Press Releases

PR/EN/311214/34

BADIL publishes Working Paper No. 17 on Israeli Discriminatory Zoning and Planning policies, as part of its 10-paper Series on Forced Population Transfer: The Case of Palestine.

Whereas urban planning aims to produce better spatial, social and economic human environments, the design and organization of space also serve as a political strategy. In this Working Paper, we look into issues of zoning and planning in Mandate Palestine (Israel proper, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip).

Israeli zoning and planning policies aim to contain the growing Palestinian population. As a result, thousands of Palestinian families live in overcrowded and unsafe conditions because they are prevented from using their land or accessing public land. The natural growth in population, in addition to the lack of modern facilities and infrastructure, leaves many families in substandard, underdeveloped living conditions.

This Working Paper shows that Israel’s failure to meet the lowest democratic and legal standards relating to zoning and planning stems not from a mere procedural fault, but rather from an inherent ideological drive. The consistency and persistence in which basic legal, ethical and logical zoning and planning standards are violated in all parts of Mandate Palestine, over a stretch of history almost seven decades long, manifests an unmistakable deliberate pattern of an ideology that aims at Palestinian transfer from their ancestral homeland.

Download the PDF version of this Working Paper
 

About the series:
This Series of Working Papers on forced population transfer is intended to encourage debate, and to stimulate discussion and critical comment. Together, and drawing upon desk and field-based research, these papers will identify and explore the key components of Israel’s policies and mechanisms of forced transfer of the Palestinian population. Specifically, these components are as follows:

- Denial of residency
- Installment of a permit regime
- Land confiscation and denial of use
- Discriminatory zoning and planning
- Segregation
- Denial of natural resources and access to services
- Denial of refugee return
- Suppression of resistance
- Non-state actions (with the implicit consent of the Israeli state)