**5. Planning Jerusalem during the post-1967 epoch**

In mid of the 1960s, regional tensions between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries had raised. The Jewish desire of expanding the Jewish state boundaries fed numerous border clashes. Some Arab countries developed a strategic defense agreement [37], however, Jordan which controlled East Jerusalem and the West Bank at that time, complained about the weakness of strategic Arab support, and asked for Iraqi army support [38]. Egypt carefully monitored the common borders with Israel [39]. On the first of June 1967, Israel formed a National Unity Government, and on the fourth of June decision was made to originate preemptive war. The day after, Israel initiated rigorous large-scale air strikes which marked the official beginning of the Six-Day War against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.

The war ended rapidly, and Israel got a definitive victory. Dramatic consequences faced the conquered states because of the Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, Golan Heights in Syria, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank which were under Jordanian administration, and the Gaza Strip which was under Egyptian control [11]. Indeed, the Israeli occupation policies in Palestine present pressing issues in international law and generate far-reaching consequences in global affairs [40].

Israel annexed illegally 70.5 square kilometers of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) including East Jerusalem. The Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, marked a significant event in the history of Palestine. It constituted a turning point for Jerusalem, East, and West, as both parts of the city remained under Israeli

#### *Urban Planning and Land-Use Management in Jerusalem – Chronological Analysis: Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112766*

occupation to date. Israel announced the reunification of West and East Jerusalem to be one city administered by a Jewish municipality. Unifying Jerusalem earmarks a great shift in different aspects, mainly shifting from the city level to the district scale. Israel declared unified Jerusalem as its eternal capital through the Basic Law on 30 July 1980. However, this declaration is contrary to international law and thus has not been recognized by most of the international community. Accordingly, most countries maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv. In that sense, international law, resolutions of the United Nations, as well as Israeli-Palestinian signed agreements have been aggressively violated by Israel. Palestinian people underline the Resolution (No. 252) of the United Nations Security Council that condemns illegal land confiscation and refuses all actions that would change the legal status of Jerusalem. The actual status of Jerusalem is debatable and contended to date.

According to international law, namely Fourth Geneva Convention, East Jerusalem represents territory occupied by Israel because of war. As such, Israel must guarantee the rights of the native population, avoid changing the natural demographic composition of the occupied territories, and offer a suitable level of services to native inhabitants. Opposite Israeli actions constantly take place on the ground. In Jerusalem, the Israeli regressive planning has succeeded in imposing dramatic changes in the demographic compositions, physical built-up areas, urban fabric, landscape, boundaries, and legal status. By that, Israel aims at Judaizing the city. Contrary to what Israel is supposed and obliged to do according to international law and conventions, it continues to violate critical articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention such as: Article No. (47) that guarantees to offer the rights of the Convention to the occupied people; Article No. (49) (1) and (6) that prohibit residents' displacement and deportation either individually or massively; Article (53) of the Convention states "Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons … is prohibited."; and also Article (147) which forbids unlawful destruction and appropriation of property.

Israel has exceptional unprecedented records of violations of international law, treaties, resolutions, and conventions. Those include but are not limited to: many articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights such as Article (7) denial of equal protection under the law, Article (9) arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile, Article (13) denial of the right to return to one's country, Article (17) arbitrary expropriation of personal property, Article (18) interference with religious worship and observance; resolutions No. (242, 252, 338, 478, besides others) of the United Nations Security Council; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); the Hague Convention; the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD); the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); the Convention for the Rights of the Child (CRC); and the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDA W).

The available land reserve during the 1960s was almost consumed in the western part of Jerusalem. Hence, vertical development was enhanced rather than horizontal extensions [41]. Accordingly, the lebensraum for West Jerusalem was an irresistible catalyst for the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The urgent need for vacant spaces to serve Jewish settlers played a major factor besides the other political ones that led to the annexation, where a wide range of vacant constructible spaces was available. This facilitates understanding the speed, physical direction, and determination, with which expansion and new construction happened after 1967. All Jewish settlements are illegally constructed and represent a direct violation of international law, and contradict the spatial sustainability and its four-dimensional

aspects [ 42 ], therefore, they aggravate urban conflict and complexify the geopolitical, socioeconomic, and environmental statuses on the ground. Unfortunately, the Jewish settlements degrade the Palestinian environmental profile, they consume wantonly the Palestinian scarce water resources, damage agricultural fields, and Palestinian valleys by discharging excessive quantities of wastewater which pollute surface and groundwater, besides dumping of solid wastes randomly on Palestinian lands [ 43 ].

 A year later to the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the plan of reunified Jerusalem was produced by Hashimshony Master Plan, **Figure 8** . The main purpose of this plan as explained before, was to add extra vacant spaces in the eastern part of Jerusalem, and so to solve the dilemma of limited urban growth in West Jerusalem. The plan achieved that objective supremely, hence it continued to serve as a regulatory plan with more than seven distributed land use categories about to mid-1980s. Jerusalem master plans, before 1967, had generally gained the characteristic of advisory and guidance plans. Whereas those prepared post-1967 period were much more regulatory and detailed plans, schematic town planning and neighborhood schemes witnessed, therefore, profound interest and precise details grounded on quantitative studies and spatial data.

 Analyzing the "post-1967 epoch", would patently reveal that a lot of planning tribulations coupled with the development of Jerusalem, emerged from the geopolitical situation regarding the occupation of East Jerusalem and the adjacent parts of the West Bank. The Jewish desire to control Jerusalem with ultimate political sovereignty

 **Figure 8.**  *Hashimshony Plan 1968 [ 22 ].* 

#### *Urban Planning and Land-Use Management in Jerusalem – Chronological Analysis: Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112766*

and demographic dominance, especially in the eastern part of the city, offered a chief influential impact on the normative, rational, development of Jerusalem. The Israeli perception of unified Jerusalem, as the capital of the Jewish state, inflicts planning priorities unfavorable, and inimical, towards the native Palestinian residents. In other words, the chief influential factor in the Israeli planning policies, overriding any: legal, humanitarian, historical, ethical, ecological, and topographical factors, is once more, the subject of "political sovereignty" which represents the ethnical, prejudiced, and demographic sovereignty.

Israeli planning policies in Jerusalem during the post-1967 era have been misused and widely criticized. They offer to the Israeli colonial government effective planning tools and mechanisms, for applying occupational policies and achieving objectives likely to oppose the interests of native Palestinians. Administratively, Jerusalem is unified but develops in two contradictory manners. Jerusalem municipality which has been governed by Jewish administration has set up, and adopted, two paradoxical urban planning approaches: progressive planning of West Jerusalem that responds to the actual and prospective needs of the Jewish residents; and on the other hand, regressive planning of East Jerusalem that restrains the basic needs and the future development of Palestinian residents [14, 22, 44].

Accordingly, intentional prejudiced actions against the Palestinian people continue. Israeli planning policies in Jerusalem, are therefore, inequitable, implicitly biased, and reflect not what they promise to be. Urban planning is used as a tool of control over Palestinians, rather than a tool of constructive change. Control in this context means fostering Jewish demography in Jerusalem to constitute an overwhelming majority to Israelize Jerusalem, overlooking its Arabic authenticity, and in the meantime restraining Palestinians' future development. The Israeli planning policies succeeded to impose new geopolitical, demographical, and physical facts on the ground in annexed East Jerusalem. The Israeli planning laws and regulations in Jerusalem, have been sharply articulated to simplify the process of confiscating Palestinian vacant lands to be used for constructing Jewish settlements and to restrain the growth of Palestinian neighborhoods. The available vacant lands in the Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem are majorly frozen through the current Israeli zoning and land use laws. Most of those spaces are earmarked as open landscapes, where any kind of development is blocked, and no construction is allowed. As such, Israel used land use planning as a control tool to direct the Palestinian development opportunities in an 'unsustainable' manner [45].

The Israeli discriminatory planning policies have forced Palestinians in Jerusalem to suffer in satisfying their basic needs, and also, limited them to rely on the Israeli system of services which is based on ethnonational affiliation. Jerusalem municipality allocates of the total budget only 10% to services of Palestinians who comprise, more than 30% of the total population. Regressive Israeli planning policies with inevitable adverse consequences against Palestinians continue and involve [46]:


 Jerusalem is planned to grow divergently, forming two comparative images. East Jerusalem represents the first portrayal, where Palestinians live in urban neighborhoods surrounded by illegal Jewish Settlements. While the other one is rendered in West Jerusalem, which is almost purely inhabited by Jewish Israelis, **Figure 9** . Since the

#### **Figure 9.**

 *Urban paradox: Walled spaces and fragmented Palestinian neighborhoods (ghettos) surrounded by Jewish settlements in Jerusalem [ 47 ].* 

*Urban Planning and Land-Use Management in Jerusalem – Chronological Analysis: Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112766*

early start of Israeli annexation to East Jerusalem, dominant Jewish politicians insisted to transform the Arabic and Islamic fabric in Jerusalem by fabricating Israeli features. This could be clearly touched in the Jewish political discourses, for instance, during the municipal council meeting held on the thirteenth of August 1967, Rabbi Cohen declared: *"And dare I say frankly that we have to do everything within our power to make Greater Jerusalem the largest Jewish city in the world, a real Jewish city, both in terms of the population numbers and in giving a permanent Jewish character to the whole city"* [48].

The Israeli-biased planning concept was the foundational cornerstone of the political architecture in Jerusalem. It reflects the Israeli determination to Judaize Jerusalem. Political architecture of the city should render in its: physical spaces a Jewish identity, while in its population, the Jewish majority. The influential political dimension demonstrates all other factors included for the future development of Jerusalem. Political architecture is, therefore, a natural output of the governmental plans determined by Israeli decision-makers who seek every single opportunity to achieve considerable political objectives. In that sense, Mordechai Ish-Shalom, former Mayor of Jerusalem, declared: *"What is required - and quickly - is Jews, many Jews in Jerusalem. No, more trickles of immigration"* [48].

Urban planning in conflict areas and contested cities, like the case of Jerusalem, form paradoxical and complex urban planning policies accompanied in most cases, by permanent physical layouts. That is, political architecture spaces, create multiple challenges in different dimensions for the local residents, remarkably when they


The following are the chief adverse impacts on the Palestinians in Jerusalem due to these planning axes:


#### **Table 3.**

*Chief regressive planning axes in Jerusalem (author).*

constitute a group of minorities. Unfortunately, walled and fragmented spaces, are being produced progressively in Jerusalem due to three influential regressive planning axes identified in **Table 3**.

### **6. Conclusion**

Jerusalem has deeply-rooted records of a long history. It has been a focal point of attraction for several universal powers. This was reflected in the city structure and the respective urban fabric. Many distinguished civilizations with variant cultural and religious backgrounds, had not only crossed the city, but also established their cornerstone and inhabited the city successively. However, in terms of the modern notion of urban planning, Jerusalem does not offer extended history in this dimension, but rather it shows very rich and intensive changes in that aspect, especially since the nineteenth century. Within 50 years, 1917–1967, Jerusalem experienced multiple administrative systems. Namely, Ottoman rule, British Mandate, Jordanian administration, and the Israeli occupation, which altogether generated different urban planning regimes. The spatial definition during each administration has changed.

Ottomans ruled Jerusalem for more than four centuries, from 1516 to 1917. At that period Jerusalem underwent an organic growth, and its limits were spatially defined by the Old Walled City. Ottomans did not produce conventional town plans but rather conducted substantial urban renewal for the Old City, public services and infrastructure, and the fascinating encircling walls. By that, Ottomans in Jerusalem adopted an interesting "conservative approach" in their planning perspective. Ottoman rule ended in 1917, after the end of WWI when Jerusalem was captured by the British Army. During the British Mandate period which extended for three decades, from 1917 to 1948, Jerusalem witnessed a new era of modernization, and the first generation of 'conventional urban planning' showed up. The spatial definition of the city expanded to involve the Old City and its adjacent environs. The British planners emphasized the authentic value of the Old City of Jerusalem, they preserved it by encircling it with a green buffer belt to reflect the garden city concept. And so, the British adopted a "romantic planning approach" in Jerusalem and the city flourished and expanded until the termination of the mandate at the end of WWII.

A substantial radical divisional period followed, from 1948 to 1967, when Jerusalem was split into three folds: the Old City, East Jerusalem, and West Jerusalem. At that time, the Old City and East Jerusalem were under Jordanian administration. Unfortunately, Jordanians did not develop any master plan for the city. They replaced some urban British regulations, and they kept Kendal Plan to guide the physical development. As such, Jordanians adopted a "primitive regulatory approach". In the meantime, West Jerusalem was occupied by Israel after the 1948 war, the Israeli government developed several master plans for the city which expanded massively westwards to cope with tremendous numbers of Jewish residents who wanted to settle in the capital of Israel. Hence, the first generation of the 'colonial planning approach' in West Jerusalem appeared.

A wider page of colonial planning in Jerusalem was opened post the 1967 War, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem. Since then, Jerusalem, East and West, were unified and subjected to paradoxical Israeli urban planning policies. Indeed, Israel worked out several master plans for Jerusalem. In areas populated by Jewish, progressive planning policies are being employed to serve the Jewish residents' needs, and to facilitate rapid and massive urban development. On the other hand, in areas
