Urban Transcripts (Nov 2020)
Al-Manshiyya: Bordering and spatializations of difference on the vanishing Palestinian coastline
Abstract
Walking north along the Homat HaYam Promenade in Jaffa, the entire Tel Aviv skyline comes into view with Mediterranean waves crashing against the old port’s walls. Families with young babies pause for pictures, bronzed 20-somethings play matkot (a popular paddle ball game similar to beach tennis) on the sand, and the occasional vendor hawking ice cream or drinks passes by. To the uncritical tourist eye, this is a veritable paradise; perfect weather, warm sand and cosmopolitan pleasures abound. But what these seaside vignettes of leisure and decadence omit is the historicity of the al-Manshiyya neighborhood upon which these spaces are built, as well as the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians in greater Tel Aviv. Consecutive eras of Zionist colonialism since the late 19th and early 20th century in this coastal city are generative of physical and psychic bordering through present day. The Hassan Bek mosque, Charles Clore Park and the Etzel Museum, all situated in what was historically al-Manshiyya, serve as sites to anchor this understanding of negation and erasure.
