Ariel Sharon and the Geometry of Occupation

The claustrophobia that dominated all aspects of Israel’s pre-1967 existence, whose borders were defined by then Foreign Minister Abba Eban as no less than the “Auschwitz lines”, vanished in a national sense of euphoria. But national anxieties like personal ones never vanish and their object can only be gradually replaced, thus the Occupied Territories grew in the national imagination too large to hold, control and effectively protect from the dangers waiting “outside”. A creeping agoraphobia, fed by an obsessive scanning of the contents of the new territories from within and by an anxious looking over and across it, meant that the edge had to fortified.

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The Plan - Zvi Efrat

As it is – crowded, heaped up and frantic at the center, diffused, dissociated and monotonous at the margins, the fabricated space of Israel is a ‘manner of land occupation and state founding without an historical precedent.’ Contrary to common belief and to visual impression, it was not born of haphazard improvisation, emergency solutions or speculative entrepreneurship and certainly not of spontaneous diachronic development – but rather of the unprecedented objective to put into practice one of the most comprehensive, controlled and efficient architectural experiments in the modern era.

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Looking for a Peaceful Settlement?

In Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories right now, towns/settlements are being built on Palestinian land that are both illegal, and contribute to poverty of the Palestinian population. But what exactly are these settlements, and why are they so key? Why does the continued building of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land make it practically impossible for Palestinians to have a workable, independent state? Why are settlements and their infrastructure leading to rising poverty levels among the Palestinian population?

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Stepping down off the fence

Even after 20-something years, and despite everything she knows today, architect Elinoar Barzacchi was gripped with excitement last week when she recalled her part in the establishment of the West Bank settlement Ma'aleh Adumim. "I'm the mother of Ma'aleh Adumim. I loved it like I've never loved anything in my life. As an architect, as a planner, I had the feeling that this is almost like building a utopia on earth, building the right thing, the worthy and the beautiful. I think that planning a city is the nearest thing to giving birth to a child. There isn't any other creative experience like it."

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THE POLITICS OF ISRAELI ARCHITECTURE & PLANNING

The current boycott and blockade by Israel of the West Bank and Gaza together with the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert’s declaration of unilateral disengagement and ‘convergence’ with Israel ’s borders defined by the illegal Annexation Wall, make a viable Palestinian State virtually impossible. The essential elements of apartheid - exclusivity, inequality, separation, control, dependency, violations of human rights and suffering -- defines the relationship between Israel and the Occupied Territories/ Palestine.

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