Re-shaping Jerusalem: The transformation of Jerusalem’s metropolitan area by the Israeli barrier

The paper analyses the territorial implications of the Israeli barrier/wall with reference to the metropolitan area of Jerusalem. The thesis argued is that the barrier continues both the ‘Judaisation’ and ‘de-Arabisation’ process of the city implemented by the Israeli authorities since 1967 and mainly practiced through urban policies. However, unlike these latter, it does not primarily affect the demographic composition of the city, but the spatial conformation of the metropolitan area; its political aim is to create a ‘Greater Jewish Jerusalem’ composed of the city and the three main blocks of Israeli settlements close to the municipal borders. In pursuit of (and in order to pursue) this aim, the barrier breaks down the Arab metropolitan system, which closely combines East Jerusalem and the West Bank suburbs. The consequence will be the probable atrophy of Arab Jerusalem, which will be reduced to a series of residential enclaves in an alien space.

► The paper analyses the territorial implications of the Israeli barrier in the Jerusalem area.
► The barrier acts in particular on the spatial conformation of the metropolitan area.
► It mothers a Great Jewish Jerusalem (Jerusalem + West Bank settlements).
► In so doing, it destroys the Arab metropolitan system (East Jerusalem + suburbs).