Oren Yiftachel

• Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

The paper analyzes the regime in Israel/Palestine using a political geographical perspective. It demonstrates how a combination of colonial, national, capitalist and liberal forces have put in train a process of “deepening apartheid” in the entire territory controlled by Israel—between River and Sea. This undeclared regime has been established to g...

This visual essay introduces the concept of ‘thrownapartness’ as an embedded logic of contemporary urbanization, existing in dialectical tension with ‘throwntogetherness’. Tracing the working of urban walls, displacement and abandonment on the fringes of Al-Quds/Jerusalem provides a stark contrast to the perceived image of cities as hubs of mixing,...

In this paper, we set a framework for the Special Feature on urban living together by highlighting the main forces which, we contend, have significantly reshaped urban citizenship in recent times. Nearly two decades after the formulation of Doreen Massey’s influential concept of ‘throwntogetherness’, we engage it in a conversation with differing, o...

This chapter develops the concept of ‘defensive urban citizenship’ (DUC), which denotes the making of urban identity inspired by residents’ protection of their ‘turf’ in the face of growing threats – including massive development plans and in-migration flows. It employs a ‘pluriversal Southeastern’ approach that views the city ‘from below’, and de...

A presente obra tem por orientação geral buscar suprir uma lacuna em relação a uma ampla dispersão da produção acadêmica concernente aos vá- rios aspectos e escalas do planejamento territorial. Parte-se, aqui, de uma concepção de planejamento territorial imbuída da noção de território enquanto parcela do espaço apropriado socialmente, com fundament...

Urban displacement has become a central topic in the social sciences. This welcome development, however, appears to focus on the act of displacement rather than the condition of displaceability. The literature on the subject is dominated by a ‘traditional-critical’ approach, concentrating almost solely on the impact of capitalism, neoliberalism and...

Flyer with 20% reduction on the price of the book. http://www.sup.org/books/precart/?id=24714 Emptied Lands investigates the protracted legal, planning, and territorial conflict between the settler Israeli state and indigenous Bedouin citizens over traditional lands in southern Israel/Palestine. The authors place this dispute in historical, lega...

This chapter explores the development of international law on indigeneity. It reviews the legal protections endowed by key documents, such as International Labor Organizations Convention No. 169 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The chapter also provides a short comparative legal perspective on land ri...

This chapter begins to set the historical background for the book by outlining in detail the state of affairs in the Negev during the last period of Ottomans rule in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on tribal-state relations, the chapter explores the late Ottoman modes of governance, and traces changing Ottoman policies a...

This chapter presents an epilogue which revisits the al-‘Uqbi case, and then presents the conclusion, dealing with the possible transformation of the DND into transitional justice. The chapter further demonstrates that Israeli law does have sufficient tools to overwrite or bypass the debilitating DND. A new enlightened and savvy political approach...

This chapter continues the challenging of the Dead Negev Doctrine and its various components by addressing the issue of Bedouin settlement. The DND and official Israeli narrative represents the Bedouins as nomads who had no permanent settlements in the Negev, whereas the chapter argues that although some maps from the Ottoman period do not demarcat...

The introduction presents the general setting and outlines the book’s main research questions. It does so by reviewing four key events of recent conflictual encounters between Israeli authorities and Bedouin communities, as telling entry points for the book ahead. The chapter than highlights the book's main arguments, mainly dealing with the develo...

This chapter continues to cover the history of Southern Palestine and the transformation of the local land system by covering the British Mandate period, 1917–1948. The chapter explores the evolution of British-Bedouin relations and the special Mandate administration of the Beersheba sub-district that granted relative autonomy to Bedouin tribes to...

This chapter begins the task of challenging the geographical components of the DND, by providing a thorough account of the historical geography of the Negev, drawing on various historical accounts of European travelers and Zionists. Relying on these accounts, it challenges the hegemonic history and narrative that depict the Negev as an uncultivated...

The chapter seeks to answer the question: are the Bedouins an indigenous people? It first addresses the positions of the Israeli state as well as a group of Israeli scholars who deny the indigeneity of the Bedouins and cling to anachronistic concepts and definitions concerning indigeneity. The chapter then demonstrates that contrary to Israel’s pos...

This chapter is an overview of the “state of the art” in scholarship dealing with Negev (Naqab) Bedouins. It sets the book within relevant scholarly frameworks as a foundation for the empirical investigations of the chapters that follow. This chapter defines key concepts such as “Ethnocracy,” “settling society”, “gray space” and “hegemony;” and dis...

Formulating the Dead Negev Doctrine During the Israeli Period Chapter abstract: This chapter focuses on the history and impact of the Dead Negev Doctrine—the legal doctrine utilized by the Israeli government and judiciary to dispossess Bedouin Arab communities of their lands. The chapter begins with the land claims lodged by the Bedouins in the ear...

Among the most contested facets of the conflict between the state and the Bedouins are land ownership and recognition of 46 “unrecognized” or partly recognized localities. This chapter completes the picture by addressing the question of planning and the Bedouin unrecognized villages. Since 1948, the Israeli government has persistently and forcefull...

It is commonly claimed by Israeli authorities that Bedouins are trespassers who never acquired property or settlement rights in southern Israel/Palestine. This led to massive dispossession of Bedouins. This book sets to examine state claims by providing, for the first time, a thorough analysis of the legal geography of the Negev. It adopts critical...

This article documents the making of a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) for Beersheba, Israel, using a modified version of Susan Fainstein’s ‘just city’ vision. Four key dimensions are analyzed: equality, built environment, diversity and democracy. The SIA reveals that the new plan offers positive steps towards narrowing spatial inequalities. However...

The paper examines the nature of indigenous identity among Bedouin Arabs in Negev/Naqab, Israel, against a background of conceptual, legal and political controversy. It traces theoretically and comparatively the rise of indigeneity as a relational concept, deriving from colonial and postcolonial settings. The concept is shown to be part of the glob...

This epilogue provides an overview and critique of the articles in this symposium, and an invitation to rethink, conceptually and empirically, our urban future. Using examples from cities in Israel/Palestine, it links the articles to the main currents in the literature on urban citizenship and ‘right to the city'. It draws attention to several void...

המאמר שלפניכם ייקח אותנו למסע אל העתיד העירוני המתהווה מול עיננו, עתיד שהוא הווה. כמו רוב התהפוכות הגדולות, הוא מתרחש בהדרגה, כמעט בשקט, אבל הופך את מה שאנו מכירים לנחלת העבר. העתיד הזה הוא צמיחתו של 'המרחב האפור', הלא פורמאלי, הלא מתוכנן, הגורם לרוב ערי העולם במאה ה-21 להיות רחוקות מאוד מחזון העיר המודרנית, השוויונית, המתוכננת והלבנה, לה ציפו לשוו...

The Arab Bedouins are a cultural group with a special lifestyle that is currently vanishing. Inhabiting the Negev/Naqab Desert for centuries, the Bedouins lived under regimes including the Ottoman, the British and since 1948 the State of Israel. In recent years, the Bedouins have gone through political traumas and cultural transformations, which in...

The paper analyzes the political geography of relig ious radicalism ('fundamentalism'), arguing that such radicalism is closely related to ethno-national conflicts in general, and to the recent development of urban colonialism in particular. This aspect is rarely discussed in the literature, which over-emphasizes 'civilizational wars', neo- imperia...

Oren Yiftchel focuses on the creeping apartheid-like situation in Palestine on the back of the concept of 'two states for two peoples' forwarded by Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 5, 2009. Oren admits that in place of movement toward two states or one, there is a process of creeping apartheid in terms of undeclared reordering the p...

The paper draws on critical urban theories (CUT) to trace the working of oppressive power and the emergence of new subjectivities through the production of space. Within such settings, it analyzes the struggle of Bedouin Arabs in the Beersheba metropolitan region, Israel/Palestine. The paper invokes the concept of 'gray spacing' as the practice of...

The author analyzes the political geography of globally expanding urban informalities. These are conceptualized as `gray spaces', positioned between the `whiteness' of legality/approval/safety, and the `blackness' of eviction/destruction/death. The vast expansion of gray spaces in contemporary cities reflects the emergence of new types of colonial...

Some 1,200 kilometers of security fence/separation wall have already been built, consisting of 60-to-100-meter-wide complexes of trenches, barbed wire, tracking roads, and electronic fences in rural areas, and 8 meter high concrete walls in and around Palestinian towns and cities. Over 200,000 dunums (1 dunum = 1000 square meters) of Palestinian la...

Israel's development of industrial zones in the peripheral Galilee region is a major element of its national planning policy. The paper examines the economic impact of three of these industrial zones—Carmiel, Tefen, and Ma'alot—on Arabs and Jews in the region. Data on key employment and input and output indicators were collected through a survey of...

Understanding the Small Business Sector, D. J. STOREY, Routledge, London (1994). xxi+355 pp. £16.99 (pbk). ISBN 0 415 10038 0. Regional Development in a Modern European Economy: The Case of Tuscany, R. LEONARDI and R. Y. NANETTI (Eds), Frances Pinter, London (1994). vi+260 pp. £35.00 (hbk). ISBN 1 85567 155 7. The Structure of European Industry, 3r...

The paper proposes a preliminary political-geographical theory of ‘ethnocratic’ regimes. It identifies such regimes as a distinct type, neither democratic, nor authoritarian. The paper defines and illustrates the evolution and characteristics of ethnocratic states, and examines their impact on ethnic relations and political stability. While these r...

In the face of persisting deprivation, marginalized ethno-classes generally mobilize against their governments and/or against rival groups. Two key arenas of such mobilization are extra-parliamentary protest and local electoral campaigning. The paper examines these arenas in Israel’s peripheral ‘development towns’, established during the 1950s, and...

In this paper we offer a critical analysis of ethnic relations in an Israeli 'mixed city'. Similar to other sites shaped by the logics of settling ethnonationalism and capitalism, the 'mixed city' is characterized by stark patterns of segregation between a dominant majority and a subordinate minority, as well as by ethnoclass fragmentation within e...

Previous studies of electoral behavior in Israel have demonstrated the importance of ethnic and religious cleavages while finding little evidence for class divisions as a factor structuring politics and predicting voter preferences. We challenge this empirical consensus by employing three different methodologies: a reanalysis of standard survey dat...

The article deals with the relations between time and space in the making of modern nations, focusing on conditions of territorial conflicts in general, and on expansionist 'ethnocratic' societies in particular. Under such conditions, it is argued, territory (the 'where' of the nation) becomes a most vital 'kernel' of national mobilisation, while t...

This paper uses a critical political-geographical perspective to account for the high centrality of power found in Israel. It suggests that the concentration of power have not been solely caused by national solidarity and integration or by metropolitan development, as commonly explained, but also by the territorial `fracturing' of the main social a...

During the last decade or so, many planning theorists have taken a so-called communicative turn, to the point where some have declared the emergence of a dominant new paradigm supported by increasing consensus among theorists. We wish to raise a number of broad questions about the communicative paradigm and claims for its theoretical dominance. We...

Urban planning is usually portrayed as a benign and progressive societal force. This interpretation is critically examined through an evaluation of Israel's development town project. According to the 'best' planning concepts available during the 1950s, Israel built 28 new towns, mainly on the country's peripheral 'frontiers'. New immigrants, chiefl...

Theories of nationalism have often overlooked variations in ethnic spatial settings, and have too easily subsumed nation and state. But nationalism surfaces in a variety of dynamic forms, such as among homeland ethnic minorities `trapped' within states controlled by others. In such cases `ethnoregional' identities often emerge, combining ethnonatio...

Israel Studies 3.2 (1998) 253-267 IN THIS ESSAY WE PRESENT a critique of the "ethnic democracy" model, formulated by political sociologist Sammy Smooha to account for Israel's political structure. During the last two decades, Smooha's voluminous work on ethnic politics in Israel has gained a central position among social scientists in Israel and be...

Studies of nationalism have only rarely explored the intra‐national stratification associated with the politics of nation‐building. The article focuses on these processes from a spatial perspective, by studying the population of ‘internal frontiers’ in settler societies, focusing on the case of Israel. The settlement of the frontiers in the Israeli...

This paper proposes an alternative account of the high degree of power centrality in Israel, by arguing that the territorial ‘fracturing’ of Israel's main social and ethnic groups has prevented the emergence of effective pressure for regional devolution. Israel's character as a settler and settling state, and its central project of Judaising contes...

This paper highlights and discusses the major contributions of Brian McLoughlin's ‘second wave’ work to the field of planning theory. While not often recognized as a planning ‘theorist’, McLoughlin did have a direct impact in the field. Unfortunately, these contributions have often been ignored by leading theorists, to the detriment of planning sch...

The paper analyses the evolution of collective identities from a critical geographical perspective, and argues that certain territorial practices associated with nation‐building and state‐building projects may actually sow the seeds of social and ethnic fragmentation. The analysis focuses on the impact of ‘internal frontier’ settlement in settler s...

This article argues that Israel's settlement and socio-economic policies have caused internal ethnic and class divisions that now threaten the prospects of Jewish-Palestinian reconciliation. Furthermore, the association of peace primarily with the interests of Israel's economic and cultural elites has alienated most peripheral groups, particularly...

Urban and regional planners tend to recommend spatial mix of socially diverse populations as an appropriate strategy to achieve social equity and improve inter‐group relations. However, the actual impact of such a mix on social relations in general, and inter‐ethnic attitudes in particular, has been subject to on‐going, yet inconclusive, debates am...

Past research on protest and conflict among 'homeland' ethnic minorities has concentrated mainly on ethno-national and socio-economic deprivation and has focused only rarely on the influence of politico-geographical factors such as planning policies, ethnic geography, the human reconstruction of social and political space, and the emergence of ethn...

In settler societies the development of frontier regions has played an important role in the complementary processes of nation building and state building. However, studies of frontier and regional development have paid little attention to the creation of 'internal frontier' regions, where large concentrations of ethnic minorities exist within esta...

In this paper a relatively underresearched aspect of Israel's planning policies in the Galilee region is examined: The attitudes of the local Arab population towards these policies. Israel's policies are initially reviewed, with particular attention to their spatial, economic, and procedural elements. Then a report is given on an attitudinal survey...

In this paper the dynamic relations between the state, society, and metropolitan planning are explored. The changing role and function of the state in the context of rapid restructuring of economic and social relations in Australia during the past decade are discussed, along with the impact of processes such as globalisation, cyclic recessions, and...

This paper explores the consequences of ethnic regional mix, created by governmental settlement policies. Theories explaining the short- and long-term implications of regional ethnic mix in ‘homeland biethnic democracies’ are discussed. Israel's settlement policy in the Galilee region is then analysed. That policy created an ethnic mix in a periphe...

The paper compares and contrasts three cases of plural democracies in the Middle East: Lebanon (1943–1975), Cyprus (1960–1974) and Israel (1948–1992). It begins with a classification and review of two bodies of theories: the role of the state in maintaining democratic stability in plural (deeply divided) societies; and the links between ethnic spat...

This article reviews and analyzes recent developments in research on the Arab/Palestinian minority in Israel. It focuses on the distribution of societal resources between Arabs and Jews and on the role of the state in determining that distribution. Accordingly, literature on three key areas of Arab-Jewish relations is reviewed: territorial, socieco...

Urban planning theory has been widely criticised by academics and practitioners as being confused and impractical. In this review paper a tentative first step to remedy the situation is proposed, outlining a new typology of urban planning theories with an aim to clarify the academic discourse and to provide a useful guide for practising planners. T...

What we ask from you is simple: just observe the law; if you do this, every- body will benefit: you will have well planned, serviced and recognized towns, and we'll safeguard the last tracts of vacant land for the Jewish people around the world, and particularly for those who stayed for the time being in the ex-Soviet Union, for a possible day of c...