Degradation of urban nodes in East Jerusalem: from vibrant spaces to dead ends

ABSTRACT

The article explores the impact of Israeli policies and practices on Palestinian urban nodes in occupied East Jerusalem focusing on Kubsa junction. It argues that the Segregation Wall has created spaces where Palestinian life is expendable and where the practice of eliminating the Arab Palestinian character of the city has transformed a once vibrant Palestinian urban node into a dead end. Kubsa Junction illustrates settler-colonial military spatial policies and urban planning to control the urban space of Kubsa Junction which have created a ‘frame’ to segregate and control the colonized Palestinians. Such policies, the article argues, are better interpreted by settler-colonial state strategies than racialized global capitalism. Yet, while different layers of daily lives and memory of the colonized on both sides of the Segregation Wall have been harmed, the spiritual and collective memory layers maintain meaning and purpose to the colonized’s steadfastness or Sumoud.

KEYWORDS:

• Jerusalem
• Segregation Wall
• urban nodes
• settler colonial urban planning
• frame
• steadfastness (Sumoud)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 While Maxime Rodinson used the term colonial settler rather than settler colonial, he concluded that the Israeli control over Palestine was similar to what occurred to the First Nations suggesting that his analysis falls within the latter type. The difference being that in colonial settler cases such as the British in India and the French in Algeria, the colonial contraction leads the settlers to return to the colonizing country, while in settler colonial cases they come to stay (Wolfe 2006, 338).

2 Authors wish to thank Professor Robert Warrior – Hall Distinguished Professor of American Culture at University of Kansas, for his assistance in obtaining material for this section.

3 Guggenhiem focuses on analysis of art work and then builds a theory of memory which he applies to buildings which he argues can have many times simultaneously as different people use and experience different parts and functions of the same building. His insight about the conflation of the layers of times are used in the analysis of a place, and two additional layers are added relevant to the Kubsa case: the collective memory and the spiritual/sacred layers.

4 This second defensive circle usurped several Palestinian villages into the new Jerusalem municipal boundaries including Sawahreh al-Gharbiyeh, parts of Abu Deis and Beit Hanina, the Mount of Olives, Al-Isawiya, Shu’fat, Qalandia, and Kufr Aqab.

5 Definition: ‘Force multiplier. A capability that, when added to and employed by a combat force, significantly increases the combat potential of that force and thus enhances the probability of successful mission accomplishment.’ (Joint Chiefs of Staff 2007, GL-11).