FINDING LIFTA: ENACTING THE ERASED LAND

Advanced Studio: Jerusalem and the Occupation of Memory

Columbia University GSAPP

Critics: Craig Konyk and Nina Kolowratnik

Our studio looked at the frozen past and present-day dynamics of the last Palestinian village standing in Israel: Lifta. The village located in West Jerusalem, was abandoned during sustained attacks by militia forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Its 3,000 inhabitants hastily fled and were prevented from returning when the 1949 UN Armistice Line was drawn. This left Lifta village and large parts of its agricultural lands on the Israeli side of what became known as the Green Line.

Today, many of Lifta’s refugees are located in Ramallah, the Occupied West Bank, refugee camps, cities of neighboring Arab countries, as well former Lifta lands in East Jerusalem.

Some refugees are even located as far away as Europe and the US. For these refugees, their village remains a vivid memory landscape. Lifta homes and lands continue to be designated as absentee property by Israeli authorities and Lifta refugees are not allowed to assert claims of legal title over the land or permanently return to their property. This holds true for all Palestinian refugees. However, while most former

Palestinian villages were bulldozed and covered by parks or resettled, Lifta represents the only village where large parts of the built fabric remain intact and largely unoccupied until this day. Lifta stands as a symbol for a silenced past and the still pressing Palestinian refugee question.

In 2006 the Israeli Land Administration approved a development plan for Lifta (Plan 6036), which would transfer refugees’ properties to private investors to develop a residential area with 220 housing units. In 2011 the ‘Coaliton to Save Lifta,’ formed of Israeli and Palestinian activists, filed a petition to stop the bidding process. An Israeli Court ruled in favor of the activists in 2012 but the ruling was only a temporary stay order over a procedural matter. Lifter is currently still under the threat of being lost. The project aims to be a productive contribution in envisioning alternative futures for Lifta. Imagining the possible future use and development of Palestinian villages in Israel is crucial to the question of Palestinian refugee return yet it is seldom openly discussed in detail among Israelis and Palestinians alike.

KINNE TRIP

TEL AVIV JAFFA