Crime and Retribution

UNESCO says 'Get Real' to a World Heritage nomination for a Palestinian village in Israel.

FAST - 'The Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory’ is campaigning to save the heritage of a Palestinian village in Israel. The consequences of which can take a significant step towards the reconciliation question that firmly delves within the causes of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

On May 15th 2006 a conference at Amsterdam's Debalie cultural centre called 'Reconstruction of Memory' was held by FAST in conjunction and commemoration to the 58th Nakba Day. The Nabka was the Palestinian tragedy that coincided with the creation and Independence of Israel. In that single event of 1948 many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly uprooted from their native lands. Before the events of 1948, Muslims and Jews were living relatively in peace. This was also very true in Lifta, a Palestinian village on the north-west edge of Jerusalem. Although the village consisted of 5 big tribes of roughly 3000 people, there was still a Jewish minority who were considered as equal people - they went to the same schools, sat together at the coffee houses, went to each others festivals, and were known to have been living in and sharing the same houses. However, Lifta suffered the same consequences as many other towns and villages that were uprooted during the catastrophe of the Nakba.

Lifta was also the talking point of the conference at Debalie. The village stands obscurely due to nearly 60 years of unhinderance from development. The antiquities of this village consist of a traditional example of arab vernacular architecture cultivated over hundreds of years. Although tens of houses have been either destroyed or deteriorated since the war in 1948 and since then, many of them still remain poised and dominant on the landscape . The uniqueness of Lifta is due to the phenomenon that no conquest has physically re-contextualized the place. Lifta's geographical location within a valley has largely led to the place being protected from the civilization that passes above on the Tel Aviv highway. It is a place that lies frozen between two epochs, two histories, and two cultures. A place untouched by ideological regime change, set within a picturesque landscape and the first remnants of a place to glance as the gateway into Jerusalem.

The architecture of Lifta is important because a generation of people are still able to recognize the place. It exists as a place within the memories of a people, identifiable by the ruins of the buildings and structures cultivated into the landscape. 'Memory' in respect to Lifta is the essence of the place, it is bare without people telling their stories and affirming their bonds. Lifta also bares the scars of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a memory in which victimization has formed part of the Palestinian identity of the 'self'; and a memory which defines shared values amongst the Palestinians. An old lady recounts the day her family were forcibly removed from Lifta, "The first attack in May 1948; I was at home with my family - we did not have weapons to defend ourselves. From my family, 5-6 people were killed by the bomb on the coffee shop. A man from our family hit a Jewish bus. They would collect money from each of the houses to buy rifles. In the end, they attacked us. No-one helped from outside. Then we ran to the lower part of Lifta. The militia was hitting everyone in the upper hills of Lifta and then we ran away." She goes on to say, "To see your land and that your land has been taken away and now that we're living in refugee camps, you do feel pain and suffering. If they were to give me a tent I would go back because it is my homeland." FAST believes that this place has the capacity to allow exiled refugees to re-engage with memories associated to the tragic events of the Nakba.

This place also represents a sector of heritage that is understated and over-looked, not fitting the image or the natural assumptions of cultural heritage. We are calling it the 'ordinary', what we can generally accept as places of the everyday - buildings, structures and landscapes reciprocated and cultivated into everyday cultural life. However to be more clear in our distinction of the 'ordinary' as cultural heritage, places which have forged bonds over time between people and place and accustomed the value of becoming identifiable as native places of origins - genealogical foundations. The 'ordinary' in Lifta's context has a real case to be presented as a cultural heritage. Lifta's buildings and structures are every bit as much important to the future of this region. The duality that exists between the memory of a people and the tangible heritage can allow possibilities to directly engage with issues of history and tragedy. It is a place of study and reflection and has the potential to seek consolation through justice, and healing though the opportunity of reconciliation. Lifta can also act as an instrument of dialogue between different cultural allegiances and offer a common vision aimed at cultural development. Lifta has the potential to provide the unique opportunity to show what potentially can be possible in this region. The site contains a 'cultural heritage' which should be regarded as a common-ground to be used as a foundation to be built upon.

However all of this is threatened by a redevelopment plan and this we believe has great consequences. The redevelopment plan will remove the heritage by re-appropriating the architecture with a new name and identity with an indifferent reference to its palestinian heritage. It will eradicate the memory that is currently attributed to the identity of Lifta. The redevelopment plan will change the name of Lifta to Mei Neftoach (Spring) in accordance to an ancient historical name to the place. And architectural mimicry of the Palestinian cultivated houses shall be mass produced around the lands of Lifta to supplement desirable and exclusive developments to cater for hotels and private accommodation for the non-resident Jewish elite. All reference to its cultivated Palestinian heritage will be undermined through forgetfulness; terminally erased.

It has been important for FAST to reflect upon the term of 'cultural heritage' and gather the necessary paths Lifta have to consider to be part of a cultural heritage worthy of protection. The conference at DeBalie consisting of a variety of academics and practicing professionals, either working in the context of Israel or internationally on projects involving heritage. Lifta was placed into a variety of contexts ranging from the destruction of heritages and cultural properties to reconstruction and rehabilitation projects, as well as the real and historical context of the situation of Israel and Palestine. The American architecture historian Andrew Herscher, who spoke at the conference, wrote the reports on the destruction of cultural heritage at the Slobodan Miloševic trial for the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity in Kosovo. The survey was not focused solely on listed monuments and this issue was to raise further debate over the definition of monuments in the trial. An initial distinction between monuments of culture and ordinary religious monuments was not singled out when evaluating destruction to properties of a particular ethnicity. If monuments could be declared as fulfilling cultural and religious function; heritage could also be presumed of comprising of people's 'belief' systems. Was there a case to redefine what constitutes to cultural monuments of protection i.e. 'fulfilling cultural and religious function and comprising of people's beliefs systems'? And could it be proved that the intent to destroy a cultural identity was evident by the complete removal of a sign that a monument ever existed? Andrew Herscher points out that after the war and the destruction of important buildings, the violence of renovation and restoration begins. They are, says Herscher, entirely ideological terms. In Pristina, he says, more damage was inflicted by reconstruction than by war. Political and economic interests determine what, where and how restoration takes place. Similarly, listed monuments in Israel are likely to be conditioned to a considerable extent by ideological considerations; how could they be by-passed? It has been important for FAST to determine to what extent heritage organization's planners and planning conventions would take into consideration 'memory', from Lifta's particular situation, as an invaluable component of conservation practice. We wanted to put across the 3 following questions to UNESCO, ICOMOS and the World Heritage Committee.

- What are the criteria for an 'ordinary environment' to become a monument?

- If 'history is written by the victors'; how can the heritage of the 'losers' be preserved?

- How can the planning community address the political and ideological abuses of heritage?

FAST set out to establish the significance and value of the 'ordinary', and wanted the World Heritage Committee to participate at the very least by answering these questions put forward to them. If the organization could act further, there was an opportunity to engage in a critical discourse. FAST saw these questions also underlining the incentive to create a World Heritage Application. Quite naturally, it would be deemed as unconventional in circumstance and from the point of arrival of a non-governmental organization and not officially from a State. By placing the 'ordinary' in context to protection, whilst gaining a deeper level of understanding of a real situation such as Lifta, could UNESCO set about a practical framework which allowed them to correspond to such cases if they were recognized as heritage? Nevertheless, the aim was to create an application which stepped beyond existing conventions and try and create room for the scope of creativity, of values and professional judgment to encourage a mutual concern for welcoming and developing a cultural intervention. Structures, buildings and places which are nominated for World Heritage have to qualify to a merit of distinction notably appraised as of 'outstanding universal value'. Lifta represented a case of a cultural heritage worthy of recognition by the international community for having the capacity to provide significant cultural opportunities as well as encourage discussion on the awareness and undertaking for protecting volatile cultural heritages.

Lifta represents a bond between a tangible cultural heritage and an intangible cultural heritage. Lifta would have to establish through the development of planning instruments for alternative planning and rectified discourse on the 'ordinary', realization that it can create the criteria to establish itself as heritage worth protecting. To save Lifta is also to know what you’re saving. It is evidence of a history which defines the collective memory and existential identity of the Palestinian people; the scattered remains of a place keep the association of a collective memory alive. Authenticating history is also laying down the foundations for justifiable cultivations. Lifta has the potential to become a contesting ground for a new narrative. The place can provide unique and vital capacity building programs to deal with issues of identity and place constructions as well as national memory. Placing the application under scrutiny is also welcoming a debate which introduces the Nakba into an institutional process. However, by placing the nakba into perspective, there is also controversy for such an application. Firstly, the Nakba is affirmation that the Palestinians identity, their history, their memory does exist. More importantly, it is an affirmation of a dis-continuity to the land. The bond, Lifta, is a potent historical tool because it represents the Nakba - a symbol of retribution. To paraphrase a definition of retribution, "It is to be remembered that one of the primary reasons for the law's existence, indeed the state's existence, is that people are to be relieved of their need to strike out against those who have wronged them. Not to argue the rights or wrongs of it; it is entirely natural for an individual, when injured or harmed by another or others, to seek revenge and retribution. It is potentially harmful to the state if it does not satisfy these needs, these urges." 'Memory' could begin to take on a whole new meaning as it would have to take into account the position of the State. And you can only really justify the protection of Lifta if you are to consider some form of reconciliation process. However, does affirmation of an existential identity allow the Nakba to redeem itself? This question needs to be answered. Lifta is a proponent for Palestinian existentialism that needs its history told within the narrative of the region in which it belongs. Will the Israeli State recognize that a place relating to a Palestinian continuity has an inextricable common history with the Israeli national narrative? The importance of Lifta's ruins is that they are a memory, a monument, a bond, and a possible cultural foundation existing within Israel and adding an extra 'what if' possibility for the nation. Lifta has the potential for an all-inclusive vision. It is a common-ground for identities to delegate on the same space, the same time, the same land for a possible vision for the future.

Ciral Rassool, a heritage academic gave a substantial account of a memory and heritage project that he is trustee to at the Debalie conference in Amsterdam. The District 6 Museum in Cape Town, South Africa is a small, community-based initiative; the museum nevertheless saw itself as being of national significance, telling a national history of forced removals. As an independent space of knowledge-creation, the Museum wanted to tell its story nationally, thereby intervening in the field of cultural representation. Ciral Rassool also practices and writes extensively on the reconstruction of South African heritage after the apartheid - the 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' was a product of political compromise, which attempted to establish 'the truth' of apartheid's gross violations of human rights, as well as to promote reconciliation of apartheid's victims and perpetrators. In the process of creating an 'official history' of apartheid, apartheids' hidden history was simultaneously revealed and revised as an essential 'building block' for the new nation. The resources of memory were drawn upon in the imaginative reconstruction of South African society through the medium of cultural heritage. It seeks to begin an examination of the cultural workings of heritage, public history and identity formation under conditions of political transition in South Africa. South Africans were also encouraged to consider, narrate and visualize their society and its past, as well as their own identities as individuals within it. It was also in this domain of historical production that important contests were unfolding over the South African past and the dominant discursive forms were contested.

The idea of creating a World Heritage Application was a reference to the attempt of actively suggesting that the history of the Nakba should be established within the history of Israeli consciousness. However, even with our critical explanation to the World Heritage committee, our initial contact was repudiated with the suggestion to 'get real'! However, I do sympathize with the less than a handful of people, as I was told, having to deal with the 400-odd World Heritage applications. Guarantying time for a single organization raising the interest of a single village would be too much to carry out. FASTs' attempt to create a nomination was to also be in protest and representative for all the volatile cultural heritages around the world which are in need of recognition so that their histories are neither appropriated or erased. The current practice of the State defining within its territory control over heritage policies does suggest the problem that maybe all heritages within the border may not be represented. Conventions are not universally representing the 'heritage of all' for the fact that they are not reaching far enough to represent the undermined cultures within predominant cultures who really need representing. Heritage theory, legislation and practice has not caught up yet with the growing acknowledgement of the misuse of cultural heritage. The reality at the moment is that the 'heritage of the losers' is likely to be avoided under the circumstance when you are asking questions with a context such as the State of Israel. International conventions and instruments are not substantial safety nets if they don't reach out to the 'other' cultures that seek protection and saving.

History has the tendency to repeat itself if not contested which is what is happening in Israel at the moment. Territories are shifting, forced removals are the norm, and the Nakba is relived day to day. Whilst a two-state solution is politically and supposedly physically being acting out, let us not forget that dealing with memory and place is vitally important. Cultural reality is also painted on the landscape in that which we recognize. So, is there any possibility of Israel also embracing an alternative vision? Ultimately, it is the Israeli Land Administration (ILA) who has juridical control and authority over Lifta’s land. Lifta still has the opportunity to prove that there is a case for saving the heritage of this village. FAST will continue to campaign and raise awareness in hope to the prospect re-examination by the State of a project of worthwhile recognition and cause for the history of all.