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National Planning—the Critical Neglected Link: One Hundred Years of Jewish Settlement in Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Efraim Ben-Zadok
Efraim Ben-Zadok
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and Center for Urban and Regional StudiesTel-Aviv University
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Extract

Throughout one hundred years, Zionist ideology has dictated national settlement planning in Israel. In this highly dynamic society, political processes significantly affected the planning environment, and major planning goals were clearly derived from this reality, while being evaluated against social values. Negligence in the planning process was most critical in the formulation of conflicting long-range goals that impeded implementation. Goal conflict was especially harmful when economic planning was not as sound at a time when geopolitics, security, and defense goals were primarily pursued. Within the fundamental goals, incremental decisions—to construct new communities or extend existing ones—were also implemented. Antiplanning variables slowed down execution only to some extent, but their impact may increase in the future.

Analyzing the relationship between ideology and settlement implementation national planning concepts (through historical perspective), a subject that has received little attention in the past, contributed some analytical policy insights. Clearly, goal hierarchy or the domination of certain goals is sometimes required. However, in order to resolve conflicts, an effort should be made to decrease the differences in weights among goals. Thus, tension could be reduced to facilitate implementation. It is also possible to trade off one goal for another. Compromising among incompatible goals is a crucial matter to Israeli national settlement planning. There should be more balance in the allocation of resources economic objectives on one hand, and geopolitics, security, and defense goals the other. In addition, an attempt should be made to reduce the influence of antiplanning variables. Some of them, such as domestic or international political pressures, are more difficult to control; others are easier to influence. Specific attention should be devoted to achieving a higher professional level in planning, and more opportunity should be provided to experts to contribute input to decision-making processes.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , August 1985 , pp. 329 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

Author's note: The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments made by Dr. Gideon Doron, Professor Jerome Kaufman, and Dr. Mel Marcus on earlier versions of this paper.Google Scholar

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32 Thus, long-range conflicting goals are one characteristic of national settlement planning in Israel. Two other conflicts that were not elaborated within the limits of this study but should be identified are regional and sectorial conflicts. Regional conflict in Israeli settlements is based on traditional competition for resource allocation between the Negev and the Galilee. A recent interregional competition is between the Negev and Galilee on the one hand and the West Bank on the other, whereas the frustrated Golan Heights holds some tension against the latter. Furthermore, the conflict between the West Bank and the rest of the country extends, beyond economy, into sociopolitical and ideological subjects and has already been defined as a process of territorial cleavage formation in its latent stage. On this conflict, see Goldberg, Giora and Ben-Zadok, Ephraim, “Regionalism and Territorial Cleavage in Formation: Jewish Settlement in the Administered Territories,” State, Government and International Relations (Hebrew), 21 (Spring 1983), 69–94. Sectorial conflict could be identified traditionally between urban and rural settlements, or more recently, by the budgetary competition between the development towns and the settlements in the new territories.Google Scholar

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34 On the Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank in the context of international behavior, see Yaniv and Yishai, “Israeli Settlements.”Google Scholar