Re-Imagining Jerusalem

Abstract

How might Jerusalem’s urban development have unfolded if ethnic conflict between Israelis and Palestinians had not become the dominant factor, and the resulting spatial segregation had not become the main feature of the built environment? Assume that, after the Ottoman Empire and British Mandate, a Jewish- Arab/Israel-Palestine state of two peoples had developed. Assume even further that a binational, Western-oriented, financial and cultural elite (similar to that in other parts of the outgoing and modernizing Ottoman Empire) held political and planning leadership roles, while the traditionalist sector of Jewish/Palestinian society (just in the early twentieth century) continued their patterns of life. Or that territorial independence had not been aspired for or attained, and the aforementioned social elite only exercised social and ideological dominance as carriers of the idea of modernity? How would the urbanistic careers of this elite and others have developed, if-in place of the national dichotomy between Israelis and Palestinians-a more complicated mesh of tension, dividing lines, and hybridization had arisen? In short: what would have resulted from Jewish-Palestinian urbanism in Jerusalem if different processes in the city had prevailed?