By Gal Kramarski, PhD candidate, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
My ethnography is an enquiry into the everyday lives of Palestinian Jerusalemite practitioners (in their early 20s-early 40s) hired by Jerusalem’s municipality for implementing an Israeli-led five-year socio-economic development project in East Jerusalem. Situated uncomfortably between the Occupying state as their employer, and their own Palestinian communities who criticise them for ‘working for the Occupation’, these workers must navigate their actions in a precarious daily routine. During my 15 months of field-work in Jerusalem during 2022-2023, for which I was awarded a travel grant by the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL), I conducted participant observations, followed, interviewed or simply listened to Palestinian Jerusalemites who hold these positions. Addressing the tension between political resistance and the will to live ‘normal’ and better lives despite the ongoing Occupation, their experiences tell the story of a changing reality in East Jerusalem.
More than five decades of Israeli Occupation have resulted in extreme poverty, social instability and a pressing need for jobs among Palestinian Jerusalemites. While the Israeli state regularly justified its policies/decisions by arguing for a necessity to secure Israel’s safety, these actions were often harmful to Palestinian Jerusalemites’ social and economic security. One example is the Separation Wall built in 2002. The Wall separated between Jerusalem and the West Bank, sliced through Palestinian land and segregated Jerusalem’s Palestinian communities from those living in the West Bank, which until then was a social, economic and cultural hinterland (Cohen 2007; Busbridge 2017; Baumann 2018). Nonetheless, oppressive mechanisms such as checkpoints, temporary barriers, armed arrests and strict monitoring, all followed the same colonial logic and yet render Palestinians’ everyday experience in Jerusalem unbearably humiliating and challenging.
After decades of socio-economic neglect, in May 2018, the Israeli government had bizarrely decided to allocate 2.1 billion NIS for the development of East Jerusalem. This unprecedented governmental decision was set in the legislation of Bill ‘3790’ which included a large invest in Hebrew classes and empowerment projects targeting Palestinian Jerusalemite women and youth, aiming particularly at preparing these two populations for working in the Israeli labour market or for attending Israeli universities. Other projects focused on improving infrastructure, including the building of roads, schools, cultural centres, public transportation and frequent garbage disposal, which were also promoted as part of the five-year ‘3790’ Bill.
Among the various rationales behind the decision to enact such large-scale project was a belief held by key Israeli security officials that more policing would not prevent potential armed resistance coming from Palestinians living within the borders of Israel. These Israeli officials analysed Palestinian Jerusalemites’ participation in the violent events of summer 2014 as threatening on Israel’s safety, and argued for a new strategy.[1] After two rather successful pilot-programmes, they had successfully convinced the Israeli government to direct large resources to the socio-economic development of East Jerusalem.
The extensive scope of ‘3790’ forced Jerusalem’s municipality to promptly recruit and train hundreds of new workers for its implementation. However, decision-makers soon realised that without recruiting local Palestinians for these field-based positions, it would be rather challenging to apply ‘3790’ in East Jerusalem. Knowledge of Arabic and an understanding of the sensitive socio-political dynamics in East Jerusalem were at the heart of the Israeli state’s ambition to recruit Jerusalemite Palestinians specifically. But more than that, lack of trust between the state and East Jerusalem’s communities challenged the state’s capacity to put into practice its development visions.
Traditionally, Palestinians have rejected any collaboration with or participation in state-led activity, largely viewing such actions as tat’bii’aa meaning in Arabic, normalisation of the abnormal reality of Occupation (Mi’ari 1999; Richter-Devroe 2011; Tamari 2013). This political reality challenged Israel when attempting to implement ‘3790’ at first. Therefore, Israeli decision-makers considered recruiting local Palestinian workers for facilitating Israel’s visions a must for building trust with target communities. Consequently, from the very beginning of its implementation, and against local critiques, hundreds of Jerusalemite Palestinian young professionals were hired for these positions (Ministry of Jerusalem affairs, 2018).
Uncomfortably positioned between their employer’s wills, their own aspirations and the expectations of their own Palestinian communities, local field practitioners are situated in a rather tricky way vis a vis all parties. This positionality often forces workers to engage with clashing political interests. In my PhD dissertation I ask, how does a Palestinian development worker navigate these moral grey areas and political contradictions? What sorts of actions are produced in these spaces? And what could these experiences tell us about the changing nature of socio-political life in East Jerusalem? Through exploring Palestinian workers daily experiences and encounters with the Occupation and with their own communities, I study development work from the perspectives of Palestinian practitioners who operate under Israel’s colonial regime.
While these moral tensions/contradictions remain, the importance of development work is consolidated for Palestinian Jerusalemites in a number of ways, be it economically, thinking first of their community’s economic development and then their own progress; or in their formation as political actors within Jerusalem’s ecosystem. Being crisply conscious of Israel’s political aspirations attached to ‘3790’, my interlocutors cannot view Israel’s 2.1 billion NIS development programme as a paradox, but rather as another political arena within which they are required to navigate their daily actions.
In my project I further explore Palestinian practitioners’ role as political actors, and offer the concept of ‘creative political action’, suggested by Palestinians with which I worked. My interlocutors explain creative political action as an act that occurs outside of ‘formal’ politics and challenges existing social norms. It consists of the ability to consciously overlook or tolerate certain behaviours in the process of negotiating one’s being in a highly compromised space, as well as the ability to achieve one’s own goals. As development practitioners who work for their occupier’s projects, my interlocutors, I argue, utilise creative political actions in order to redefine the practice of development according to their own commitments, agendas, and within the existing limitations.
In light of the horrific events taking place in our region, primarily the deadly war in Gaza, and with the intensification of violent oppression of Palestinians following the October 7 massacre, my interlocutors and their people are facing a worsening daily reality. Beyond the physical and mental effects of the war, the long-lasting fighting in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria has a huge financial cost. In this respect, budgets are first being cut from minorities in Israel, including from the projects for which my interlocutors work. The unprecedented escalation of violence since October 2023, which has had a massive impact on anyone living in the region, also effected the lives of Palestinians who work for Israel’s development projects. Some have lost their job, others chose to resign, while those who remained, continue to struggle with the intensifying surveillance, violence and discrimination. Under these sever circumstances which are in a constant decline, these Jerusalemite practitioners continue to shape reality on the ground, and offer a radical vision for Palestinian sumud and resistance, in the most horrific of times.
[1] Based on interviews with Israeli decision-makers, state workers, politicians and security officials, conducted between 2019-2021.
All images taken by Gal Kramarski.
The views expressed by our authors on the CBRL blog are not necessarily endorsed by CBRL but are commended as contributing to public debate.
