A Manifesto for the Just City

A Manifesto for the Just City
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EFRAT COHEN-BAR
BIMKOM COLLECTIVE, ISRAEL
SUMMARY BY ROBERTO ROCCO
Efrat opens her talk by stating
that the pandemic does
not affect communities
and people equally. This
inequality is sometimes
based on discrimination that took
place [even] before the pandemic.
She would like to talk about Israel and
the areas that are governed by Israel.
Israel also affects Gaza strip, but I am
not going to talk about it. We will talk
about the most affected communities
in Israel, we will map them and then
we will talk about who lives where and
how they are affected.
Then we will talk [specifically] about
Jerusalem, which is my [area] of
expertise in BIMKOM. Let’s art with
the mapping. Here you see Israel
and the green area is the West Bank,
which includes areas A, B and C and
East Jerusalem, and you see the
smaller strip down there which is
Gaza strip. The first division we see
here is between the people who live
inside Israel and the people who
are not citizens of Israel and they
live on those two areas, the West
Bank and Gaza. In this area we have
Jews, or Israelis and Palestine Arabs.
Most people live close to the sea,
while less people live in the Negev
desert. Most Palestine Arabs live in
the Negev, in the West Bank, in the
North, in the Galilee. They don’t live
in the centre along the Mediterranean
Sea, in Tel Aviv. Of course, this is a
generalisation. In Tel Aviv, for example
there is an Arab community in Jaffa,
but in general we can say there is an
area for Jews and an area for Arabs.
In the Negev, for example, there are
Jews and Arabs, but in Israel we don’t
live in the same communities. Either
divided settlements or separate
neighbourhoods in the same city.
Looking at the map, we can the
area where there is an intensity
of economic activity, culture, and
infrastructure. Everything is more
intensive in the centre and less intense
in the periphery. And we can see that
the West Bank and the Negev and
Galilee in the North are less intense.
This is the periphery in Israel. We can
see that density and intensity are
very concentrated in the area where
the majority of the Jewish people live
along the shore of the Mediterranean
and in the direction of Jerusalem.
Looking at the socio-economic
classes, we can see that it always
looks the same: the high classes along
the shore of the Mediterranean, the
lower classes all over actually. The
poorer areas are in the Negev where
the Bedouins live and where poverty
is very spread all over the Negev.
Looking at the employment, you can
see that the high-tech is concentrated
around the Tel Aviv area. Agriculture is
all over, but not in the centre of Israel.
There is lack of employment of course
in the occupied territories. Every
aspect of life is separated in the same
way. We can see that all the goods
are concentrated in one small strip,
but what about all the others? We as
BIMKOM planners for planning rights,
we usually work with the others, so to
speak. So, let’s see who the others are.
We can find the others in the centre,
but mostly in the periphery, Jews of
lower class, the ultra-orthodox Jews
who are a specific category. Somehow,
they are considered to be of lower
class, but on the other hand, they are
very connected to the government, so
they have a specific status in between.
It is very interesting to talk about
them, but we will not be able to today.
Let’s continue with the others, Arab
settlements in Israel, Bedouin Arabs
in Negev (but not only), Palestinian
residents in East Jerusalem, and
Palestinians all over the west bank.
So, these are the big groups who are
considered to be the periphery of
all the aspects I mentioned before:
employment, culture, education,
infrastructure and planning. So, the
further away from the centre, the basic
elements for a reasonable life are
missing. Talking about planning and
development, we can talk about the
environment and the culture. What is
more crucial for the communities we
are talking about is the planning, the
possibility to build your house, to have
water, sewerage, electricity, education
and health care. Each group of
people I’ve mentioned has their own
difficulties and some of them have
all the difficulties. They are missing
everything. And some of them are in
between. So, what are they actually
missing? They are not only missing
things, but we can see that some of the
communities I mentioned suffer from
residential density in times of lockdown
during the pandemic. No room
for isolation. Lack of infrastructure,
water, electricity, internet, which
brings them to lack of computers,
difficulties studying from home,
resulting in low tech employment.
We were talking about the [great]
opportunity we have to meet all
together here, [people] from all over
the world. In the low-tech community,
there would be no possibility for
such an event. We in BIMKOM work
with this kind of community. They
cannot work from home. Maybe they
could in the agricultural sector, but
if they are working in tourism, in
hotels, in restaurants, they are more
affected by the pandemic. We can
[also] see that in these communities
there is a lack of quality open spaces,
which is special problematic during