Between the wall and the mall: Israelis and Palestinians in post-Oslo Jerusalem

Since the collapse of the Oslo peace accords and the construction of the separation wall around East Jerusalem, the city has gone through significant urban transformations.  Economic deprivation and physical entrapment has pushed East Jerusalem Palestinians into national and religious radicalization on one hand and novel modes of Israelization on the other. While economic and social conditions in east Jerusalem deteriorating, the daily presence of Palestinians in West Jerusalem’s public spaces has grown. As result, Jews and Arabs are encountering each other more frequently than before, in shopping malls, parks, hospitals and work spaces. What is the meaning of these new geography of encounter? Can it challenge the ethno-national divide? Or will it foster more violence and collision? The lecture will present daily life and politics of post-Oslo Jerusalem and the rise of new mixed public spaces in one of the most contested cities in the world.

Marik Shtern PhD.

Dr. Marik Shtern is an urban geographer, and currently a Post-doctoral student and a lecturer at the sociology department in University of California San Diego. Marik holds an MA (with honors) in Geography from the Hebrew University and a PhD in Politics and Government from the Ben Gurion University. His fields of research are geographies of encounter in contested cities, urban geopolitics and Jewish-Arab spatial relations in Jerusalem and Israel. Marik's research was published in several leading journals in Urban Studies and as policy papers.