Reading Response: May 16

Sadly, the first thing that struck me when reading "Old and new walls in Jerusalem" was that the editing process at Political Geography must have gone haywire. PG is the flagship journal of political geography, and one of the most important and influential journals in human geography. But Klein's article was full of grammatical & spelling errors, and it was organized poorly (not to mention the literature review section was hard to follow and didn't really say much about how Klein was presenting his argument). Ansi Paasi is a very prolific and well-known geographer who specializes in borders and identity, and repeated misspellings of his name (Klein called him "Passi" in the text and in his references) really grated on me.

That said, Klein's stumbling through the rich trove of geographic thought on borders and boundaries did communicate some important ideas--even if others have articulated these ideas more clearly and trenchantly elsewhere (e.g., Paasi 1998, Newman 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006... in fact, come to think of it, it's odd that David Newman isn't cited more in Klein's paper, as Newman not only is a preeminent geographer, editor-in-chief of Geopolitics, and a scholar who writes exhaustively on borders and boundaries, but Newman is a faculty member at Ben-Gurion University, and frequently writes on Israel/Palestine issues--including via Op-Ed pieces in the Jerusalem Post).

First, borders aren't simply locations in space: they are social processes, and even further, they are social institutions. Saying that, we can posit the reverse, as well: social processes can be conceptualized as borders. Klein touches on this, particularly when he discusses the ethnic divisions within health services (both for employees and for patients) in the Jerusalem metropolitan area. It's worth noting that most, if not all, of the border processes Klein discusses are one-way: for example, Klein notes that it is not an uncommon occurrence for a Palestinian doctor to work in a hospital in West Jerusalem, but it would be very unusual for an Israeli/Jewish doctor to work in East Jerusalem.

Next, Klein touches on the notion that borders are far from static--they are fluid and change with the political climate. So, when a Likud administration is in power, there are stronger barriers (and more of them) to movement and circulation (circulation being an old geography term, borrowed from French, that encompasses economic and social activity), and then when a Labor or Kadima administration comes in, those barriers change.

It is interesting to note that Klein sees the "taboo" on a united Jerusalem being broken through permanent status negotiations. I was never aware that serious talks were undertaken regarding Jerusalem and its final borders--I had thought that Jerusalem was such a complex, contentious issue that it had been pushed to the end of negotiations, that is, after all the other stuff got resolved. I suppose that the mere mention of a possible end-state for Jerusalem would indeed seem to break the "taboo," but the latest Netanyahu administration would seem to have re-instated the taboo. And, given progress on settlements surrounding Jerusalem, and evictions/demolitions in East Jerusalem, it would appear that Netanyahu wants that taboo to be stronger than ever--to the point of never being broached again.

I found it interesting when Mount Scopus was brought up--I had taken a bus tour of Jerusalem, and the narration on the tour was (expectedly) jingoistic: the Israelis on Mount Scopus were portrayed as noble survivors, standing watch and operating the hospital under the most trying conditions, holding out against Jordanian/Palestinian violence and recriminations (I find that this mind-set informs a lot of the settlement movement, as well). But if/when Palestinians "hold out" against the Israeli siege, their portrayed as stubborn refuseniks, obstacles, and/or cowards.

The final point in Klein I feel worth noting is the total lack of responsibility Israel takes in regards to East Jerusalem. Treating Palestinian areas like slums, withholding trash removal and policing Palestinian areas only to keep crime and violence from reaching Jewish areas (and not to enforce laws and pursue criminals who engage in Palestinian-on-Palestinian violence)... it smacks of the experience of Diasporic Jews in European ghettos.

Klein, along with Bernard Avishai, comes across as scathingly opposed to the occupation and the continued Israeli appropriation of East Jerusalem. It's something that amazes me in politics outside America--in the US, such strident opposition to the regime, particularly concerning national security, would provoke such a backlash (by the true 'patriots') as to all but stifle any real debate on the issue. In Israel, however, there are loud & prominent voices opposing the occupation and the subjugation of the Palestinians, and these voices are not silenced or even seemingly discriminated against. Of course, at times it seems that advocates of Palestinian rights are shouting their voices raw and accomplishing little. But at least there is a vocal opposition to power.

Peteet's study of graffiti is notable for a host of reasons, not the least of which is her conceptualization of graffiti as not only a vehicle of communication, but a shaper of those who participate in it (the viewer and the writer). But beyond that, I find it troubling that graffiti was so dangerous. I did not know how deep the oppression was before Oslo; I didn't know that Israeli censorship applied to all "publications... brought in, sold, printed, or kept in someone's possession in the West Bank unless a permit has been obtained for them."

That is stunning. Any publication or writing was subject to this censorship and confiscation.

I'll just let that sit there. The fact that if the IDF found a book that they didn't like--for any reason--they could confiscate it (and charge the owner), as every publication, under this order, required a permit. Even a copy of the J-Post, or Ha'aretz (more likely the latter than the former), would thus require a permit. This order by itself provided carte blanche to the IDF to stop and arrest just about any Palestinian. All you have to do is find one bit of printed paper--a pamphlet, a map, a photocopy of some document--and they've violated the order.

OK, aside from that...

Peteet is analyzing something critically important; though it isn't too much of an innovative thought to see graffiti (particularly in the Occupied Territories) as a form of political expression and even political resistance, it is an innovation to see that graffiti as a self-reflexive dialogue within the Palestinian community. It's all too easy, all too common, for us (as scholars, or just as people) to see political movements as monolithic: e.g., it's "the Israelis" versus "the Palestinians." Peteet shows that the Palestinian resistance wasn't singular; it was multifarious and fractious and contentious, even as it was united in opposition to the occupation.

There's a lot more to Peteet, but I don't want to beat a dead horse on this (plus, this is a long post already). I'd just suggest that anyone interested check out more graffiti.