Morphology
The Creation of the Kafr Aqab Phenomenon
“I told them: I don’t build fences around your settlements. If you put up a fence, you put a limit to your expansion. We should place the fences around the Palestinians and not around our places.”
— Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister 2001 - 2006, quoted in Neve Gordon.
Wendy Brown. 2010. Walled States, Waning Sovereignty. New York: Zone Books
Colonization Apparatus
The Kafr Aqab phenomenon is both a product and tool in the Israeli colonization project in Jerusalem. To fully understand the method in which it was created, one needs to both zoom out and go back in history to identify both policies and territorial tactics crafted to build this colonization apparatus.
Chronology
Chronology References
1 Norwegian Refugee Council ,“The Absentee Property Law and its Application to East Jerusalem,” February 2017, https://www.nrc.no/resources/legal-opinions/the-absentee-property-law-and-its-application-to-east-jerusalem/.
2 Israeli Knesset, The Law of Return 5710, 1950. https://knesset.gov.il/laws/special/eng/return.htm.
3 B’tselem ,“East Jerusalem”, January 27, 2019, https://www.btselem.org/jerusalem.
4 Visualizing Palestine, “Identity Crisis: The Israeli ID System,” June 7, 2014, 2019, https://www.visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/identity-crisis-the-israeli-id-system.
5 B’tselem, “Settlements,” January 16, 2019, https://www.btselem.org/settlements.
6 B’tselem , “Maintaining a Jewish majority: Jerusalem Municipality to demolish entire Palestinian neighborhood, leaving 500 people without a roof over their heads,” June 17, 2019, https://www.btselem.org/jerusalem/20190613_wadi_yasul.
7 B’tselem , “National Parks as Tool for Constraining Palestinian Neighborhoods in East Jerusalem,” September 16, 2014, https://www.btselem.org/jerusalem/national_parks.
8 B’tselem, “A Policy of Discrimination: Land Expropriation, Planning and Building in East Jerusalem,” May 1995, https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/199505_policy_of_discrimination. .
9 Cohen-Bar Efrat, “Trapped by Planning: Israeli Policy, Planning, and Development in the Palestinian Neighborhoods of East Jerusalem,” Bimkom, 2014.
10 B’tselem, “Under the Guise of Legality: Declarations of state land in the West Bank,” March, 2012, https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201203_under_the_guise_of_legality.
11 Danielle C. Jefferis, “The “Center of Life” Policy: Institutionalizing Statelessness in East Jerusalem,” Jerusalem Quarterly, Issue 50, p 94 (2012).
12 B’tselem, “Restrictions on Movement,” November 11, 2017, https://www.btselem.org/freedom_of_movement.
13 Rawan Damen, “The Price of Oslo,” AlJazeera, 2013, https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/palestineremix/the-price-of-oslo.html#/14.
14 ANERA, “What are Area A, Area B, and Area C in the West Bank?” Accessed June 15, 2020, https://www.anera.org/what-are-area-a-area-b-and-area-c-in-the-west-bank/.
15 Dror Etkes, “A Locked Garden: Declaration of Closed Areas in the West Bank,” Kerem Novat, March, 2015, https://www.keremnavot.org/a-locked-garden.
16 B’tselem ,“The Separation Barrier”, November 11, 2017, https://www.btselem.org/separation_barrier.
17 Al-Haq, “Local Outline Plan Jerusalem 2000: The Proposed Plan and the Main Planning Policies.” Jerusalem Municipality, 2018, accessed April 26, 2020, http://www.alhaq.org/cached_uploads/download/alhaq_files/en/wp-content/uploads/2018/0 3/LocalOutlinePlanJerusalem2000.pdf.
18 Moien Odeh, Sean Merrit, “Israel’s Greater Jerusalem Bill,” Jurist, March 5, 2018. https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2018/03/israels-greater-jerusalem-bill/.
Colonial Policies
Since East Jerusalem was annexed in 1967 and Palestinian Jerusalemites were given residency status (rather than full citizenship), Israel has enacted policies that not only suppress their growth and expansion, but also push them to the edges of the city beyond the wall. The inequality between Palestinians and Jews in Jerusalem starts with the city budget .While Palestinian Jerusalemites continue to pay taxes and prove their center of life to be within Jerusalem, they are constantly denied services, family unification applications, building permits, and area for expansion, while simultaneously facing residency revocation, home demolitions, poverty, and restrictions on movement.
Jerusalem Master Plan based on Jerusalem Municipality local outline Plan: Francesco Chiodelli, “The Jerusalem Master Plan. Planning into conflict,” Jerusalem Quarterly, Issue 51 (2012).
Graphic based on: Visualizing Palestine, “Living Under Policies of Colonization n Jerusalem,” October 2017.
Displacement
Due to the discriminatory colonial policies, over 14,500 Palestinian Jerusalemites had their residencies revoked since 1967.19 Residency revocation leads to forcible transfer - barring Palestinian Jerusalemites from their own city. In fear of facing revocation, Palestinian Jerusalemites are being displaced to the edge areas of Jerusalem. This animated map shows the link between waves of residency revocation and waves of construction, where Palestinian Jerusalemites living either in the West Bank or abroad rushed to Kafr Aqab to preserve their identities. 20
Visualizing Palestine, “Residency Revocation: Israel’s Forcible Transfer of Palestinians from Jerusalem”, June 2017.
Residency Revocation Data: B’tselem, “Statistics on Revocation of Residency in East Jerusalem”, May 23, 2019.
Aerial Photos source: Palestinian Ministry of Local Government.
Dispossession
Examining the colonization apparatus at the Kafr Aqab scale, it is easy to see how Palestinians were slowly dispossessed of their land and left with that lawless ledge between the Wall and city boundary. The thick dash-dot line represents the accessible parts of the village to Palestinians-- shrinking immensely due to the construction of the illegal Israeli Settlement Kokhav Ya’akov, Area C classification, and the construction of the Separation Wall. Prior to Kafr Aqab becoming a resort for Palestinian Jerusalemites seeking to preserve their residency status, the land used to be primarily agricultural.
