East Jerusalem is more than a city; it is a battleground of maps, walls, and blueprints. In The Occupied City: How Israel Shapes Palestinian Life, readers are taken inside one of the world’s most contested urban landscapes, where every building permit, zoning law, and planning decision becomes a tool of power.
Drawing on years of research and first-hand interviews with Palestinian residents, urban planners, and human rights experts, this book exposes how Israeli urban planning policies restrict Palestinian access to housing, fracture communities, and rewrite the very geography of Jerusalem. It reveals how control is exercised not only through military presence but through bureaucratic procedures, economic pressures, and cultural erasure—quiet mechanisms that determine who gets to build, who is forced to leave, and whose story is allowed to endure.
At once rigorous and deeply human, The Occupied City gives voice to those living under the daily weight of planning systems designed to dispossess them. It uncovers the hidden architecture of occupation while also spotlighting acts of resilience, resistance, and visions for a more just future.
Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Israeli–Palestinian conflict beyond headlines, this book demonstrates how urban planning—often regarded as technical or neutral—is, in fact, one of the most powerful weapons in the struggle over land, rights, and survival.
