Park". Source: Rotem Erez ......................................................................................... 96 3 Abstract This major paper attempts to establish the sources of ethnic segregation in Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, Israel, through a comparative study of the city’s development and that of Casablanca, Morocco; through historical research specific to Tel-Aviv’s development prior to the establishment of the State of Israel and the city’s unification with Jaffa; and through the case study of a segregated neighbourhood in the city’s heart. This study is informed mainly by Lorenzo Veracini’s theorization of settler-colonialism and Carl Nightingale’s work on segregation. Settler-colonialism’s imperative to control the land and the population economy relies on continuous and expanding segregation. Both of these imperatives in turn benefit the real-estate economy, and all three rely on a planning framework as their rationalization and as a solution for their internal and mutual contradictions. The population hierarchy that developed under pre-state Zionism and after the formation of Israel relied on a division between Jews and non- Jews, as well as between ethnic classes of Jews. An exploration of this latter division is central to this work, and relies on insights from several Israeli scholars, as well as on Edward Said’s conception of orientalism. Tel-Aviv, as a settler-colonial city, has relied on a buffer population of internal others to mediate its antagonistic relations with its progenitor, Jaffa, and the artificial social hierarchy thus created has had its own internal contradictions with repercussions that reverberate to this day. Tel-Aviv both drew from Zionism’s ideology and helped shape it as it quickly became Palestine’s largest Jewish settlement and the centre of Zionist institutions in Palestine. This paper’s relevance is heightened by the recent political and cultural resurgence in Israel of Palestinian and subaltern Jewish groups, including the more established Mizrahi population, as well as more recent immigrant groups such as Ethiopian- and Russian-Israelis. A study of the historical sources 4 of segregation could form the basis for an understanding of its contemporary