Urban Space as an Agent of Conflict and ‘Peace’: Marginalized Im/mobilities and the Predicament of Exclusive Inclusion among Palestinians in Tel Aviv

Abstract

This chapter explores the situational emergence of cooperation and conflict among Palestinians who engage with the urban space of Tel Aviv, a city often imagined to be an exclusively ‘Jewish Israeli’ site. Concerned are both Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians from the West Bank who make use of this city and the opportunities it provides. Inclusion and exclusion coexist here in many ways, and Palestinians in Israel must often balance spatial inclusion into ‘Jewish Israeli’ space with senses of solidarity and belonging that contradict such immersion. While spheres of Jewish-Arab cooperation emerge in Tel Aviv, the processes of inclusion that facilitate them are often paralleled by the recurring emergence of conflict and tension for the individual Palestinian. Mobility, in the form of commuting and boundary-crossing practices, is as much a tool for overcoming marginalization as it is one of its symptoms.