Israel’s planning historiography: interrogating spatio-temporal discourse and ‘whiteness’

Matan Flum

Planning Perspectives, 2025, vol. 40, issue 2, 407-419

Abstract: In this study, I aim to critically examine the Israeli planning discourse related to the execution of the first national masterplan for Jewish population dispersion in Israel's history, the ‘Sharon Plan’. I argue that the discursive justification of the Population Dispersion Policy, as presented in Israel's planning historiography, provides planning, cultural, moral and economic advantages to the dispersion of Middle-Eastern and North African Jews (‘Mizrahi’ Jews), used to de-Arabize them as a project of ‘whiteness’. Subsequently, I analyze the three-dimensional language initiated in the Sharon Plan – Land, People and Time dimensions – through three main motifs: the ‘making the desert bloom’ motif, the modernistic progress motif, and the urgency motif. On a larger theoretical scale, I suggest reinvestigating how spatial design and national planning historiographies racialize social groups. Methodologically, I apply the Cultural Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis on a case study that engages the built environment, by assembling a corpus that includes the masterplan, Arieh Sharon's lectures and articles collected at the Azrieli Architectural Archive of Tel-Aviv Art Museum, and three planning and architectural exhibitions’ catalogues. I analyse the corpus by reading and observing every item to pursue shared motifs within the historical planning discourse.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2024.2424331

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