Editors: Omar Yousef, Abdalla Owais, Rassem Khamaisi, Rami Nasrallah

Publisher: IPCC, 2008

ISBN: 965-7283-15-9

Until the signing of the Oslo Accords (1993-4), Jerusalem represented the metropolitan center of the West Bank and the undeclared Palestinian capital. The city was a transportation hub and an important economic and commercial center, in addition to its religious and national importance. This was linked to the Palestinian institutions based in Jerusalem, which constituted an alternative form of self-administration to the administrative and governance institutions of the Israeli occupation. The relationship between Jerusalem and its direct environs and other West Bank cities represented the backbone of Jerusalem’s life because, to a large extent, it relied on its status as a service and economic center. Moreover, the growth and development of the city itself occurred primarily outside the municipal borders set by the Israeli occupation in a context of Israeli spatial control, which imposed restrictions on Palestinian growth and development within the municipal borders of Jerusalem.

Since May 1993, the Israeli closure and isolation of East Jerusalem from its natural extension (the West Bank), together with its poor relationship with West Jerusalem and the state of separation between the city’s two sectors, weakened East Jerusalem and gradually undermined its centrality. The relationship between East Jerusalem and the suburbs that evolved around it was also influenced by the closure. At a certain point, East Jerusalem represented the hub hinging together the north and south of the West Bank and a great deal of the interaction between the West Bank and Jerusalem took place within the close vicinity of Jerusalem. These suburbs were dominated by Jerusalemites in terms of their populations, as well as the economic and institutional activities that evolved there.

Yet the weakening of Jerusalem was not only confined to its declining centrality for the rest of the West Bank (and the Gaza Strip to a lesser extent). Such weakening also included the suburbs that had formerly enjoyed strong physical and functional connections with East Jerusalem. The Separation Wall severed such connection and continuity, rendering the suburbs weak border areas without links to any other city besides Jerusalem. This was in spite of their artificial connection with Ramallah to the north and Bethlehem to the south through roads subject to Israeli military control and surveillance.

This book addresses East Jerusalem’s relationship with its suburbs. It is the fruit of research conducted over two years by a team of planners from the International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC). Omar Yousef discusses in detail the spatial growth and development of Jerusalem and the city’s relationship with its environs, as well as the way in which the Israeli occupation effected the imposition of an arbitrary reality. Great hopes were hinged on past peace agreements, but these hopes vanished, leading to the creation of a new spatial, functional and social reality for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem, which Yousef argues has further complicated and exacerbated the conflict.

In the second chapter, Rami Nasrallah discusses the growth and development of the suburbs and the causes that have encouraged such development since the mid-1980’s. He outlines the factors that have led to the deterioration and negative development of these suburbs due to Israel’s attempts to minimize the city’s population. Primary among its means of doing so has been the enactment and imposition of a law that equates Jerusalemites’ residence in these suburbs with residence outside the country. Consequently, many have had their permanent residency rights in Israel - which were formerly accorded to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem - revoked. Moreover, the construction of the Separation Wall significantly weakened the development of these suburbs at a later stage because it led their residents to return to crowded neighborhoods within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries.

In chapter three, Abdullah Owais explains the demographic and spatial transformations that occurred in the suburbs and neighborhoods of East Jerusalem following the erection of the Separation Wall, which isolated East Jerusalem from some of its neighborhoods (within the annexed Israeli municipal borders) and suburbs. Through case studies, he analyzes the recent transformations in Kafr’ Aqab, Ar Ram, Al ‘Eizariya and Bir Nabala.

An essay by Rassem Khamaisi addresses the competitive and integrative relationship between Jerusalem and its environs, underlining the fact that from the mid-1990’s onwards, Ramallah evolved into an administrative, service and economic center of the West Bank and took over many of the functions performed by East Jerusalem. Khamaisi proposes a framework for a future relationship that does not marginalize Jerusalem, but which creates some kind of continuity between East Jerusalem and the surrounding cities, especially Ramallah to the north and Bethlehem to the south. These cities are part of the Jerusalemite urbanized region, which includes numerous additional urban and functional centers that have the potential to develop integrated relations between themselves in the future.

This book represents the first study of its kind on the urban, spatial and functional developments that have occurred in Jerusalem and its environs during the past four decades. It also addresses the dramatic transformations that have taken place in recent years, the ramifications of which continue to be felt today, and which are expected to continue to influence the city and its environs in the near future. This fact calls for the continuous updating of this research, the monitoring of new transformations, and the analysis of their effects. Our center conducts such research regularly and continuously, analyzing the spatial, functional, and urban ramifications of the transformations resulting from the construction of the Separation Wall and Israel’s reworking of space to serve its goals.