The Jewish state uses Jerusalem to define itself in the ever expanding city. All buildings, including new ones, have to be made of stone in order to show the eternal Jewish presence, in this process Jerusalem’s Palestinian past is being appropriated. Malkit Shoshan, director of FAST (the Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory), and Eitan Bronstein, director of Zochrot, examine the ways in which planning is being used to create this fantasy heritage for Israel, at the expense of Palestinian culture. The village of Lifta, which lies just outside Jerusalem, has been abandoned since the Israeli army drove out the last of its Palestinian inhabitants in 1948. Read more about Reinventing Lifta (2/2) 

The Jewish state uses Jerusalem to define itself in the ever expanding city. All buildings, including new ones, have to be made of stone in order to show the eternal Jewish presence, in this process Jerusalem’s Palestinian past is being appropriated. Malkit Shoshan, director of FAST (the Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory), and Eitan Bronstein, director of Zochrot, examine the ways in which planning is being used to create this fantasy heritage for Israel, at the expense of Palestinian culture. The village of Lifta, which lies just outside Jerusalem, has been abandoned since the Israeli army drove out the last of its Palestinian inhabitants in 1948. Read more about Reinventing Lifta (1/2) 

On May 31, Eitan Bronstein gave a presentation at the Tel Aviv University conference on “Zionism: Ideology versus Reality”. The Zochrot organization is devoted to introducing the Palestinian Nakba into the discourse of Jews in Israel, in order to achieve accountability for the tragedy of 1948. This accountability is a necessary condition of reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. Through its activities, Zochrot is trying to create contact, a meeting, between Palestinian internal refugees from a particular village and the Jews who live on the land of the same village. The Palestinian refugee is a threatening figure for the Israeli Jews, since he awakens the demon of the original sin through which the Jewish state was established. Read more about They are afraid: Israeli Jews and Palestinian refugees