By Elisa Ferrato, John Lewicki, and Mick Scott This article is co-published with the Open Democracy Cities in Conflict series. On February 14th a clash broke out in the Old City of Hebron as members of the Youth Against Settlements movement prevented a group of Israeli settlers from building a wall around the communal spring […]
By Ahmad Barclay and Dena Qaddumi This article was originally posted on opendemocracy.net as part of the Cities in Conflict Series. The establishment of the village Bab Al-Shams (“gate of the sun”) on 11 January 2013 represented a new evolution in the unfolding patterns of spatial resistance in Palestine. Conversely, the response of the Israeli […]
The following is an interview with Léopold Lambert (@TheFunambulist_), author of ‘Weaponized Architecture: The Impossibility of Innocence’ (published by dpr-barcelona), a new publication that offers an analysis of Israel’s architecture of colonization in the context of global trends in architecture and urbanism, and uses architectural design as a tool to highlight and subvert the spatial […]
By Daniel Monterescu This article was originally published under the title “The ‘Housing Intifada’ and Its Aftermath: Ethno-Gentrification and the Politics of Communal Existence in Jaffa” in Anthropology News, December 2008, pg. 21. (Republished on arenaofspeculation.org with permission from the author.) Jaffa, an ethnically “mixed town” located minutes away from Tel-Aviv’s metropolitan center, yet marked as sui generis cultural […]
This past weekend the world watched as Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank marched on the recognised and unrecognised borders of Israel to mark Nakba Day. This by no means represents the first attempt by Palestinians to return to their homeland. In fact, against the odds, many thousands risked their lives […]
by Sami Kishawi At a moment of immense hope following the Egyptian announcement that the Rafah crossing is soon to be permanently reopened, Sami Kishawi offers a personal reflection on the untold history of the siege of Gaza, prior to the 2005 Israeli ‘pull-out’. This article was originally published on Sami’s blog ‘Sixteen Minutes to […]
On Saturday 16th April, TEDxRamallah, a remarkable transnational event will be taking place in Bethlehem, Amman and Beirut, to be streamed on the same day to venues in more than 20 cities across the world, from Cairo to New York. Asserting “the power of culture over the culture of power”,(1) in the words of the […]
Since 27 July 2010, when Israeli authorities demolished the village for the first time, the struggle for al-Araqib has risen to international prominence, becoming a focal point in the Palestine solidarity movement, both locally and internationally. On the occasion of Land Day (which this year sees a global BDS day of action), it seems apt […]
In their 7th annual conference in London, entitled ‘Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine’, the SOAS (School of Oriental and Aftrican Studies) Palestine Society have chosen to focus on the theme of ‘settler colonialism’, both in terms of its history and its ongoing relevance as a point of focus in the struggle for justice […]
by Ahmad Barclay An article published in the Società Italiana di Scienze Psicosociali per la Pace (Italian Society of Psycho-Social Sciences for Peace) journal “Pace, Conflitti e Violenza”, featured on this site last week. (Republished on arenaofspeculation.org with permission from the author.) My personal interest in the spatial politics of Israel-Palestine was kindled through long […]
A new online publication offering a contextual framing of architectural intervention within the arena of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Linking contemporary acts of ‘critical spatial practice’ on the ground with the wider trajectory of the spatial struggle.