Politics of Urban Space in an Ethno-Nationally Contested City: Negotiating (Co)Existence in Wadi Nisnas

Abstract

Public art and cultural events have often been enlisted to represent the socio-cultural diversity of cities, to upgrade a city's status and boost its economy by promoting internal and external tourism. What are the consequences of such efforts in an ethno-nationally contested city? Discourse analysis and ethnographic encounters situate the annual Holiday of Holidays festival in the Israeli-Palestinian neighbourhood of Wadi Nisnas as integral to Haifa's strategy to promote itself as a site of coexistence. The neighbourhood serves the entire city in that its ‘Arab’ urban space has become its emblem of coexistence. This manipulation of the area by the municipality is, however, not reinforced by urban regeneration and heritage management of the local Palestinian community. However, coexistence discourse is also employed by the residents themselves, suggesting a more nuanced understanding of the role of urban space in advertising the city as well as of concepts of local identity and citizenship.

Notes

 1. ‘Israeli-Palestinians’ is the term used to define the Arab population (including Muslims, Christians, Druze and Bedouins) living in Israel, who stayed within the borders of the state after its establishment in 1948. In Israeli discourse they are often dubbed ‘Arabs’, but according to Rabinowitz (1993), they prefer to be called ‘Palestinians’. The impossibility of a neutral term for this ethno-national group is recognized. In order not to reify any specific title and to draw attention to the shifting and contextual character of identity, the paper alternates between local and external titles (Israeli-Palestinians, Arabs, the Arabs of 1948).

 2. According to the Muslim calendar the festival may celebrate Eid al-Adha, or Eid al-Fitr.

 3. The Arabic term ‘Nakba’, meaning ‘disaster’ or ‘catastrophe’, is the Palestinians' term for the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

 4. Approximately 55% of the Arabs living in Haifa are Christians. The other 45% are mainly Moslems (Haifa Municipality, 2009).

 5. ‘Haifa as a Shared City’ is a recent think-tank initiated by Shatil - Empowerment and Training Centre for Social Change, in which Arab and Jewish activists and academics attempt to outline a memorandum for coexistence management in Haifa.

 6. Haifa Municipality also created a ‘Committee for Arabs’ and a ‘Committee for normalization’—attempts to relate to Arab residents' needs following the 1948 war (Segev, 1984, p. 71).

 7. In 1949 Haifa's Arab population was 5000, approximately 4% of Haifa's total population of 119 000 (Haifa Municipality, 1954).

 8. The figures refer to areas defined by the Israeli Bureau of Statistics as Wadi Nisnas, including ‘Wadi Nisnas’ (no. 332) and ‘Area 99’ (no. 331) (Haifa Municipality, 2006b).

 9. Beit HaGefen is the Hebrew for ‘House of the Vine’, implying a hope for peace and good relations between Arabs and Jews, and relating to the biblical verse “And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig-tree” (1 Kings, 5: 5).

10. This ranking ranged from 1 (lowest) to 20 (highest). For comparison, Neve David, an immigrants' neighbourhood built in the 1950s, is ranked at the same level as Wadi Nisnas, while Carmelia, on Mount Carmel, is ranked at 19 (Haifa Municipality, 2006a)

11. According to Israeli law, any property left unoccupied after 29 November 1947 became ‘abandoned property’. The Government Custodian is authorized to develop this property through the Development Authority, a legal body established in 1951 and used by the Israel Land Authority to oversee property abandoned by Arab residents of the British Mandate who left the country during the 1948 war. Abandoned properties were sold to the Development Authority by the Government Custodian to cover ongoing expanses. Accrued funds are to be used after peace is established to cover both the refugees' needs and compensation to the Jews who left Arab countries for the properties they left behind.

12. Palestinians in Israel were generally left to solve their own housing problems. This was partly due to official policies that included establishment of purely Jewish settlements and discrimination in housing assistance. It is also assumed that Palestinian private land use is inefficient, due to their preference for low density and rural building patterns. Housing shortages in the Arab sector are also considered to be due to the lack of private transactions deriving from social mores and political positions about land (Yiftachel, 2000).

13. In 1949, military rule was enforced in areas populated by Arabs, controlling freedom of movement and entitlement of Israeli Palestinians. These regulations were modified in 1963 to allow freedom of movement, and cancelled in 1966. However, emergency regulations are still in force on all Israeli citizens. The military rule did, however, allow Israeli Palestinians to vote.

14. This pun means ‘happy market’ in Hebrew and ‘thank you’ in Arabic.

15. Intifada, the Arabic term for ‘uprising’, became common English usage for two recent Palestinian uprisings directed at ending Israeli military occupation.

16. See the official Holiday of Holidays festival website. Available at http://www.haifahag.co.il/braha.htm (accessed 15 July 2009).

17. See, for example, the Ministry of Tourism's official website. Available at http://www.goisrael.com/Tourism_Eng/Tourist+Information/Discover+Israel/Cities/Haifa.htm

18. For discussion of the ‘myth of the Arab village’ see Eyal (1993).

19. In this play on words, the Hebrew headline means both ‘Completion 2000’ and ‘Innocence 2000’.

20. At the beginning of October 2000 large numbers of Palestinian citizens of Israel participated in demonstrations protesting against the visit to the compound of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by the then leader of the opposition, Ariel Sharon on 28 September 2000. The protest that followed in East Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories and the confrontation with Israeli security forces started the second Intifada. Inside Israel, demonstrations and protests lasted for several days. In police attempts to suppress them, 13 Israeli Palestinians were killed.

21. Haifa Plan no. 1807, ‘Wadi Nisnas – widening Tzionut Avenue’ (Archive, Office of Haifa City Engineer, 2002)