Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyya Launches a Special Issue on Jerusalem in Honor of the Late Walid Khalidi

Rania was the director of Yabous Cultural Centre from 1998 to 2022 and knows firsthand the struggle of producing culture and art under occupation, which criminalizes the expression of a Palestinian national collective, identity, and culture. And this cultural work is “a national commitment, not a luxury.”3 Rania asserted that using culture in this way “is a fundamental tool at the core of the colonial edifice” and that cultural institutions, theater, and literature are instruments of resistance that help rebuild a national identity, using Dublin under British rule as an example.4

Tharaa, a Palestinian researcher and urban planner, spoke about the journey of writing her article, “Place-Making in Jerusalem in a Colonial Context.” It focuses on a recurring concern about the ways in which the success of a placemaking project can be measured. To better understand this concern, Tharaa sent out a questionnaire to assess Palestinian Jerusalemites’ opinions on the municipality’s renovation project of the Karm Sheikh al-Khalili (known as the Rockefeller Archeological Museum) in East Jerusalem (see Israel to Renovate the Rockefeller Museum—Will Its Palestinian History Finally Be Acknowledged?). She received over 500 responses, which revealed that Jerusalemites do not live in a black-and-white political reality and have varying opinions and perspectives.5 During the event, Tharaa explained that contrary to colonial urban planning agendas, Jerusalemites do not fully reject municipal improvement projects (such as public parks renovations); however, they demand that these projects affirm their identity and sense of belonging, safety, and agency over the place and land.

Her article thus explores the act of placemaking as a professional practice within a settler-colonial context. Typically, placemaking aims to create public spaces with and for the local population to enhance their sense of safety and belonging to the locality. However, the local population in East Jerusalem (e.g., Palestinian architects or urban planners) are wholly excluded from the decision-making process of urban planning in their city, rendering their expertise to marginal influence on placemaking initiatives within their communities that are outside the purview of the Israeli-run municipality. Tharaa found this limits the impact of municipal placemaking projects and does not enhance the residents’ sense of belonging to the place.6

To bridge the gap between Palestinian professionals and their impact on the technical execution of placemaking, the Palestinian Placemaking Network was born. Working within a settler-colonial context, the network does not aim to specifically challenge Israel’s hegemonic control over Palestinian public space but rather rebuild the collective’s relationship with their city from within on three intersecting levels: first, fostering social sustainability with continuous participation in the network’s activities; second, collective knowledge production during city tours by sharing documentation, storytelling, and discussions; and third, belonging to a collective form of placemaking rather than to a single physical location in the city.7

Tharaa’s efforts were applauded by Nazmi Jubeh (see Nazmi Jubeh), who said she is part of a growing and up-and-coming generation of Palestinian researchers on Jerusalem that “indicates a strong tie to the place” and awareness that “Israel’s control over space equals control over people and their culture.”8 Khaldun Bshara, a professor of anthropology at Birzeit University, also spoke of another form of control over Palestinian Jerusalemites.

Khaldun discussed his article on the infamous “center of life” policy by explaining that typically government policy should improve a resident’s quality of life and follow a three-step process to that end: identify the problem, find a solution, and determine the cost. But in the case of Palestinian Jerusalemites, Israel has demonized them by treating them like a problem that needs to be solved or contained. In the Israeli perspective, they pose a threat to the ideal demographic makeup of Jerusalem (Jewish majority) determined by the Gafni Committee in 1973: 73.5 percent Jews and 26.5 percent Arabs, which Palestinians today exceed because they constitute more than 40 percent of the population of Jerusalem (see Population of Jerusalem as of the End of 2023).

Khaldun’s article, “The ‘Center of Life’ Policy: A Quiet Annihilation of Jerusalemites,” showcases that this policy has transferred the burden of proving a human’s existence from the government to the human,9 which “Israel paints with neutrality,”10 meaning that “if someone lives, works, shops, gets vaccinated, and pays rent in Jerusalem, then there should be no issue proving they live here.”11 However, this breeds a hypervigilant population, accused of illegal residence until otherwise proven, and who must meet a complex, vague criteria to maintain their permanent-residency status. The residents become mere subjects in a disciplinary matrix, losing their humanity to an impossible Israeli bureaucracy. Additionally, the “center of life” policy runs at a minimum cost to the government; as it is the Palestinian resident who must collect the documentation and chase after appointments and approvals to maintain their residency, while the government simply hires a few extra employees to check this documentation. During the panel, Khaldun called this system a “black box,” because dealing with the Israeli Ministry of Interior gets more convoluted the deeper you dig into it and affirms that the code to a dignified life cannot be cracked.

The special issue of the Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyya on Jerusalem includes 15 articles and an introduction or editorial by Nazmi Jubeh.