Settlement policy in an Israeli mixed city: A typology of displacement and its resistance

Abstract

Urban Studies from the Global North highlight the physical displacement of lower-income residents as urban development policies’ central transgression. However, looking only at the class-physical angle of displacement narrows our understanding of other aspects of power relations in space. This research focuses on Israel’s policy encouraging the settlement of middle-class Zionist associations in the city of Lydda. The study argues that in a state of ethnonational conflict, displacement has various manifestations: physical, political, religious, cultural and especially ethnonational. This policy causes long-term residents both hardships and benefits depending on their religious, ethnonational and class affiliations. Therefore, residents express different intensities and patterns of support, ambivalence, or resistance towards the policy. This study suggests a typology of displacement and its implications for different patterns of resistance. Moreover, it calls for scholarly recognition of displacement beyond physical and class aspects.

Introduction

Studies from the Global North typically highlight physical displacement of lower-income minority residents when discussing gentrification (Brenner and Schmid, 2014; Lees et al., 2016; Sassen, 2014; Slater, 2009; Smith, 1996). However, we must look beyond the physical aspect of displacement to grasp the significance of different urban actors’ ethnic/racial and religious identities and motivations. As Davidson and Lees (2010) argue, a purely spatial account of displacement is inadequate. Displacement is diverse: it includes both direct and indirect displacement, sometimes but not always impacting physical space. Recently, researchers have begun examining other types of displacement, specifically from political and cultural angles (Betancur, 2002; Hyra, 2015; Martin, 2007; Zukin, 2010).

Even so, to date, we know little about these multiple angles of displacement. In particular, we lack an understanding of displacement’s patterns following gentrification, outside the north–western context in spaces characterised by ethnonational conflicts. We further lack understanding of how long-term residents in these regions experience the different types of displacement depending on their ethnonational and religious affiliations, and how they respond to them.

The lack of reference to ethnonational and religious identities and motivations of both long-term residents and newcomers and therefore also the various modes of displacement is a product of prevailing scholarly attention. The dominant research on urban displacement concentrates almost solely on the impact of capitalism, neoliberalism and economic-based gentrification in the Global Northwest (Elliott-Cooper et al., 2020). Gentrification researchers usually focus on class as the major force leading to displacement without sufficiently considering additional angles such as ethnonationalism and religion. Indeed, already at this early stage in gentrification literature, scholars recognise the intersection of class and race/ethnicity in gentrification processes, as well as the dominance of racial/ethnic displacement (Marcuse, 1986; Wyly and Hammel, 2004). Minorities’ displacement is often explained as a by-product of their economic disadvantage, a circumstance that happens to intersect with ethnicity and race as opposed to resulting from intentionally racist projects (Goetz, 2011; Wyly and Hammel, 2004). Thus, class and economic disadvantage are still presented as the central forces explaining ethnic/racial displacement. Accordingly, physical displacement is the focus of research attention rather than other types of displacement directly related to ethnic/racial or religious identities.

While displacement is indeed defined in an economic context, I argue that in the reality of a conflict between majority and minority populations, displacement also incorporates ethnonationalism and religion. In contested/divided cities, nationalism and ethnic identity intertwine to influence spatial relations, including group rights and social exclusion (Bollens, 2014). As the ‘South-eastern’ approach (Yiftachel, 2020) holds, one cannot separate knowledge from its context, therefore focusing on urban dynamics and concepts emerging from non-western societies or populations to explain displacement.

This approach and the post-colonial critique have led to significant development in research to widen our geographical focus and ‘see from the south’ (Watson, 2009) rather than continuing to draw ideas primarily from the Global North and West. It urges scholars to analyse displacement and gentrification ¹ outside the Global North while simultaneously incorporating and emphasising individual cases’ specific contexts (Lees et al., 2016; López-Morales et al., 2021; Valle, 2021).

Following this recent development, this study focuses on the Israeli settlement policy in the ethnically mixed city ² of Lydda. Since the late 1960s, the state of Israel has encouraged young, middle-class Jewish religious populations organised in Zionist associations to settle in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Members of these Zionist associations named ‘Garin Torani’ (literally, ‘Torah Nucleus’) are driven by both a Zionist and a socio-economic agenda. They are purchasing apartments and moving to disadvantaged neighbourhoods to volunteer with disadvantaged populations and redevelop the neighbourhoods, Judaise space and disseminate Zionist and religious ideology among the general population. The first settlement group was established in the late 1960s. As of 2022, over 80 similar initiatives are scattered around the country.

This study adopts the South-eastern perspective (Yiftachel, 2020), and will borrow the term ‘state-led ethno-gentrification’ (Shmaryahu-Yeshurun, 2022; Shmaryahu-Yeshurun and Ben-Porat, 2021) to describe the phenomenon under investigation. As Shmaryahu-Yeshurun (2022) argues, in Israeli mixed cities, minority displacement is a direct product of a nation-state’s territorialisation project. Building upon this research, I will demonstrate how physical and class-based displacement is only one aspect of this process, combined with other types of displacement such as political, ethnonational, religious and cultural. I point to stunted conceptualisations of displacement, for displacement affects many more than those actually displaced at any given moment (Marcuse, 1986). The study will map the typology of displacement versus benefits experienced by different ethnonational populations, both the majority and minority. Finally, the study describes patterns of resistance or support regarding the policy among the different groups. These patterns will provide a more complex and complete picture of how displacement manifests among ethnonational and religious identities.

Understanding multiple levels of displacement and their connection to a different pattern of resistance will contribute to the literature on gentrification by providing insights into the experiences of minority populations, not only in similar contexts but also in the Global Northwest. Racial, ethnic and indigenous minorities all over the world may suffer not only physical displacement but also cultural, political and religious displacement, in addition to the loss of belongingness as an ethnic or racial group. At the same time, gentrification may benefit residents according to their religious, ethnonational, or class identities, leading to contrary perceptions and reactions among long-term residents. These issues, prominent in the south-east, can illuminate and explain similar phenomena in other geographic contexts.

Furthermore, presenting multiple types of displacement using the terminology and perspective of gentrification will contribute to research on contested/divided cities. Specifically, it will help identify the capitalist mechanisms and paradigm that reproduce Israel’s ethnonational project of gentrification. As I will show, while minority displacement in a mixed city is produced by ethnonational projects, it is intensified by urban capitalism, which simultaneously laid the groundwork for an intensified ethnonational displacement. This perspective serves as an intermediate analytical framework that seeks to combine insights from urban studies in both the Global North and South. In doing so, the study will contribute to Brenner’s (2018) call to promote planetary urbanisation, establishing an intellectual common ground that will help orient and advance critical urban studies.

Beyond physical displacement

Gentrification occurs in urban spaces suffering from infrastructural deterioration and follows institutional disinvestment. As a by-product of planning neglect, a gap is created between the land’s profit potential and its actual worth. This rent gap has entrepreneurial potential, inviting investors to promote urban renewal, supported by municipal planning authorities. Such renewal leads to forced residential displacement of disadvantaged groups, because of increased housing costs (Lees et al., 2016; Slater, 2009; Smith, 1996).

While physical displacement is indeed a more visible and tangible consequence for residents, it is important to recognise that gentrification has additional social implications. This is especially true in cases where gentrification does not involve physical displacement but indirect displacement. Examples include a declining sense of place-based identity among the working class (Davidson and Lees, 2010). Chernoff (1980: 204) broadly defined the indirect, non-physical consequences of gentrification as ‘social displacement’, meaning ‘the replacement of one group by another, in some relatively bounded geographic area, in terms of prestige and power’.

Scholars have specifically defined two types of non-physical displacement: cultural and political. Cultural displacement occurs when the behaviours, norms, preferences and values of long-term residents are replaced by those of newcomers (Hyra, 2015; Zukin, 2010). More affluent newcomers through their cultural consumption patterns will likely demand different types of neighbourhood businesses and services compared to the lower-income population (Lloyd, 2010). The establishment of new kinds of businesses in the gentrified neighbourhood, such as upscale restaurants and organic grocery stores, may foster resentment among long-term residents (Freeman, 2006). These residents may find their community does not resemble the place they once knew and may no longer identify with their neighbourhood.

The displacement of lower-class residents also results in a decline in their neighbourhood political power. It occurs when longstanding residents become outvoted or outnumbered by new residents within their organisations or through the creation of organisations dominated by newcomers (Betancur, 2002; Martin, 2007). In some cases, long-term residents’ interests are no longer considered key issues for neighbourhood organisations. Therefore, they lose leadership positions, forfeit decision-making power and feel excluded from organising and speaking for the community. For example, following the revitalisation of Washington, DC’s Shaw/U Street neighbourhood, as new upper- and middle-income residents have entered the community, some have joined civic associations, seized political power and advocated for policies that cater to their tastes and preferences (Hyra, 2015).

Similarly, Hom (2022) indicates that in Los Angeles’s Chinatown community, leaders do not view gentrification as primary displacement, but instead emphasise a secondary and symbolic displacement including loss of political power and feelings of community attachment. Residents who feel politically marginalised may become less involved and even leave their neighbourhoods. Political displacement may also lead to political destabilisation through lower voter turnout among longstanding residents (Knotts and Haspel, 2006), and the loss of long-term elected officials at the municipal level (Martin, 2007; Newman et al., 2016).

Displacement in Israeli mixed cities

Displacement from spaces characterised by conflicts between the ethnonational majority and minority has roots beyond the physical, economic and class aspects. Specifically, it is related to ethnicity, ethnonationalism and politicised multiculturalism which shape the urban space (Bollens, 2014). As Tzfadia and Yiftachel (2021) argued, to understand in depth the types of displacement in the Global South-east, one must examine them from the perspective of other logical structures – nationalism, colonialism, gender and religion – that characterise these contexts and cities.

In Israel’s mixed cities, displacement of the Arab minority is not only related to their marginalised class status but also the historical context of establishing the Jewish nation-state and the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The ethnocratic Israeli cities produce hierarchical ethnic citizenship and gaps within Jewish society between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim and between Jews and Arabs (Shafir, 2018; Yacobi, 2009). Following the Arab–Israeli war and during the first years of Israeli state-hood, the majority of Arabs there escaped or were expelled, and Arab land and property were seized by the state through the Absentees Property Law (1950). Simultaneously, the state settled these cities with mass waves of Jewish immigrants and refugees from Europe and the Middle East (Monterescu, 2015; Yacobi, 2009).

In later years, Jewish residents displaced Arab populations from mixed cities, following economic-based gentrification. Monter-escu (2015) uses the term ‘ethno-gentrification’ to highlight how gentrification in Jaffa has caused Arab minority displacement. Shmaryahu-Yeshurun and Ben-Porat (2021) further argue that Arab displacement in Israeli mixed cities is not simply an unintentional side effect of economic disadvantage. Instead, to borrow their term, ‘state-led ethno-gentrification’ represents a deliberate territorialisation project aiming at strengthening a nation’s dominance in the ethnonational conflict. In these ethnocratic cities, gentrification also redefined the population’s religious character in what Luz (2022) describes as ‘religious gentrification’.

Despite the significant contribution of these studies to understanding the ethnonational motivations and context of minority displacement in the Global South, the main consequences described involve physical displacement, which lacks appropriate attention to other manifestations of displacement. Finally, there is a lack of scholarly knowledge on how long-term residents from different ethnonational affiliations experience and respond to gentrification.

The case study of Lydda

Historically, urban development in Lydda has been heavily influenced by the ongoing Arab–Israeli conflict. Despite the city’s centrality, its national socio-economic ranking has been consistently low, and it has been institutionally neglected for many years. These factors have contributed to the recent trend towards gentrification policy, which promotes the entry of Jewish settlers while displacing Arab residents.

The city had 80,931 residents in 2020: 62% of them were Jewish, 30% were Arabs and 8% were others (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2020). Before the state of Israel was established in 1946, Lydda had 18,250 inhabitants; 89% of them were Muslim Arabs, 10.7% Christian Arabs and 0.3% were Jewish (Yacobi, 2009).

Following the Arab–Israeli War of 1948, most of the city’s Arab residents escaped or were expelled, leaving only 700 Arabs (Bar-On, 2001). At the same time, Jewish immigrants were absorbed into Lydda and caused a demographic change so that in 1950 about 90% of Lydda’s residents were Jewish (Yacobi, 2009). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the city developed new neighbourhoods, factories and commerce.

Since the mid-1970s, following the Six-Day War in 1967, disadvantaged Arab families from the West Bank and Gaza Strip migrated into the city. In the early 1980s, Bedouins were also absorbed into the city, following the peace agreement with Egypt and the evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula. Subsequently, following the Oslo Accords, dozens of additional families of aides were absorbed into Lydda (Jack Sheetrit, former Lydda municipality spokesman, May 5, 2020, personal communication; State Comptroller’s Report, 2012). Lydda’s increasing Arab population in relation to its Jewish population continued to grow during the 1980s and 1990s, despite absorption of Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia and the Soviet Union (Yacobi, 2009). The entrance of large numbers of heterogenic and disadvantaged populations alongside the mismanagement and corruption of local authorities, created economic instability in Lydda and led middle- and upper-class residents, mostly Jews, to leave the city (State Comptroller’s Report, 2012).

The city’s economic decline led to the appointment of three-term committees convening in the 2000s and various government and municipal plans designed to rehabilitate Lydda. Such plans included, among others, establishing a religious-Zionist settlement called ‘Garin Torani’ in the city to attract the middle-class Jewish population back to the area. In 1994, social activists in Lydda contacted religious families in the settlements of Beit El and Ofra on the West Bank. They asked them to settle the city and establish a ‘Garin Torani’ project. The first families to arrive settled in the Neve-Zeit and Neve-Nof neighbourhoods.

In 2000, wishing to attract a larger mass of middle-class families, these Garin Torani members recruited government support to establish Ramat Elyashiv, a new neighbourhood built specifically for religious families. In 2003, the Israel Land Authority (ILA) published a tender, an invitation to bid financial amounts for purchasing public land, to build the neighbourhood on an area of 5031 m², including 76 apartment units in the first stage, and later in 2007, a second tender was issued for the construction of 352 more housing units. Ramat Elyashiv was opened in 2004, and populated two years later by a religious Jewish population. As of 2015, the neighbourhood has about 500 families (A Atias, 2017, personal communication). The construction of Ramat Elyashiv led to increased demand for additional middle-class religious newcomers and the establishment of Jewish cultural and religious educational institutions. Religious families also began to purchase apartments in the nearby neighbourhoods of Ramat Eshkol, Ramet, Givat HaZeitim and Hatzeira.

Methods

The study was conducted using a qualitative constructivist method in a case study approach (Yin, 2009). I chose the case of an Israeli mixed city because the context of an ethnonational conflict makes it possible to examine multiple forms of displacement in a light that is not only class-based but also ethnonational, religious, political and cultural. I specifically chose the city of Lydda because Israel’s largest and oldest Jewish religious settlement project (Garin Torani) is located there. In addition, Lydda’s location in the country’s centre and the housing pressure in Israel will probably intensify gentrification processes in the coming years, making this case study relevant for future research. Finally, tensions between Jews and Arabs and the resistance of Arabs to the spatial policy have become frequent and escalated in Lydda, as revealed in the violent events of 2021. In May 2021, violent attacks instigated by Arabs broke out across many of Israel’s ethnically mixed cities. The most intense incidents of violence occurred in Lydda. For all these reasons, it is important to deepen our understanding of the spatial and social processes in Lydda.

I conducted 26 semi-structured, in-depth interviews between 2017 and 2019. Nine interviews were conducted with newcomers and founders of the settlement association; six were local Arab residents, six were local Jewish residents and five were policymakers from the city of Lydda. A combination of the ‘snowball’ technique and directed sampling was used to reach key participants. The interviews were conducted face-to-face in Lydda, at the location chosen by the interviewees. Lasting between 45 and 90 minutes, the interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. The interviewees’ names have been changed for confidentiality.

I also conducted archival analysis, including government policy documents (Knesset committee minutes, laws, ministry work plans, queries, etc.); municipal policy documents (planning documents, annual reports, tenders, outline plans, etc.); and settlement association documents (PR, annual plans, vision documents, videos, etc.). The documents were selected based on the interviewees’ recommendations, as well as a systematic internet search of keywords focusing on the 2007–2021 period. Finally, I conducted four observations at the ‘Chicago Community Center’ and the ‘Denver Community Center’, at activities and events held by the settlement association between the years 2017 and 2019.

The Data Analysis was undertaken by means of ‘Thematic analysis’ (Krippendorff, 2018), a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data. It included six main stages: familiarisation with the data; generating initial codes; searching for themes; reviewing the themes; defining the themes; and producing the findings.

Findings

The entry of ethno-gentrifiers has induced not only long-term Arab residents’ physical displacement, but also religious, cultural, political and ethnonational displacement. This same process included more complex consequences for Jews. While some mainly secular Jewish residents described multiple types of displacement, others, mainly religious, described the policy’s advantages. Accordingly, Arabs and Jews evoke different reactions. While resistance among Jewish residents is sporadic, disorganised and less acute, the resistance among Arab residents, is organised, overt and acute.

Physical direct and indirect displacement

The establishment of Ramat Elyashiv caused low rates of direct physical displacement of a few long-term residents, most of them Arabs. ³ These residents lived in the area illegally and were provided financial compensation to relocate to the nearby neighbourhoods.

Along with a low rate of direct displacement, residents described indirect displacement which manifested in several ways. First, the ILA published a tailor-made tender, selective for religious associations only (Israel Lands Authority, 2003). The religious-Jewish settlement association won the tender. Later the Kardan Real Estate Enterprise and Development company marketed the apartments to religious Jewish populations. Second, the apartments were deliberately placed at the buffer point between the northern Arab neighbourhoods and the southern Jewish neighbourhoods to halt the expansion of the Arab sector there (Reichner, 2013). Some community members categorised this as indirect displacement. Samer, a long-term Arab resident in the neighbourhood, explained:

If I or my son want to buy an apartment in this neighbourhood, they won’t let us. Why? Because I am Arab and this is a religious neighbourhood. And they have all kinds of ways to not let me live there. They check who comes to buy and if he fits their profile. This area, in the city centre, is dead space for me. (Samer, 2018, personal communication)

Compared to Arabs, Jewish residents expressed more ambivalence regarding the settlement policy. Tamar, a long-term secular Jewish resident, criticised establishment of a religious neighbourhood:

As a secular [Jew], I cannot live there and enjoy the redevelopment of my city. They themselves call their neighbourhood ‘the ghetto land’. You also can’t drive there on Shabbat [Judaism’s day of rest on Saturday]; they have certain rules there. This is an exclusive and closed neighbourhood. (Tamar, 2019, personal communication)

In contrast, some religious residents joined the new neighbourhood of Ramat Elyashiv, seeing it as an opportunity for mobility and economic gain. Avi, a long-term Jewish religious resident, explained:

Our city has been abandoned by the government. All the quality Jews escaped Lydda… We also deserve to live in a normal place. And for residents who did not have money, this new neighbourhood definitely gave us an opportunity to buy an apartment at a reasonable price and in a neighbourhood with a good population. (Avi, 2019, personal communication)

The direct physical displacement was motivated by ethnonationalism, and unique to gentrification in mixed cities. However, establishing the new neighbourhood resulted also in indirect displacement later. This indirect displacement is also based on class, like other gentrification policies worldwide. The construction of Ramat Elyashiv has led to a significant rise in its real estate value over the years, turning it into one of the most prestigious neighbourhoods both in Lydda and among the national-religious sector in Israel. While the settlement association purchased the land for 555 NIS (7 NIS or 2.10 USD per apartment ⁴ ) and reduced development fees, in 2009 the average price per square metre was 7030 NIS (about 800,000 NIS or 240,000 USD per apartment). A decade later in 2021, the price doubled to an average of 16,909 NIS per square metre (about 1.6 million NIS or 470,000 USD per apartment). Since its establishment, Ramat Elyashiv’s apartment prices have been higher than greater Lydda’s average apartment prices (data analysis from the Madeleine website: https://www.madlan.co.il).

Thus, the economic mobility opportunity described by Avi is realistic for a very narrow segment of the population, namely middle-class religious Jews. Lower-income residents, on the other hand, are indirectly displaced from the exclusive and gated neighbourhood.

Ethnonational displacement

Displacement from urban space has an ethno-national dimension that I defined as changing the space’s national character while (a) adding national symbols of the newcomers and (b) eliminating long-term residents’ national symbols, urban institutions, and public space (e.g. parading with flags, posting signs and national declarations regarding space, naming streets and institutes and establishing national and military institutions).

As part of the settlers’ efforts to strengthen Lydda’s Jewish character, they established a centre called Identity that teaches Judaism and Zionism in city schools.

They also established a Judaism centre for students and a tourism centre delivering excursions focused on Zionism and battle heritage, among other topics.

Settlers also established Maoz and Erez, pre-military religious academies for young men. In addition, they organised annual marches throughout the city on Jerusalem Day, an Israeli national holiday celebrating the victory of the Six-Day War of 1967. Finally, the settlement association encourages Jewish families to populate and Judaize Arab neighbourhoods as well as maintain a Jewish presence in public spaces (e.g. parks; see Arad, 2013).

Some Jewish residents, religious and secular, noted that the settlement association strengthened Lydda’s Jewish character, increasing Jewish residents’ sense of security during what they described as nationalist terrorism against them. Avi, explained:

Ramat Elyashiv neighbourhood was once the centre of drug trafficking and Arab crime. The Garin Torani [the settlement association] entrance and construction of the Ramat Elyashiv neighbourhood saved the city from total takeover by the Arabs… we are very lucky to have the Garin Torani who do everything to raise the level of security and education in the city… There are Jews in the streets. There is a holiday atmosphere on Jewish holidays…. The more Jewish families there are here, the more the place will take on a Jewish character and you will feel that you are definitely in the Land of Israel. (Avi, 2019, personal communication)

In contrast, Arab residents described a national displacement from Lydda following the entry of the settlement association. Maha al-Naqib, an Arab activist and long-term resident, said in an interview with Haaretz:

They [settlement association] came with a clear agenda to enter the Arab neighbourhoods and liberate the city centre from the Arab occupation…They started going out on their processions, just like the settlers in Tel Rumeida, with rifles and Israeli flags, singing ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ [The Jewish Nation Lives] and ‘Banu Dark Hosheh Legaresh’ [We Came to Drive Away the Darkness]. It is not innocent… it is a provocation. There were never processions in the city, the Jews would celebrate in the synagogues… They came up with an agenda, that they want to expel us and Judaise Lydda. (In Levy and Liebek, 2013)

State-led ethno-gentrification describes an urban settlement and redevelopment policy that is not only economic in its motives but is related to the nation-state project. Minority displacement in this case is not only related to the class marginalisation of the long-term minority’ residents, but also to their ethno-national identity. Accordingly, minority displacement is not only physical but also changes the ethnonational character of the space.

Religious displacement

Religious displacement can be defined as a change in a neighbourhood religious character while adding newcomers’ religious symbols, or eliminating religious symbols of the long-term residents, to favour alternative city/neighbourhood institutions and public activities (especially holiday processions, prayers and religious ceremonies in public space, Muslim calls to prayer, etc.). While some religious Jews positively received such religious additions, other residents, mostly secular Jews and Arabs, described them in terms of displacement. They perceived that with the arrival of the settlement association, more religiously strict content was introduced into education systems, mixed-gender religious schools were separated into boys’ and girls’ schools, and a Talmud Torah (religious school for boys) was opened as well as a branch of a religious youth movement. Rachel, a traditional ⁵ [Masorti] long-term resident, described these changes:

We waited a long time for them to come to the city. But after they arrived, we mostly find ourselves crossing to the other side of the street so as not to meet them… Before they arrived, there was one religious youth movement here. Now they set up another youth movement for more religious population and split the residents. They gender separated our mixed school. Because of this, some of the local families left for secular schools. Why touch things that have been working for many years? (Rachel, 2018, personal communication)

Residents also described changes in the religious character of synagogues following the settlement association’s entrance. Lisa, a long-term secular resident, explained:

The local religious community is less religiously strict than the one that came; the synagogues are Mizrahi and traditional… There is no elitism, the prayer is different. The synagogues of Garin Torani are more Ashkenazi. The local residents often feel uncomfortable there… Some residents felt their synagogues were being taken over by Garin Torani. Suddenly their prayer arrangements changed, so they threw them out and told them, ‘Not from your honey and not from your sting’. We don’t want Garin Torani here. (Lisa, 2019, personal communication)

In addition, she claimed that the establishment of religious institutions in secular neighbourhoods created tensions between the groups:

In the Neve-Nof neighbourhood, which is a secular neighbourhood of a middle-class educated population, they turn public buildings into a Ulpana [religious institute for girls] … and a complex of kindergartens for the religious population. Suddenly their neighbourhood became one big traffic jam, and it does not serve the local population but a religious population that comes from the outside… after all that, they also established a synagogue … and then the secular residents signed a petition against the synagogue.

Similarly, Arab residents described a religious displacement which they framed as an attempt to change the urban status quo and character. For example, they described a case of public pressure by settlement association members on the mayor to silence the muezzin [mosque official responsible for the daily prayer call] in the Dahmash mosque near Ramat Elyashiv on the Feast of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha) in 2017. As Ahmed, a city councilmember described:

At our holiday [the muezzin] speakers called for prayer. It disturbed someone from the Garin Torani who is also a council member, so he pressured the mayor, and then the mayor went there, thought he was a sheriff, and said, ‘stop praying’. Who are you to enter the mosque? … You will come here to violate my tradition? To silence the muezzin? It is an act that will not be tolerated, this is a red line. (Ahmed, 2018, personal communication)

Soha, a resident of the Ramat Eshkol neighbourhood, felt that her religious freedom and community tradition were violated following the neighbourhood demographic change:

We got used to the muezzin’s voice at four and seven in the morning, it’s not something particularly disturbing; we reached an agreement with them to lower the volume. In Lydda and especially in this neighbourhood, it’s something that is not acceptable to come and change it… but once they become a majority, they can force such changes; it will hurt the population… We want to respect each other’s customs and traditions. (Soha, 2018, personal communication)

Finally, residents mentioned that in 2017, Arab residents held the Eid al-Fitr prayer in the public space, in the market complex in the city, a prayer that provoked opposition among members of the settlement association. Following pressure from the settlement association, the local municipality considered restricting the celebrations. However, when Arabs offered counterpressure, the municipality withdrew and the celebrations took place as originally planned.

Political displacement

Political displacement is broadly defined as the loss of political power and voice among long-term residents due to neighbourhood change (Hyra, 2015).

In Lydda, both Jewish and Arab residents expressed hesitancy regarding the settlement association’s impact on local politics. On the one hand, they described that through the group’s political power, which results from their effective organisation and connections with politicians in the city government, the settlement association has fostered an improvement in municipality services provided to their Lydda neighbourhoods. As Hamid, a long-term Arab resident in Ramat Eshkol, noted:

The Garin Torani members are more familiar with how to contact the politicians and officials and ask for services, they are more aware of their rights, how to organise budgets, and so help improve the neighbourhood—and you can see today that this neighbourhood has changed. The municipality is more involved in infrastructure (Hamid, 2018, personal communication)

Although the settlement association’s political involvement in some cases has benefitted the whole neighbourhood, gentrification on the other hand indicates a moral predicament on the part of the government in improving public services only after the political pressure of a particular group (Slater, 2009).

Moreover, some Arab and Jewish residents described political displacement as a loss of power, and loss of long-term residents’ representatives in the local municipality and public institutions, resulting in less influence on municipal decisions and on how public resources are distributed. For example, in 2013 after the current mayor Yair Rabivo was elected with the support of the settlement association, he appointed two founders of the association as CEO of the municipality and as deputy and acting mayor. Long-term residents explained that the settlement association members were integrated into key positions in the local municipality and in public institutions, mainly in the areas of education, welfare, religion and culture. Some Jewish residents, such as Haim, described it in terms of a ‘takeover’:

One of the Garin Torani members told me that he came to the city for a job. He got a job at the municipality, without a tender, because he’s close to a politician. It is a complete takeover of the municipality… Where is the transparency? Where are the impartial appointments? … I blame the mayor for his weakness in the face of Garin Torani pressures. (Haim, 2019, personal communication)

Some residents feel the settlement association is influencing municipal decisions to allocate jobs and resources in a way that prioritises the settlement association members. As Lisa described:

I visited several kindergartens in Lydda, and they were really neglected… the parents claimed, ‘Go see what happens in the Garin Torani kindergartens’. A totally different world… The municipality wants to please these parents who are of course strong and have political influence, so there they invest. (Lisa, 2019, personal communication)

Political displacement was intensified in relation to Arab residents. After establishing the settlement association, the founders also formed a branch of ‘Jewish Home’, a right-wing religious Zionist political party. The party’s local platform states it is ‘the only party that will both strengthen the mayor and preserves the Jewish and Zionist character of the city… the only party that fought to prevent the appointment of a deputy mayor from the Arab sector’ (personal archive).

In several public forums, members of the settlement association and council members belonging to the association challenged the legitimacy of Arab council members, calling for their dismissal. In 2018, a council member from the settlement association wrote on the Facebook page of an Arab council member, ‘You and your friends do not really deserve to be partners in the leadership’, after the Arab council member called on Arab residents not to sell houses to members of the settlement association (Ben-Porat, 2018).

In 2021, following the violence in Lydda, the same council member from the settlement association posted on his Facebook page that the other Arab council member was sending her friends to riot in the city and that she should be arrested for incitement. He claimed ‘[Arab] council members are subordinate to the Islamic movement and [they] lack the ability to lead independently’. He also wrote that ‘proposals belonging to Israel’s enemies will not be put on the table of the Zionist Lydda City Council’. At a council meeting, he said,

Unfortunately, we have to sit in this hall together with some terrorist operatives [Arab council members], soldiers of the Islamic movement who work shoulder to shoulder with wretched rioters whose hands hold rocks, writings, and firearms…the leaders of the instigators…they have chosen a side; they are not on our side (Langfeld, 2021).

The political marginalisation of Arab residents is evidenced by their lack of representation in the municipality. While 31% of Lydda’s residents are Arabs, as of 2021, they comprise only 13.9% of all local municipality employees. Moreover, out of the 34 senior positions ⁶ in the municipality, only one Arab represents the Arab population (Lerer, 2021).

In their interviews, Arab residents explained how political marginalisation is affecting their access to local cultural and educational facilities. Much-cited examples include the Eshel Special Education Kindergarten and the Chicago Community Center in the Ramat Eshkol neighbourhood, which was transferred to the settlement association’s administration. After Arab residents conducted political activism for three years, the community centre was eventually opened to them too. Nadine, a resident in the neighbourhood who also works as a coordinator in the Chicago Community Centre, described the political struggle:

I was one of those who fought for opening the community centre for Arabs as well. We made an alternative community centre on the street, we addressed Members of the Knesset. And we succeeded. But when the community centre was opened to the Arabs, the first one they refused to hire there was me because I made a struggle. They barely got me the job eventually… So today in work meetings, I sit in front of the city general director who is also a member of the settlement association and I listen; I learned to hold back, being political… I give up my principles… [otherwise] the municipality will say I am not loyal to the system and will fire me. (Nadine, 2019, personal communication)

From her words, it is evident that political displacement is not only perceived as unequal allocation of urban buildings and services between newcomers and the long-term residents but also in repressing residents’ political voice.

Finally, Ahmed described the gaps in the distribution of resources between the Ramat Elyashiv neighbourhood and the Arab neighbourhoods.

This neighbourhood was established at our expense. While this neighbourhood is being established on zero-cost land, our neighbourhoods are neglected… Instead of investing, they bring in a ‘strong’ population, discriminating between citizens in the same city and deepening alienation. (Ahmed, 2018, personal communication)

From all these examples, we see that long-term populations feel politically displaced through decreased opportunities to organise, less representation, hindered access to desirable jobs and no help with poverty alleviation.

Cultural displacement

Cultural displacement can be defined as a change in the cultural character of an urban space by adding cultural symbols of newcomers or eliminating cultural symbols of long-term residents. These symbols are applied to urban institutions (mainly cultural institutions, events and activities) and to public spaces. In contrast to religious displacement, cultural displacement is more closely related to the education, norms, tasted, preferences, behaviours, economic status and ethnic origin of both displaced and gentrifying groups.

Some long-term residents commented on Lydda’s educated, young, middle-class newcomers, who enhanced cultural development in the city. As Avi, a long-term Jewish resident described:

We are happy they came to the city; they are educated, and more intelligent… they are raising the level of the city, initiating activities for children, and Shabbat meals for those who do not have food… They are promoting cultural events that the municipality has not been able to do for years. (Avi, 2019, personal communication)

Alongside their cultural contribution, Lisa indicated a cultural displacement of disadvantaged populations:

On the one hand, we are happy that a population came here that paints the city in more positive colours. They initiate and participate in cultural activities. We have a new cultural programme of the Ministry of Education in the library called ‘Playing City’ and a lot of children come, all of them Garin Torani… On the other hand, you do not see ludai [local] children at all… It is clear that the Ministry of Education created such a programme for underprivileged children, so there is some shortcoming here. (Lisa, 2019, personal communication)

In addition, residents described how the cultural activities in the settlement association centres are not always appropriate to the local culture, as Jonathan stated:

They sometimes initiate projects that are irrelevant to the locals. They grew up in a different environment, a different culture and mentality, and our head is different from theirs. For example, they bring Chassidic music. We hear oriental-Mizrahi music… Residents do not always come to the events they initiate in the city. (Jonathan, 2018, personal communication)

Moreover, Arab residents expressed ambivalence about settlement association’s cultural effect on Lydda, claiming they cared for the environment on the one hand and on the other restricted community and family events, such as Henna [a marital engagement ceremony], that were once celebrated in the street and public spaces. As Nadin, explained:

It’s true that they clean the buildings and care for this neighbourhood… but they are pushing us out… we used to celebrate our events under our houses in the street or in the parks outside the buildings. This is how we used to celebrate. Then the settlement association opposed it, even though they celebrate their own events in the streets, they dance, making riots and music and noise… I did not see them being arrested for that. But we are forbidden to do so. (Nadin, 2019, personal communication)

In Lydda, the norms, preferences and values of the settlers’ cohort dominate and prevail over those of long-term residents. However, in some cases there are points of common ground between old and new residents, leading to ambivalence among Lydda residents regarding the settlement policy.

Local resistance

While the dominant study of gentrification emphasises resistance to physical displacement (Elliott-Cooper et al., 2020; Newman and Wyly, 2006), in this research, the resistance of both Jewish and Arab residents was mainly expressed in relation to religious and ethnonational displacement.

In addition, in accordance with the displacement patterns experienced differently between Jews and Arabs, analysing resistance to Israel’s urban settlement policy reveals differences between Jewish and Arab residents in both intensity and expression. In contrast to Arabs, resistance among Jewish residents is sporadic, unorganised and less acute. Jewish residents tend to refrain from open opposition largely due to their perception that the settlement association strengthens the Jewish presence in Lydda, outweighing the organisation disadvantages. As Lisa described:

So eventually, how does the local community regard the Garin Torani? There is an ambivalent attitude…Honestly, when I look at everything, are they a blessing or a curse for the city? They are a blessing. Because if they did not come in here, it would have been a dead city, with all the bad processes that happened here… with this whole demographic issue between Jews and Arabs, it is also clear that if there was no Garin Torani here the situation would be different… we would lose the city. (Lisa, 2019, personal communication)

Consequently, while some residents support the settlement association, others criticise them, mostly in internal discourses between residents and various urban forums as an attempt to influence policymakers in their municipality.

A relatively exceptional case of resistance, however, was the protest staged by secular middle-class residents of the Neve-Nof neighbourhood in 2018, which included contacting the media and sending a letter to the mayor. The letter was signed by 80 residents of the neighbourhood requesting that he preserve the secular character of Neve-Nof and avoid promoting the settlement association’s religious institutions. As shown, the religious displacement experienced by secular residents following the establishment of religious institutions in their neighbourhood and changing its character provoked more public opposition than other patterns of displacement. I can suggest that this is because establishing religious institutions directly affected the neighbourhood in which they lived and changed its character, contrasting with other patterns of displacement that may be less tangible, more gradual and more indirect in the daily experience of residents.

In contrast to Jews, resistance among Arab residents is organised, overt and acute. The resistance patterns consist of legal and illegal actions, most of which are reactive, spontaneous and ad hoc. A dominant tool for expressing resistance over the years is protesting. For example, in 2004, Arab residents protested during the inauguration of the Ramat Elyashiv neighbourhood, and in 2012 they protested in front of the Chicago Community Centre in Ramat Eshkol to resist their exclusion from the centre.

It seems that religious and ethnonational displacement mostly provokes resistance from Arab residents compared to other patterns of displacement. This can be explained in several ways. First, it is possible that Arab residents recognise that the major driving force behind their multifaceted displacement is their ethnonational identity rather than their economic marginality, prompting them to rebel against it. In addition, the physical displacement that included evacuating only a few local families who were living there illegally may also have reduced the legitimacy of mobilisation for resistance against physical displacement. It is also possible that the ethnonational struggle, which is broader than the local struggle, can easily mobilise more uprisings of residents, organisations, media and Arabs outside the city; therefore, these resistance movements are intensified. We should also note that during the establishment of the neighbourhood (when physical displacement occurred), residents were not yet fully familiar with the settlement association and their activities; therefore, the intensity of the opposition may have been delayed. Finally, unlike other forms of displacement, religion is a central aspect of Arab society. As Ahmed described, insulting these residents’ religion was a red line. As a result, in many cases Arab protests in Lydda were framed in local discourse as a national struggle related to a broader state policy towards Arabs in Israel.

For example, in 2012 the Islamic Movement, together with other Arab organisations in Lydda, protest the settlement association in which hundreds of residents participated. During the demonstration, a resident said:

We are here to fight against attempts to establish fascist settlements in our city, through which they want to bring settlers who pose danger. They are doing everything to expel all the Arabs from Lydda… this policy will not deter us. We will continue to struggle and defend our lands without giving up. (Shaalan, 2012)

Similarly, in 2013, Arab residents and movements organised protests and carried Palestinian flags in response to a procession by the settlement association members. A year later, Arab educational institutions held a one-day strike in response to the transfer of a public kindergarten building in Ramat Eshkol to the settlement association. In this case and others, Arab residents petitioned the courts, citing racism and discrimination. Finally, Arabs held a protest at the Feast of Sacrifice in 2017 following the mayor’s demand to lower the muezzin’s voice. City Councilman Ahmed described:

The mayor entered our mosque… Luckily, he came when almost no one was there, otherwise he would have been murdered, and he is aware of that…Then the whole population, all the organisations, including all the mosques where we sit, made decisions that we close all the mosques. We all came to this mosque, we prayed in the middle of the street there… and we closed roads… The police district intervened, the general security agency intervened… On other issues like resources, we are restrained—but not on our religion. (Ahmed, 2018, personal communication)

The resistance of Arab residents is therefore occasionally expressed via violence and protests. These acts of opposition intensify in expression during times of war or military operations in Israel. For example, in 2008 during the Gaza War, also known as Operation Cast Lead, Arabs threw two pipe bombs at the Ramat Elyashiv neighbourhood (Reichner, 2013). In 2014, the tyres of 15 settlement association vehicles were punctured; in other incidents, car windows were smashed, and cars were stolen and burned near settlement association residences (Shor, 2014). Finally, in May 2021 following a national escalation in tension between Arabs and Jews, Arab residents in Lydda burned settlement association buildings, synagogues and vehicles. They also replaced the Israeli flag that hung in Lydda street with a Palestinian flag. The violence escalated and eventually led to the murders of a Jewish resident and an Arab resident.

While the violent protests are an expression of Arab resistance to marginalisation, they at the same time reinforce Jewish residents’ framing of Arabs as a threatening population. Thus, Arabs and Jews in Lydda experience a cycle of constant friction, displacement, inequality and violence.

Re-thinking displacement: Beyond the physical aspects

This study expands the literature on gentrification and specifically displacement by suggesting a typology of different types of displacement and how long-term residents experience and respond to them depending on their ethnonational and religious affiliations. Adopting the south-east perspective, the study shows how in the reality of a conflict between ethnonational majority and minority populations, physical displacement is neither the single nor the primary result of gentrification policy. Although economic marginalisation of the minority constitutes a basis for promoting displacement in Israel, as I have shown, displacement goes beyond class and the physical dimension.

The types of displacement are related to (a) the newcomers’ identities, (b) their religious and ethnonational motivations to increase Jewish religious presence and control in a mixed city and (c) the identities of long-term residents. The study described the following types of displacement in an Israeli mixed city: physical, ethnonational, political, cultural and religious. In doing so, the study urges scholars not to reduce the assessment of urban policies and gentrification to the common question of which and how many residents were pushed out of space but to identify additional manifestations of displacement.

Using the terminology and perspective of gentrification to demonstrate multifaceted displacement and reactions to it, this study contributes to the contested/divided cities literature by emphasising how Lydda’s gentrification policy mimics Israel’s ethnonationalist project, thus promoting a common intellectual framework to analyse Brenner’s (2018) concept of planetary urbanisation. Despite the specificity of this case study, my findings are relevant not only to mixed cities and the Global Southeast but also to the Global North. In other geographic contexts, different identities of residents may influence support or resistance of urban policies, presenting a more complex pattern of relationships and responses regarding state-led gentrification. Racial, ethnic and indigenous minorities all over the world may suffer not only physical displacement but also cultural, political, religious, etc., in addition to the loss of belongingness as an ethnic or racial group. These issues, prominent in the south-east, can illuminate and explain similar phenomena in other geographic contexts.

Such nuanced understanding helps explain seemingly paradoxical findings such as how state-led gentrification in a mixed city, due to the diverse manifestations of displacement, can recruit underprivileged residents from an ethnonational majority (Jews) to support gentrification, even though they are displaced in various forms, simultaneously provoking increased resistance among ethnonational minorities (Arabs).

In this case, some Jewish residents supported the policy and presented a kind of alliance with gentrifiers, since their agenda reinforced ethnonational values that are more important to the majority amid their spatial struggle with the minority group. Therefore, despite common class affiliations with Arab residents, displaced Jewish and Arab residents did not unite in opposition to the policy. In contrast, Arab residents generally experienced multiple displacements, not only physically, religiously, culturally and politically, but also ethnonational.

Alternatively, my findings illustrate why non-religious, middle-class Jewish residents who experience religiously motivated displacement (even if it is not physical, such as in the Neve-Nof case) do oppose the policy. Approaching displacement from a religious or ethnonational angle can help us understand opposition to gentrification among middle-class groups, some of whom even benefit from gentrification economically but may suffer other forms of displacement (for example culturally, see: Hom, 2022; Sandoval, 2021). Thus, while some Jewish residents, mostly religious ones, joined settlement association newcomers and were largely supportive of the urban changes, other residents, mostly Arabs, but also middle-class secular Jews, communicated ambivalence and opposition.

Understanding displacement’s manifestations beyond the physical element is critical because they have broad implications beyond the urban context in which displacement occurs. Political displacement, for example, can change not only the political balance of a neighbourhood but the electoral composition of the city or even region (Betancur, 2002). Similarly, ethnonational displacement may have far-reaching implications beyond the local context, affecting the ethnonational and political spatial struggle between the majority and minority.

Finally, as Tzfadia and Yiftachel (2021) noted, understanding the complexity of displacement is important since it will enable scholars to develop alternative or more holistic paths for promoting equal rights in urban space, ones that focus not only on class and physical justice but on religious, ethnonational and political empowerment.