Lauring and Schopmeyer

overview

A military defense based on an area of distinct fortified points can be more successful than a linear defense, which when breached in any one place, looses its effectiveness. It was this thinking that led to Ariel Sharon’s policy of establishing settlements dispersed through the occupied territories and elsewhere that were perched on strategic hilltops. In addition to laying claim of ownership to the land this provided security in that the settlements were designed to achieve maximum surveillance of the surrounding landscape.

The result of this pointillized settlement pattern is a landscape which is highly segregated at a small scale, but relatively integrated at a broader (national) scale. But if the size and density of the points are changed, so too does the scale at which integration occurs. By promoting a pointillized settlement expansion pattern, communities of different cultures can become less divided and learn to share some of their interstitial spaces.

historical background

Eyal Weizman, in his writing “Strategic Points, Flexible Lines, Tense Surfaces, Political Volumes: Ariel Sharon and the Geometry of Occupation” outlines how Ariel Sharon was the first Israeli army general to challenge the notion of a linear defense, its vulnerability being that a single breach can incapacitate the entire line1. In the early 1970s he proposed establishing a matrix of fortified points spread out over an area. In other words, points constituting a line with depth. These fortifications would be able to survey the area in between them and cover one another in battle. Sharon’s theory proved effective in the 1973 conflict with Egypt in which linear defenses failed but his matrix of points held.

Later, when Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister of Israel he applied the same sort of thinking to the state’s land settlement policy. In the 1982 Sharon Plan, he proposed establishing settlements on strategic high ground in the West Bank. These new settlements served the dual purpose of claiming land ownership and keeping an eye on the activities of their Arab neighbors2. In the resulting pointillized landscape, communities of different cultures live side-by-side in a complex meshwork of settlements and infrastructure which, when viewed at a very broad scale, amounts to a unique geographic intermingling of peoples.

diversity and integration

An image printed in the newspaper, when viewed from a normal reading distance, appears as a coherent image. However, when one looks very closely, perhaps with a magnifying glass, one discovers that the image is actually composed of thousands of tiny dots. In a digital image, these dots are pixels, and their density is referred to as the resolution.

Israel (and the territories which it occupies), when viewed at a national scale, is an impressive mix of Israelis and Arabs. The situation represents two peoples intermingled, without a definable linear boarder. But on a local scale, the land is quite divided; the two groups predominantly live in separate cities, neighborhoods, settlements & villages and utilize separate infrastructure. What is overall a blended image is actually a pixelated landscape, composed of countless discrete points. The goal is to establish that same idea of integration at a local scale where it can be sensed in everyday life. To bring this broad integration down to the local scale, it is necessary to increase the resolution of the image by carefully adding more points such that a boundary is even less discernible then it is now.

expansion by points

In the case of Ein Hud and Ein Hod, two settlements in close proximity, it is possible that they could erode rigid boundaries and begin to share some interstitial areas. By allowing each settlement to expand, not concentrically, but rather as a series of satellite points or settlement enclaves, the two settlements cease to have a single defined boundary, but rather are interlocked. The space in between the enclaves is used by both peoples but claimed by neither. It is traversed by both peoples moving between the different satellite points and parts of it act as common areas for both cultures to share.

+++benefits of point expansion

The settlements are allowed to expand by creating new enclaves, each having its own programmatically unique civic, cultural and commercial center. These centers will act as attractors, encouraging inhabitants to move between the different enclaves. Also, a new shared civic, cultural and commercial area will create an opportunity for the two cultures to interact. Point expansion results in a less rigid boundary between the two cultures, promoting interaction & understanding, and discouraging either group from claiming ownership of the interstitial spaces. Additionally, landscape and green spaces gain a greater civic presence because the surrounding environment is allowed to flow in between the settlement points rather than simply relegated to the exterior no-man’s land.

conclusion

The current settlement patterns in Israel and the occupied territories have lead to a land that is, at a broad scale, geographically diverse and well mingled akin to the way the pixels of an image blur together to create a coherent whole. To foster further integration, it is necessary to increase the resolution of that image by encouraging settlement practices which create smaller, denser settlement enclaves and settlements which interlock with one another. Thus, when we look closer we hope to see one land, inhabited by two peoples, living in close proximity and learning understanding and peace.