Historical Development of the Green and Open Spaces in EJ

Since the mid-nineteenth century, Palestine, like many other Ottoman provinces, had undergone a slow process of modernization. It was increasingly exposed to Western

152 technology and culture. The European consulates and missionary-philanthropic organizations that had begun operating in Jerusalem around mid-century served as vehicles for the introduction of Western influence. The Germans, Russian, French, and English presence was reflected in their architectural compositions; e.g., the Anglican cathedral of St. George, the churches under the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission. Political life in Palestine under the British Mandate (1917-1948) was turbulent. The Arab population of Palestine, Muslim as well as Christian, more than doubled during the first half of the twentieth century, and Jerusalem's Arab population grew from 28,000 in 1922 to 65,000 in 1946. Rapid demographic development went hand in hand with accelerated economic progress. The British brought with them new standards of physical infrastructure and public services. Electricity was first introduced in private homes in the large cities in the mid-1920s. Development in the country slowed down with the outbreak of the First World War. The years following the First World War brought rapid growth. In 1917, when General Sir Edmund Allenby entered the Old City of Jerusalem, British rule over Palestine began. The British set up their administrative centre for the country in Jerusalem, transforming it from a relatively neglected Ottoman provincial town to a modern administrative, political, religious and cultural centre. Jerusalem expanded to the north, south and west. Many eminent architects and planners were brought to Jerusalem to draw master plans, develop guidelines, and design buildings. Since the civil administration of the British Mandate Authority was headquartered in Jerusalem, the city acquired a new position of political importance adding to its position of religious significance, and became the capital of the country. This in itself was a major source of urban growth.

The origins of the concept of greenbelts long predate the initial use of the term (Thomas, 1970). Definition of the greenbelts causes much confusion in Jerusalem and, indeed, there is no hard-and-fast definition. In Jerusalem no statutory status distinguishes the land included in the belt or its use. Instead, the term greenbelt is applied by the quasi- governmental agency responsible for afforesting and maintaining a portion of the public land in and around the city. The Jerusalem greenbelt ranges from several kilometers at its broadest to as few as twenty meters at its narrowest and covers an area of approximately thirteen square kilometers (Cohen, 1994). The benefits of greenbelts are to improve the

153 city’s aesthetics and health; but in East Jerusalem those green spaces are not noticeable and rare. On the other hand, open landscapes are widely allocated, since these spaces damage the Palestinian neighborhoods and devastate their landscape integrity as well as restrict their future development.

Greenbelts were imported to Jerusalem by the British. British plans for Jerusalem predated official commencement of the mandate; they had been initiated in 1917 before the end of the Ottoman regime in Palestine. With Turkish troops still in the town of Nablus, slightly more than eighty kilometers from the gates of Jerusalem, the British commander General Allenby summoned the city engineer of Alexandria, William McLean, to Jerusalem to advise the army on urban development (Kendall, 1948). A proclamation in 1918 limited construction within two and-a-half kilometers of Damascus Gate, and special effort was made to direct construction away from these areas to the east and south of the Old City. The reason for imposing these restrictions was the British desire to preserve the special character of Jerusalem, which was best expressed in concern of the Old City and its immediate surroundings, the areas of scenic vistas to the east and, to lesser extent, the south, and the approaches to the city from the four points of the compass (Cohen, 1994). This was in line with British respect for Jerusalem’s role in the Bible and the widespread Evangelical understanding of religion (e.g., Lloyd George was a Welsh Protestant) which operated in decision-making circles; although Sir Mark Sykes was a Roman Catholic.

In 1919, the Pro-Jerusalem Society commissioned Patrick Geddes to prepare a plan for the city. It, like the 1918 scheme, proposed severe restrictions on building immediately adjacent to the external side of the Old City wall. That land was occupied in many places by ramshackle structures, and the British authorities sought to convert it into strip of green parkland that would beautify and set the Old City apart from the surrounding built-up area (Fig. 5.42). In 1921 the Town Planning Commission was established, and initial ordinances on development were issued. A 1922 scheme proposed by the commission had four zones, one of which was a “park system composed of public and private open spaces”. A 1929 scheme contained a map labelled “Showing Green Belt Around the City Walls” (Kendall, 1948). The concept of a greenbelt was also evident in the work of the Jewish Agency, which was engaged in planning new Jewish

154 neighborhoods and communities in Palestine, an activity that was officially sanctioned by the Mandate authorities (Kauffman, 1926).

Figure315.42: The Old City of Jerusalem with the protection wall, (aerial map from Jerusalem Municipality, edited)

The impetus for the British planning of Jerusalem in the interwar years was aesthetic and historical – including the matter of open spaces. The efforts were primarily for preservation or, perhaps more accurately, restoration rather than as guides for the evolution of the city. This position was indicated in Kendall’s comment about the lack of trees in Jerusalem:

“There can be little doubt that by 1919 the Central Commission and all the persons interested in the appearance of Jerusalem were impressed by the inadequacy of tree planting generally”(Najjar and Amro, 2011:537)

Old City Of Jerusalem Northern Wall Eastern Wall Western Wall Southern Wall

155 The 1944 plan for Jerusalem was intended to meet the needs of the city as a whole, and discussion of open space indicated a shortage for the entire area. The plan gave details only for the areas of traditional concern to the British planners and for a small number of prominent locations. In addition to the continued focus on the Old City and the Mount of Olives, the section on open space described provision to save the greenery areas where future roads will be opened through, so that when a proposed road crossed open spaces, provision would be made to transplant existing trees from the road way to adjacent plots, achieving amenity in the development of future neighborhoods (Kendall, 1948). Kendall continued to serve as a planning adviser to the government of Jordan after 1948 (Efrat, 1984).

After the Arab-Israel war (1948), Israel located some of the forests and the newly established agricultural communities on the sites of the depopulated Arab Villages. In 1950 planting began near Givat Shaul, a new neighborhood occupying the site of a former Arab village. Major purposes of the greenbelts are to prevent urban sprawl, provide escape from noise, congestion and strain of the city life, and to seek recreation in the countryside. In East Jerusalem, there has been a seemingly contradictory function; Israel has used the forest block as a key tool in separating Jerusalem from the surrounding landscape (Cohen, 1994) i.e. the West Bank, to devastate the contiguity between them, and to impede access by the Palestinians to Jerusalem. Although some deforestation soon took place after the reunification of Jerusalem after the 1967 war, it was piecemeal and not guided by greenbelt planning. Instead, it was noticeably intended to beautify specific areas, especially along the approaches to the city and in the pre-1967 No Man’s Land. An additional function of tree planting was to prevent alternative land use, mainly by the Palestinians (Cohen, 1993).