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430 pages, Paperback
First published June 17, 2007
This book is an investigation of the transformation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 1967. It looks at the ways in which the different forms of Israeli rule inscribed themselves in space, analysing the geographical, territorial, urban and architectural conceptions and the interrelated practices that form and sustain them. In doing so, it provides an image of the very essence of Israeli occupation, its origin, evolution and the various ways by which it functions.
'Because elastic geographies respond to a multiple and diffused rather than a single source of power, their architecture cannot be understood as the material embodiment of a unified political will or as the product of a single ideology. Rather, the organization of the Occupied Territories should be seen as a kind of 'political plastic', or as a diagram of the relation between all the forces that shaped it.'
The various inhabitants of this frontier do not operate within the fixed envelopes of space - space is not the background for their actions, an abstract grid on which events take place - but rather the medium that each of their actions seeks to challenge, transform or appropriate.
'Recasting the crisis in terms of 'humanitarian politics' was itself a political decision by the European and American donor countries; in doing so, they effectively released Israel from its responsibilities according to international law and undermined their own potential political influence in bringing the occupation to an end.'
I then asked him, if so, why does he not read Derrida and deconstruction instead? He answered, 'Derrida may be a little too opaque for our crowd. We share more with architects; we combine theory and practice. We can read, but we know as well how to build and destroy, and sometimes kill.'
When I asked him if moving through walls was part of it, he answered that 'travelling through walls is a simple mechanical solution that connects theory and practice. Transgressing boundaries is the definition of the condition of "smoothness".'
According to testimony from Machsom Watch, the tight turnstiles ended up causing more harm and chaos. 'People got stuck, parcels got crushed, dragged along and burst open on the ground. Heavier people got trapped in the narrow space, as were older women and mothers with small children.'45 It is hard to imagine the cruelty imposed by a minor transformation of a banal, and otherwise invisible architectural detail, ostensibly employed to regulate and make easier the process of passage.