Special Lecture by Professor Haim Yacobi, “From Separation to a Shared Homeland: Paradox (and hope) of Settler-Colonial Urbanism in Israel\Palestine” (21 December 2025))

Abstract

Lecture “From Separation to a Shared Homeland: Paradox (and hope) of Settler-Colonial Urbanism in Israel\Palestine”
In this presentation I will discuss settler colonial urbanism(s) in Palestine\Israel, while exploring the different spatial and political typologies developed during the last few decades. I will discuss how colonial planning has been used as a tool of social, demographic, and spatial control and how Palestinian claims for the right to the city are meaningful political forms of protest. The presentation will refer to Palestinian cities (such as Lydda) that were transformed into “Jewish-Arab mixed cities”, to new “Jewish cities” that are going through a process of “Arabisation”, to Jerusalem as a neo-apartheid city, and to the current spatiocide of Gaza. My main argument to be articulated in this talk is that moving from the paradigm of separation into a shared homeland is the only sustainable approach which will lead to a shared future.

Professor Haim Yacobi

Professor of Development Planning, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), UCL. His works include Israel and Africa: A Genealogy of Moral Geography (2015), and he has co-edited Routledge Handbook on Middle East Cities.