Environment and Planning A 2012, volume 44, pages 2705 – 2720

doi:10.1068/a44612

God, globalization, and geopolitics: on West

Jerusalem’s gated communities

Haim Yacobi

Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, England; also Department of Politics and Government, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; e-mail: hy236@cam.ac.ukReceived 7 November 2011 ; in revised form 24 March 2012

Abstract. Over the last two decades West Jerusalem’s city centre has undergone wide-

scale privatization of space which is expressed, for instance, in the extensive construction

of gated-community housing compounds. This is a global process which can be seen in

many cities where neoliberal policies are implemented, resulting in the expansion of the

elite’s private capital on the one hand and the weakening of the welfare state as part of

globalization processes on the other. However, this explanation is not suffi cient when

analyzing the privatization of space in West Jerusalem’s city centre, which is spatially

and politically part of the ongoing Israeli–Arab confl ict. In other words, my argument

is that the case of West Jerusalem illustrates a combination both of local ethnosecurity

discourses and of global neoliberal urban policies which do not contradict each other, but

rather are complementary.

Keywords: Jerusalem, gated communities, colonialism, geopolitics, urban space

IntroductionIn a fl ight back from Paris to Israel I was sitting next to a French-Jewish couple in their mid-fi fties who were making their journey for the wedding of their relative in Jerusalem. Throughout my conversation with this couple, they expressed their deep sentiments towards Israel and especially about the city of Jerusalem where the woman stated “I feel really at home”. The man, who was wearing a small knitted Kippa, and his wife also told me that they were permanently living with their three children in the 17th district—one of the wealthy bourgeoisie neighbourhoods of Paris. During our landing at Ben-Gurion Airport the man mentioned that during this holiday he and his wife were also planning to visit several sites in order to buy an apartment in Jerusalem’s city centre, “in one of the new projects that are in the spirit of Jerusalem” he emphasized.

My encounter with this French couple is not an arbitrary anecdote; instead, it encapsulates a signifi cant spatial change in the centre of West Jerusalem, namely the very intensive planning, marketing, and construction of luxury apartments in the form of gated communities, which are purchased and owned mainly by Jews who do not reside permanently in Israel. It is important to note at this stage that immigration and settling in Jerusalem has a different character from that of other parts of Israel and is particularly attractive to the more religious Jewish immigrants from Western countries.(1) The available data are telling: in 2009, 32% of the Jewish immigrants from the United States settled in Jerusalem, along with 24% of the French Jewish migrants and 33% of the Jewish migrants from the UK (CBS, 2009). This migration trend is clearly expressed in the housing market which attracts foreign direct

(1) All the luxury housing projects that will be mentioned in this paper explicitly highlight in their websites and marketing publications their proximity to central religious institutions such as the Heichal Shlomo synagogue or their accessibility to religious sites in the Old City such as the Wailing Wall.

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investment in residential real estate. In Jerusalem’s city centre itself, around 10 000 housing units are owned by foreign residents (Loirer, 2007).

As illustrated at the opening of this paper, Jerusalem has a religious signifi cance for Jews in the Diaspora, constructed upon layers of symbolic meaning, and reinforced by the immigration system in Israel which is attached to the notion of ‘homecoming’. This refl ects an immigration policy that is strongly shaped by nationalist politics, and motivated by a nation-building project and ideology. It implies that Israel should fulfi l its ‘national goal’ of being a haven for all Jews, meaning that no restrictions, selection, or quotas are implemented on Jewish immigration. ‘Homecoming’ is also understood by the migrants from Western countries as a return to the ‘Promised Land’ as a place of refuge. This concept is also supported by the Law of Return (1950),(2) which grants Jewish immigrants citizenship immediately upon their arrival, guaranteeing them full legal, civil, and political rights.

Moreover, religious immigrants also aim to tangibly fulfi ll their Jewish life since many commandments are attached to and depend upon being located in the Holy Land (Shilhav, 2001). This combination of the spiritual dimension and the national institutionalization of religion allows the city of Jerusalem to be a personal home for everyday life, a communal home for religious practice, and an imagined collective home for ethnonational belonging. Such a three-fold character, I would suggest, must be linked to the geopolitical desire to maintain Jerusalem as a vivid ‘united capital’ of Israel. By so arguing, in this paper I suggest a theoretical framework, focusing on the necessity of bringing awareness not solely to the macroscale transformations in urban landscapes following the process of globalization and neoliberalization as expressed in the extensive construction of gated communities (Rosen and Razin, 2008; 2009), but also to their attachment to wider geopolitical circumstances.

By focusing on the relevance of geopolitics to the production of neoliberal urban space, I mean not merely a discussion of international relations and confl ict or the role of military acts and wars to the production of space as detailed by others such as Graham (2010) and Weizman (2007). Rather, I would propose, geopolitics refers to the emergence of discourses and forces attached to technologies of control, patterns of migrations, as well as the fl ow of cultures and capital (Yacobi, 2009a). Indeed, I suggest a further exploration of the relationships between urban planning and geopolitics by suggesting that the geopolitics of the city has to do with a crossing of scales—from the global scale to the city level and then to the colonial apparatuses of the state. Importantly, this takes place in a very concrete place, planned as a political act of the state and used by individuals and communities.(3)

In more details, as I will discuss throughout this paper, the formation of the new luxury housing compounds owned by Western immigrants in Jerusalem must be analyzed in relation to its wider colonial urban space that includes the Palestinian presence in the city. The demographic control in the city (ie, the attempt to keep a Jewish majority in the Greater Jerusalem territory) is clearly presented as a fundamental issue in Jerusalem (Benvenisti, 1998). Thus the arrival of ‘Western agents’ that can contribute both to the Judaization of the city and to its economic welfare has been seen by policy makers as a prospect for ‘balancing’ the ethnodemographic composition as well as the socioeconomic characteristics of Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, the ideology of the Israeli state and the history of settlement and immigration, as well as of the migrants’ sense of belonging, are insuffi cient in explaining how this identifi cation occurs. To fully understand the complex picture, I suggest analyzing the public policy behind the creation of these gated communities. By highlighting local policies through which the state and the private sector produce space, we can focus on how Israel has (2) http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/1950_1959/Law%20of%20Return%205710-1950 (3) As noted by Bollens (2000), planning in Jerusalem is dictated by two different authorities. One includes the relevant government offi ces (such as the Ministry of Interior or the Ministry of Housing) and the other is the local Municipality of Jerusalem.

God, globalization, and geopolitics 2707

advanced ‘national’ ideologies and interests by means of the ‘free-market‘ economy, while simultaneously advancing neoliberal economic interests in the name of nationalism.

The above should be accentuated as it has become popular to associate the globalization process and the growth of a neoliberal economy with the end of national hegemony and the shrinking ability of settler societies to affect spatial processes such as directing immigrants to frontier regions (Abu-Laban, 2001). As this argument goes, the rapid shift to a neoliberal economy increased the role of the ‘free market’ in determining social relations in settler societies (Anderson, 2000), including in Israel (Nitzan and Bichler, 2002; Ram, 2000; Shafi r and Peled, 2002). This is to say that social relations, embedded in spatial processes, are understood to be regulated by actors in the ‘free market’ without being affi liated with ‘national’ interests. According to this line of thinking, there is no priority given to groups according to their national affi liation, and the state cannot move groups of people according to national interests.

However, as I would hypothesize such insights are doubtful. In light of the situation in Jerusalem, I suggest that the processes of globalization and privatization have not eroded state control, and have caused no meaningful change to hegemonic structures. Hegemonic structures have indeed become more fl exible with the emergence of neoliberal discourse, but a critical examination might show that this discourse masks only the role of the state behind a veil of the ‘free market’. The state continues to hold a monopoly over certain resources—in this case planning. This monopoly enables the state to infl uence the status of different ethnic groups in what is considered the ‘free market’, hence subordinating the ‘free market’ to the ethnonational project. Accordingly, the distinction between state and market is illusive and, in fact, veils of neoliberal discourse, effi ciency, technocracy, and professional considerations conceal close ties between market and state.

As noted by some scholars (Anderson, 2000; Tzfadia and Yacobi, 2011), the close ties between market and state are more evident in settler societies, particularly where ideological and material affi nities between state and land are preserved. They are manifested in the generation of better conditions for selected actors who are ideologically identifi ed with the state’s interest. As I will suggest, such cooperation between the state and selected actors in the ‘free market’ is evident in the case of the development of Jerusalem’s new gated communities.

Planning as a state-crafted geopoliticsThe literature concerning the history and politics of planning Jerusalem is wide and diverse, including the current seminal work of Bollens (2000), Fenster (2004), Jabareen (2010), and Pullan (2011), to mention but few. However, in the context of this paper I would like to review this matter while highlighting the role of the state planning in shaping the colonial geographies of the city. Such approach is not arbitrary, since in the wider theoretical context, as is argued by Foucault (1982 [1997]), the relations between power and planning went through a signifi cant change which coincides with the rise of nationalism. From the 18th century on, planning became disciplines of a new political aspect, which accentuates the state as an organization that enforces territorial, social, political, and cognitive order, which moulds norms and rules by means of domination, exclusion, and inclusion mechanisms.

With the above remark in mind, the 1948 war and the establishment of the state of Israel has dramatically changed Jerusalem’s geography, demography, and politics. The separation of the city between Israel and Jordan was marked by the wall which created a border zone. But the 1948 war and the national confl ict also shifted urban development dramatically, shaping Jewish Jerusalem through two processes: during that period the city shrank back into its ‘safe’ quarters and expanded into its western hinterland. The development of the mass housing districts such as Kiryat Yovel and Kiryat Menachem on land expropriated from

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Palestinian ex-villages and that were populated mainly by Jewish migrants is a good example of it.

During this period, the role of planning and architecture as part of the geopolitical ‘tool-box’ of the state as well as means of control and discipline implemented upon the population was central (Efrat, 2004). Indeed, such claims coincide with Holston’s argument that “modern planning is a useful means to construct and shape new forms of collective belonging and daily life” (1989, pages 31–34). Furthermore, the western part of the city defi ned its frontier vis-à-vis the eastern city through ‘demographic engineering’ (McGarry, 1998); that is, settling mainly oriental Jews in the frontier neighbourhoods, such as in Mammilah and Musrara; these ex-Palestinian neighbourhoods were inhabited mainly by poor Jewish migrants who protected the city’s frontier.

This process was accompanied by the construction of the massive new Government Quarter ‘Kiryat HaLeom’ that included national institutions such as the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), the Israel Museum, and the Givaat Ram campus of the Hebrew University. From an architectural point of view, this process adopted Modernism as a symbol and a functional response to the political situation while the Palestinian vernacular that signifi ed the intimidating ‘other’ was demolished.

As is widely documented and discussed, the signifi cant spatial turning point in Israel’s geopolitical conditions started after June 1967, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem and other territories (Gordon, 2008). Following this, the Israeli Government passed legislation in order to apply Israeli law in East Jerusalem, despite international objections. As a result of this legislation, Israel annexed Palestinian land and declared Jerusalem to be its capital city. Yet, beyond the Israeli rhetoric representing Jerusalem as a unifi ed city, its planning policies have been paradigmatic of a colonial city. Both state and city pursue these policies, which have persistently promoted a project of Judaization: that is, the expansion of Jewish political, territorial, demographic, and economic control (Bollens, 2000; Pullan et al, 2007).

As detailed by Yiftachel and Yacobi (2002), Israel has used its military might and economic power to relocate borders and boundaries, grant and deny rights and resources, shift populations, and reshape the occupied territories for the purpose of ensuring Jewish control. In the case of East Jerusalem, two complementary strategies have been implemented by Israel: the massive construction of an outer ring of Jewish neighbourhoods which now house over half the Jewish population of Jerusalem, and a containment of all Palestinian development, implemented through housing demolition and the prevention of immigration to the city.

Land-use policy in Jerusalem encourages Jewish expansion while restraining Palestinian growth in the city. Prior to 1948 Jews owned less than 30% of the property within the municipality of Jerusalem. Nowadays, Jewish ownership and control of property in the city accounts for more than 90% of property in Jerusalem. This pattern created a physical obstacle on top of the already existing spatial barrier between East and West Jerusalem. Furthermore, Israelis have also maintained control of the infrastructure, including the water system and access roads so that Palestinians have become isolated in their own neighbourhoods, cut off from each other (Pullan et al, 2007).

In addition, the emphasis has also shifted towards the Old City in the post-1967 period. The frontier neighbourhoods that were inhabited up to 1967 by poor Jewish communities were subject to redevelopment and gentrifi cation. Yemin Moshe is a good example of this process; this housing compound was erected outside of the Old City walls in 1891 in order to house Jewish families. The inhabitants of this border zone from 1948 to 1967 were moved and a massive reconstruction project turned the neighbourhood into a very expensive gentrifi ed zone—known as one of Jerusalem’s ‘ghost neighbourhoods’.

God, globalization, and geopolitics 2709

Another planning mechanism that has shaped Jerusalem and its surroundings since 1967 is the implementation of infrastructure. Road 1 is a good illustration of this trend; it links the centre of West Jerusalem to the outlying settlements such as French Hill and Pisgat Zeev as well as to some of the largest settlements in the West Bank such as Ma’ale Adumim (Pullan et al, 2007). Importantly, beyond the unequal distribution of transportation services, roads, and other infrastructure, it dramatically changes the cognitive map of the city, unifying the territory of East and West Jerusalem. From an architectural point of view, the occupation of East Jerusalem and the exposure to the Palestinian vernacular marked a signifi cant shift in Israeli architecture discourse (Nitzan-Shiftan, 2004). This Orientalist gaze towards the Palestinian landscape had an important role in the formation of Israeli architectural urban space which became sites for gentrifi cation to those who ‘understand’ and ‘appreciate’ the ‘local’ landscape.

The failure of the apparent ‘peaceful success’ of colonizing East Jerusalem was revealed during the fi rst Intifada (1987–1991) and more dramatically following the al-Aqsa Intifada which started in 2000 and which has cost nearly 4000 lives, three quarters of them Palestinian. This level of violence has moved Israel to unilaterally transform the area’s landscape by building the barrier, also known as the ‘Separation Wall’ (Yiftachel and Yacobi, 2002), and further constrain Palestinian development, rights, and movement. The barrier’s route, approved by the Israeli Government in October 2003, runs within Palestinian Occupied Territory to include the majority of Jewish settlers on ‘the Israeli side’, effectively annexing 16% of the West Bank to Israel. When complete, it may improve Jewish security, but will have some grave consequences for the Palestinians: some 210 000 of whom will be caught between the barrier and the Green Line, or cut off from their own lands and livelihood.

In Jerusalem and its surroundings, Israel plans to annex 160 km2 of the Occupied Territories in addition to the 70 km2 annexed immediately after its occupation of East Jerusalem. This area includes the settlements of Ma’ale Adumim and Giv’at Ze’ev, the Gush Etzion Bloc, and Bitar Elite a settlement that is inhabited by Haredi Jews. The wall enforces Israel’s political borders in Jerusalem and transforms it into the largest city in Israel geographically (with an area of almost 300 km2 and a population of more than half a million Jews). On the other hand, the geographic continuity and the functional integration of the Palestinian neighbourhoods will be turned inward and they will be completely isolated from their hinterland.

In fact, it is possible to say that the wall does not only set the borders of sovereignty and annexation of the settlements inside and around Jerusalem to form the metropolitan Jewish Jerusalem; it also creates obstacles to any possibility of an integrated urban unity in the centre of the West Bank that is capable of serving as the capital of a future Palestinian state. The geopolitical and geodemographic reality imposed by Israel through construction of the wall imposes a new reality on the future of Jerusalem through which Jerusalem is being redefi ned. The conventional division of West Jerusalem (the part occupied by Israel in 1948) and East Jerusalem (the part occupied by Israel in 1967) no longer exists in reality. Moreover, the annexation border imposed by Israel after its occupation of East Jerusalem is changing and the wall is forming another border. It is now possible to say that the future solution for Jerusalem has been imposed before the beginning of any negotiations over it between the two adversaries.

As I have detailed above, the pre-1967 and the post-1967 periods are characterized by state intervention in the process of transforming Jerusalem into a capital city; this had to do with housing, development, public buildings, national institutions, and infrastructure. However, from the mid-1980s, with the ongoing dominance of the neoliberal agenda in Israel (Ram, 2000), different parts of the municipality have witnessed a severe shortage of state support (Alfasi and Fenster, 2005). I would suggest that in Jerusalem’s contested context this trend was signifi cant. First, with regard to the geopolitical conditions discussed above,

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since 1995 Jerusalem’s economic profi le has dropped from 59th to 111th place among cities and towns in Israel (http://jiis-jerusalem.blogspot.com/2011/10/blog-post.html), while in the last three decades the number of the young and ‘economically strong population’ leaving the city has risen and the number of new immigrants choosing to settle in Jerusalem has declined. Furthermore, the presence of a relatively poor population living in the city also caused a disparity between their contribution to tax revenues and their use of the budget (Gur, 2009). This issue is a central concern among Israeli politicians and thinktank institutions as explicitly expressed in a current report named “A Vision for Jerusalem”:

“A primary cause of the retreat of Jerusalem is its special demographic structure and its dynamic over time. The re-unifi cation of Jerusalem in 1967 incorporated into a large Palestinian population that has since grown rapidly … . At the same time there has been a dramatic increase in the proportions of the Ultra-Orthodox population …” (Gur, 2009, pages v–vi).

The above analysis and the “A vision for Jerusalem” as expressed in this report represent very specifi c views and interests which cannot be shared by either Palestinians or Ultra-Orthodox who are implicitly presented as ‘the problem’.

Indeed, both geopolitical and social-economic conditions should be seen as the basis for privatizing space in Jerusalem’s city centre; during the 1990s Jerusalem’s urban planning and development was characterized by a high degree of privatization of space as well as by the securitization discourse. This was due to the Palestinian uprising, especially the second Intifada, when West Jerusalem’s city centre was a central target for suicide bombing. The ‘ordinary’ Israeli presence is negligible and there is an attempt to populate the city centre with tourists and the urban wealthy who arrive and depart but never really use the area.

Selling Jerusalem: the ethnic logic of neoliberalism As I noted in the introduction, in recent years Jerusalem has attracted more immigrants from Western countries than any other town in Israel. These immigrants are not equally spread out in all neighbourhoods, but rather tend to cluster in Jerusalem’s inner city, primarily some of the wealthy neighbourhoods such as Rehvia, Talbiya, the German Colony, and Bakaa. The neighbourhood is usually decided according to criteria such as degree of religiosity, that is, Orthodox or Conservative; the existence and proximity to religious institutions such as synagogues; economic capacity and familiarity with other community members from the same national origin such as other migrants from France, the UK, or the USA.

In this context it has been reported (Loirer, 2007) that foreign residents have bought approximately 35% of the apartments in the central neighbourhoods mentioned above (the number in the city in general reached 10%). Apparently such a migration pattern could be explained vis-à-vis the emergence of neoliberalism which is based on the logic of the free market, property rights, and market competition (Harvey, 2005)—a ‘logic’ that shapes temporary spatial practices such as urban planning, land policy, and housing policy (Tzfadia and Yacobi, 2011). At the core of this approach stands the claim that priority in allocation of urban goods and services is not given according to any affi liation to the state, but rather according to the ability of the individual to compete in the free market in order to acquire these goods.

The work of Rosen and Razin (2008; 2009) on gated communities in Israel reveals that the present-day development of gated communities is indeed attached to such trends, namely privatization, globalization, and the production of a neoliberal cityscape. Rosen and Razin also rightly suggest that viewing the production of such neoliberal spaces as part of the weakening of state intervention is misleading. Rather they suggest that neoliberal urban regimes do not imply the demise of regulation “but rather its changing nature” (Rosen and Razin, 2009, page 1703). A similar perspective is also offered by other

God, globalization, and geopolitics 2711

scholars (Tzfadia, 2008; Yacobi and Cohen, 2007) accentuating the characteristics of gated communities in Israel which are often developed by the private sector and appropriating public spaces or the accessibility to them in the name of security and privacy.

Yet, such a pure managerial criticism, I would suggest, is partial; this is especially true in the case of settler societies’ states where land, territory, and resources are under constant competition and confl ict.(4) Let us take such an argument further by proposing that unveiling the ‘free-market’ discourse might expose the infl uential role of the state and its bureaucratic apparatuses. The prevailing literature has stressed such a claim; that is, that the state plays a crucial role in shaping neoliberal policies and thus always crafts certain goals (Blakely and Snyder, 1997). Yet while this body of knowledge highlights the interests of certain class, ethnic, or race groups, it overlooks the role of neoliberal policies in advancing geopolitical objectives. Moreover, the state’s and the city’s interests, as I have already detailed, demand control. Importantly, this centralized control—which is masked by the neoliberal discourse on ‘freedom’—benefi ts private bodies such as investors, developers, and entrepreneurs, which in turn benefi ts the shrinking municipal budget. In other words, I would suggest that the ‘free market’ has largely become a gatekeeper of the city which constantly aims to control the spatial and demographic dominance.

An indicative example of the above argument is Amendment 168 of the Ordinance “Law for the encouragement of immigration and return to Israel” (2008).(5) This law was designed by the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and the Tax Authority as a comprehensive plan to utilize tax benefi ts to encourage immigrants from Western countries; needless to say, this scheme is tailored to Jewish migrants only. The plan was approved by the Minister of Finance and it gives new immigrants exemption from taxes on revenue that they bring into Israel (including the sale of assets and capital gains, salaries, pensions, and income from business).

Indeed, the programme aims to enable Jewish ‘global’ business people to immigrate to Israel while simultaneously allowing them to manage their businesses where they lived before. This scheme, according to Absorption Minister Jacob Edery, is “a breakthrough that will enable the Jews and many Israelis in the world to come and live in Israel without fear of material existence” (http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L -3547690,00.html). Moreover, and with a direct relevance to this paper, it is also reported that foreign investors who buy apartments will receive unlimited fi xed rate foreign currency mortgages from Israeli banks. This is in contrast to Israeli property buyers, who must accord with the Bank of Israel’s restrictions on foreign currency mortgages, where interest rates may change dramatically over a short period (http://www.calcalist.co.il/real_estate/articles/0,7340,L-3370353,00.html).

The result of such policies is that Jerusalem’s city centre is one of the most attractive locations for migrants as noted, for example, in an advert published in a brochure distributed by El Al, the Israeli airline company:

“The new trend in real estate: Jerusalem’s centre … 131 luxury apartments of two to fi ve rooms have already been sold to respectable and diverse people from Israel and abroad, even before the beginning of the construction” Kook St luxury development project (El Al Brochure).Nevertheless, I would argue that an analysis of the extensive fl ow of Western migrants to

Jerusalem’s city centre should also refer to the symbolic construction of the built environment and its very role in the manufacturing of territorial identity. To put it differently, selling “luxury and elegance in Jerusalem’s real estate market” as noted, for instance in the “Jerusalem of Gold” brochure is only one part of understanding the scope of this phenomenon. In more detail, (4) A discussion of the history and geography of Israel as a settler society is beyond the scope of this paper. For a detailed study of the production of Israeli territory within this context see Yiftachel (2006); and for further discussion in relation to settler society urbanism in Israel see Yacobi (2009b). (5) Amendment of the 168 Income Tax Order (http://ozar.mof.gov.il/taxes/docs/2184.pdf).

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many of the buyers acquire property in new housing projects that ‘sell’ Jerusalem’s Oriental landscape, ‘spirituality’, ‘authenticity’, and importantly security vis-à-vis the wider contested geopolitical context. My argument coincides with Wharton’s book Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks (2006) which analyzes the political history of Jerusalem through objects, commodities, and specifi c sites representing the city’s multilayered cultural and political strata.

An illustration of this trend is visible to those who walk in the streets surrounding the “Jerusalem of Gold” compound, where large framed images of “Authentic Jerusalem” are marketed as part of the experience of living in the city. The most signifi cant message to the potential buyers is no doubt the religious and national centrality of Jerusalem. Thus, several large images of ‘historical Jerusalem’ are presented. The fi rst instance (fi gure 1) is an image of archaeological ruins and the Wailing Wall in the background—one of the central national and religious sites in Jerusalem, located in the Old City. While this iconic image emphasizes the proximity to ‘spiritual Jerusalem’ and the historical roots of the city, some other images (such as in fi gure 2) sell the ‘authentic architecture’ of the city; picturesque arches and narrow alleys built of what is publically known as ‘Jerusalem stone’.

An additional telling visual theme is presented through the ‘exotic’ nature of ‘Oriental Jerusalem’. Some of the large images focus on Palestinian objects that can be observed in the Old City. Figure 3, for example, shows a Palestinian roadside bagel stall, while in the background some colourful oriental carpets are offered ‘for sale’; importantly, the Palestinian seller does not appear in this image. A similar approach can be seen in fi gure 4 where a close-up of ‘Arabic coffee’ paraphernalia and an oriental necklace is offered as part of the Jerusalem experience. Indeed, “eating the other”—to use hooks’s idea (1992)—is a central cultural apparatus for understanding the symbolic appropriation of space in colonial situations. This attempt is rooted in the masculine desire to ‘cross over’ to another race, and it origins from primitive fantasies. Importantly, this includes the colonial commodifi cation

Figure 1. [In colour online.] Street advertisement: image of the Wailing Wall and ruins.

God, globalization, and geopolitics 2713

Figure 2. [In colour online.] Street advertisement: an alley in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Figure 3. [In colour online.] Street advertisement: street scene in the Old City of Jerusalem.

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of the ‘Other’ as well as its objectifi cation. Here, the attempt to commodify and symbolically appropriate Jerusalem’s built landscape is expressed in the very architecture of some of the gated-communities compounds built in the city centre. This is a central theme in the ways in which the projects are presented in the developers’ websites in different languages including French, Spanish, English, and Hebrew:

“ ‘Jerusalem of gold, of copper and of light … .’ A city of poetry, of narrow alleyways, intoxicating aromas, and extraordinary people … . The King David Residence exclusive project and its location on Jerusalem’s most prestigious street will defi ne a new standard of unique, luxurious and residential living … . Its location, on Jerusalem’s most prestigious street, laden with cultural and historical symbols spanning many years, gives the King David Residence both exclusivity and prestige” (http://www.king-david-residence.com). The religious aspirations coupled with ethnonational identifi cation and the fl ows

of foreign capital explain the contemporary planning patterns as well as in the ways in which Jerusalem is marketed to Jewish investors in the Diaspora. The ‘spirit’ of the city as encapsulated in its stone architecture and the social construction of its authenticity as an approval of the Zionist project in the city (Nitzan-Shiftan, 2004) is a central theme for understanding the political economy of Jerusalem’s built environment.

However, while some of the projects involve the preservation of some historical buildings that are used as discursive justifi cation for its ‘authentic’ and historical continuation, the “King David’s Crown” project is marketed through the symbolic construction of a nostalgic view of Jerusalem, or is presented by the developers with reference to the biblical heroic period as “the City of David”:

“The architects … have designed the complex with its grand and splendid façade. The modern and unique architectural design is a combination of past, present and future, Jerusalem stone and copper, east and west, making King David’s Crown the Jewel in the Crown of the City of David” (http://www.king-david-crown.com/about_en.html#architecture).

Figure 4. [In colour online.] Street advertisement: Palestinian oriental objects.

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Indeed, Jerusalem’s built landscape in the above examples is naturalized; it has become a depoliticized and ahistorical object that responds to the cultural orientalism characterizing the Israeli built environment [for a wider discussion see Yacobi (2008)]. Nevertheless, this discursive appropriation is none other than a purifi cation process based on mimicry which occurs in the colonial arena of those in power who desire to create an oriental landscape as a mechanism of symbolic indigenization of the settlers. This approach, I suggest, is a mechanism of constructing the Jewish migrants’ ‘sense of place’, making Jerusalem a concrete gated site where God encounters globalization.

From the spatial point of view, the ongoing construction of luxury, gated-community-like compounds demonstrates an implicit planning attitude which focuses on the tangible and symbolic privatization of urban space. In more details, spatially speaking, the continuity of these projects creates a private space, controlled by gates which are often locked, CCTV cameras, and restricted public access (see fi gure 5). In more details, the accumulative production of gated-community compounds creates a privatized zone of the city. As clearly indicated in fi gure 6, the district of Yemin-Moshe, one of the fi rst urban regeneration projects from the 1970s that became a ‘ghost neighbourhood’, meets Kfar David (David’s village) gated community in the form of a postmodern mimicry of Jerusalem’s vernacular built landscape. This housing compound is owned mainly by Jews who live abroad and thus the area is also empty most of the year. Thus, as noted in one of the property agencies’ blurbs, “The complex has 24-hour security guards stationed at the entrances with cameras monitoring the internal streets” (http://www.eifermanrealty.com/shownb.aspx?id=22). This housing and luxury hotel project faces Jerusalem’s new shopping mall, an apparent open street which is under constant surveillance and control.

Continuing westward, there is an additional gated-community compound, “The King David Residence”. As emphasized in the project’s website, the King David Residence “enjoy

Figure 5. [In colour online.] The private space of gated communities.

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a high standard of living” while “at the same time preserving the traditional values of the concept of home, in every sense of the word” (http://www.king-david-residence.com). Crossing towards the city centre, the “Jerusalem of Gold” residence creates a ‘protected’ zone. Then, in the northern part, in Jaffa Road there is the “La Jaffa” luxury project, and further to the north, by Haneviim Street, there are three new luxury projects namely “7 Kook St”, “Haneviim Court”, and “Jerusalem Gold Garden”.

Figure 6. West Jerusalem’s gated communities.

0 100 300 mResidential, constructed

Residential, under constuction

Commercial and touristic

Green Line 1948–67

God, globalization, and geopolitics 2717

Indeed, as I would suggest, the fl ourishing market for such projects is part of a strategic change in Jerusalem’s city centre as ten other luxury housing projects are currently at different stages of the planning process (http://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/1.1165273). All that, it seems, transforms the core of the city into a privatized frontier.

Discussion: a frontier within the urban coreSpace is a social product, argues Lefebvre (1991), and as such it both shapes sociopolitical relations and in turn is shaped by them. This claim also highlights the necessity to theoretically analyze space production as a multilayered phenomenon involving politics, symbolic meaning, and materiality. Such a vein of thinking inspired this paper which discussed the ways in which “God” (ie, religiosity and ethnonationalism), ‘globalization’ (ie, the opening of economic boundaries for the fl ow of capital), and ‘geopolitics’ (ie, the state-crafted territorial realities) are not separated components in producing neoliberal urban space in the case of contested urban territory; rather, as I have shown, these are complementary ideologies operating in urban settler societies.

This conclusion is in accord with the existing literature that points to the ways in which urban neoliberal policies are state-driven projects. These projects are based on other than free-market considerations, and produce isolated urban spaces—“safe havens” (Rodgers, 2004, page 7) in the face of the growing tension and violence in cities (Caldeira, 2000). However, while cases of gated communities are often characterized by the desire of total isolation from the existing urban landscape, the case discussed in this paper presents a less binary approach aspiring for spatial seclusion on one hand and symbolic inclusion on the other.

Let me also suggest that the interrelation between God, globalization, and geopolitics has produced a ‘frontier in the urban core’ originating from the colonial context in which they operate. In more detail, colonial practices articulate empirical manifestations of ethnonational logic that refers to the nexus of state power and territorial control, mainly in ‘alien’ areas within or outside the boundaries of the state, into which the dominant nation attempts to increase its monopoly control. Due to high concentrations of ‘enemy’ people (McGarry, 1998), and subject to struggles over the control of land, power, and resources, such ‘alien’ areas are known as frontier regions. In this sense, frontiers are understood not merely as static spaces, but as sets of practices and discourses which ‘spread’ into the whole of the dominant nation and become symbols of the sovereignty of the state, emphasizing the moral right of the dominant nation to possess the territory.

By relating to the concept of settler societies, I have associated my analysis with colonial practices. Importantly, by colonial practices I do not limit the discussion to historical practices that served empires in the remote colonies (see, for example, King, 2003), but rather, the case discussed shows that while the implementation of power over space and society has changed throughout the years, the colonial logic has maintained its hegemony, thus creating new apparatuses of control through legislation, planning, and design. Such technologies are usually associated with neoliberal terminologies that indicate ‘progress’ and ‘freedom’. Yet, as I noted, these concepts have been manipulated in order to achieve ethnonational spatial and demographic control in the city.

Remarkably, this paper reveals that the sites of colonial practices are not limited solely to remote regions beyond the geographical core. Rather, as the case indicates, there is a variety of sites, beyond frontier regions, in which colonial practices can be implemented including ethnonationally contested cities and even neoliberal ‘free-market’ oriented urban spaces—all sites that have the potential to threaten the hegemony of those in power. Indeed, while the discussion of frontier geographies is focused on state frontier zones and borders, the case of Jerusalem as rightly suggested by Pullan (2011) brings to the front the necessity to discuss this matter in relation to cities.

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Pullan suggests that the studies of contested frontiers zones tend to focus on states or regions rather than cities, while according to Ron (2003), the colonial frontier is conceived as a remote region, a Terra Nullius. Whilst looking at the urban frontier it seems that despite strict attempts to be in command of the urban frontier through practices of control such as planning, housing regulations, and the like, cities do not normally have the apparatus available to states to control frontiers. In an attempt to take such argument forward the question is whether we can theoretically distinguish between ‘core’ and ‘frontier’ in contested cities where the colonial logic dominates. Following the case presented in this paper, the ‘frontier logic’ of space also operates in the very core of the city, in our case in West Jerusalem’s city centre, which is part of the wider territory of Israeli ‘Greater Jerusalem’.

In a wider theoretical context, in this paper I pointed to the spatiopolitics of urban settler societies which are based on a project of settling newcomers in contested regional and urban ‘frontiers’ in order to achieve political control and access to key resources. Settler societies may be ‘external’ or ‘internal’; the former relates to the organized movement of people across borders, and often into other continents, as in the period of European colonialism. The latter refers to the planned ethnic cleansing of ‘internal frontiers’, in which the state manipulates the local ethnic geography to further the interests of a dominant ethnic group (Yiftachel and Yacobi, 2004).

Furthermore, I would conclude that this process refl ects the social construction of the Jewish immigrants as ‘state agents’, ie, a group which is be determined ‘to perform a function on behalf of the state’. This is done through the state’s provision of resources and incentives, and as rightly suggested by McGarry (1998, page 614), “they are normally moved to peripheral parts of the state occupied by minorities.” Importantly, as this paper demonstrates, there is a correlation between the ethnicity and social class of ‘state agents’ who benefi t from neoliberal policies in the specifi c geopolitical conditions created in contemporary examples of colonial urbanism.

Acknowledgements. This article forms part of three larger research projects: “The geopolitics of neighbouring”, supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship (IEF scheme); “Confl ict in cities and the contested state”, supported by the ESRC’s Large Grants Programme (RES-060-25-0015); and “Human rights, spatial negotiations and power relations in Israel and Turkey”, supported by the German Israeli Foundation (273/2008). The author gratefully acknowledges the support.

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