1. From a space of conflict to a space of peace: The role of urban planners in advancing the peace process
- Author:
- Oded Haas
- Publication Date:
- 02-2023
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Mitvim: The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies
- Abstract:
- This review paper is based on the concept of creating space to understand the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, the paper argues, the conflict produces and is produced by a process of creating conflict spaces. Therefore, intervention is proposed in the process of generating space in order to create an alternative to the conflict space – a space for peace. A joint planning model places urban planners at the heart of the space producing process, and identifies urban planning as activity with great impact potential, both because it mediates between the global economy, national policy, and individual daily life in the production of space, and because it can promote the creation of a peace space born of professional consensus. Joint planning is the practice of bringing knowledge, experience and an alternative perspective into the planning process. Mixed cities that constitute core spaces in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are proposed as spaces that currently offer an opportunity to create change, or can be created as change, which will serve as a basis for turning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict space into the Israeli-Palestinian peace space.
- Topic:
- Conflict, Peace, Urban Planning, and Peacebuilding
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, and Palestine