Visualizing Palestine is an open collective which attempts to demonstrate graphically the injustice to which the Palestinians are subjected to in the current apartheid -or colonization depending on whether you consider the territory Palestine/Israel as one sovereignty or two. After an historical document on the hunger strike to support Khader Adnan who was doing one to protest against his detention in an Israeli prison without having been charged with anything, they just released a map of Israel/Palestine (see above) illustrating the segregative characteristics of the road system on this territory. The West Bank and East Jerusalem are indeed full of highways that are forbidden to Palestinian cars as they link the Israeli territory to the numerous illegal civil settlements in the occupied territories (see my previous article about the Route 443). In addition to that, the map shows how the totality of roads accessible to Palestinians to link their main cities together are highly restricted as they are punctuated regularly by more or less heavy duty checkpoints which can ultimately cut any form of physical communication between the various towns of the West Bank.
A country like the United States is participating to the segregation as their aid to Palestine is mostly focused on the construction of specific roads for Palestinians. Not only such supposedly philanthropic operation mark the West Bank’s landscape with as many useless scars (since they basically double the exclusive Israeli roads), but it ratifies de facto the current situation and sustain it in time.
Maps are very important for that matter as they illustrate the fundamental organization of mechanisms of occupation which, ultimately is in complete violation of the international law. Nowadays, a viral video of a young Danish activist being punched by a IDF soldier with a rifle seems to have more impact for the awareness than these depersonnified maps. However, the indignation provoked by a local event is misplaced as it looks only at the end of the long sum of stategized circumstances that allows such event to occur. This indignation is therefore, not only quasi-useless, but almost dangerous as it often bases its reaction on an acceptance of these circumstances (here, the occupation and oppressive policies against Palestinians). On the contrary, cartographic documents and other elements addressing the issue in a broad legal field are the important pieces to recognize the unjust essence of these policies.
In a more specifically architectural approach the authors of the map, Polypod and our friend Ahmad Barclay also include a small schematic inventory of road typologies which implements the segregative conditions through their design. Those are on the maps but you can see a close-up below:
The reality being that the focus on the material aspect of life
has ventured unto the twilight zone / illusion being made fact.
There need be a balance struck betwixt both the material as
spiritual before there be an union of both minds as of hearts.
On PC seach put (words of peace) or (words of peace global)
on site be a selection of videos in which Prem Rawat talks /as
explains meditation / of turning the senses inward in bringing a
unfolding of the spiritual self. Not of ideas as beliefs / not of an
paradise or a heaven beyond the clouds but that of a practical
spiritual experience which gifts a clarity of understanding which
answering all one’s questions as Whom am I ?. What being the
purpose of life?. Is there truly a God? Is there truly a heaven ?.
Throughout the history of humanity there’s spiritual teachers
amongst such be the “Teacher of Teachers” in present times
the teacher of teachers is Prem Rawat // thus it truly he is an
blessing unto all humanity // whom having given his life in the
aid of each individuals spiritual development in knowing self.
It be for the people’s of Palestine as Israel in bringing balance
unto both the material as spiritual aspects of creation in doing
so complete the picture / and see as live life as God intended
in celebration of the gift of life the gift of creation as one family.
Reblogged this on Progressive Geographies.
The basic problem with this map is that it is simply factualy not true. Thus there are hundreds of km or roads which Israelis are not allowed to drive on, which are not marked – both in the West bank and of course in Gaza as well.
The map looks cool, but as a source of information it is just basically flawed (well not to talk about the fact that it is based on outdated info.). The falacy of graphics in general and maps specifically is that they are a simplification of reality by which one looks at an area from above and asumes that this give her/him information as to the situation on the ground. Anyone who has done orienteering knows this.
The question is, did the creators of the graphic/map know this (i.e. an intentional method of misinformation) or do they just not know the information.
Dear nameless architect,
I won’t be too long as I have a fundamental issue with addressing myself to somebody who qualifies of ‘cool’ a map which shows the daily struggle that a people have to be subjected to for the last forty five years. Nevertheless, I wanted to point out the fact that your argument however inaccurate it might be -the roads forbidden to Israelis are only on Palestinian territory and are supplemented by these same exclusive highways- is precisely insisting on the existence of a segregation which is implemented by the IDF itself.
Dear bloger, the idea of a blog is that one can contest and challenge the information given since it is in the public realm. If the comments section is only for unchallenging remarks, I will refrain from commenting further.
The struggle you mention has not been going on for 45 years as any Palestinian will tell you, the stuggle has been going on for almost 100 years. The problem with the map is not what it does show, it is what it does not show (to make a sort of old Zizekian type of argument).
If one wants to understand the logic beyond the old colonial argument, one could look for example at the road running South from al-Khalil (Hebron) past Bani Nai’m. During the 1980′s 1990′s there were constant attacks on Israeli vehicles driving through the town. At some point in the 1990′s a bypass road was constructed around the town and attacks droped by 100% (well until 2010 when two women and two men were shot by the Hamas while driving on the bypass road – but I guess settlers are only 50% human so it would be a legitimate part of the struggle). Now this might be an unwanted outcome for the struggle, but if one has wants to understand what is happening on the ground, one has to undersand the logic of these roads. Thus a birds eye view usually misrepresents the reality. It is a classic modernist falacy.
Since your blog does deal with architectural theory and spatial understanding one has to take into consideration the complexity of the situation in a three dimentional way. This map, as most maps (in this case, more a graphic than a map) is two dimentinal and hides more than it reveals.
As I said, if you would like your blog to be unchallenged or if this comment offends you in any way, I will refrain from writting again.
its even your land to begin with, ‘architect’.
so its befitting for you to have no access for it, but the way i see it in the map, the designer try to imagine what the road planning could be like, thinking that the Palestinian as a second class or may be lower citizen in their own land… This probably what in the mind of Israeli Planner, segregate it, at all possible way as if theres two different countries existed in the same place. one in the bottom and the other one at the top of it, with the top community being oblivious to what happened beneath them.
This map is a fraud.
I have seen Palestinian number plates on roads in Israel proper. They are rare, but it happens. How? Palestinians who receive permits/visas to enter Israel and chose to use their vehicles and are given permission to do so have been seen on the roads.
But more importantly, there are millions of Israeli Arabs & their descendants who chose not to leave when Israel was founded, who are full Israeli citizens who travel freely on these roads. (they also fill many public and private positions – like the current Druze Nowegian ambassador and his Arab deputy!!!! Not to mention members of parliament, doctors, lawyers etc etc.)
According to this presentation, every country in the world is “apartheid” because it does not allow citizens of another nation entry (or to use its roads) without a valid entry permit.
A simple example: the USA is an apartheid state because you don;t see Mexican number plates in New York.
The other fraud is that Jews who travel on the “white” roads in the West bank are likely to get lynched! Not to mention the death penalty for selling land in the Joo-free Palestinian Authority.
Now WHO is running an apartheid state?
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