Tabula Gaza

As is well-known, Benjamin Netanyahu studied architecture in his youth, a profession tasked with making the world a better place to live. Yet as the prime minister of Israel, he is responsible for the genocide of Palestinians and the urbicide of Gaza. He ordered the destruction of schools, hospitals, residential buildings, infrastructure, farmland… all in the name of eradicating a terrorist organization that gruesomely attacked Israel a year ago, kidnapping 240 and killing over 1200. The Israeli military in turn has destroyed 75% of all buildings in Gaza, killing more than 40,000 Palestinians (not counting the many tens of thousands more who died trapped under all the rubble), two thirds of whom are children. That’s at least 33 Palestinians killed for every dead Israeli. Hey, proportions are important in architecture.

Netanhayu completed his four-year MIT architecture program in only two and a half years, all while also studying business management, so that he could return to his military duties back home. To be able to finish an architecture degree in so little time, I can only guess that Netanhayu must have been one of those students who never gave a second thought to his design projects; who obviously never struggled with self-doubt or suffered from internal pressure to –pardon the expression– break new ground.

This is what Netanyahu himself says about his studies: “Architecture made me confident, disciplined and courageous. It’s [sic] pedagogy has inherent qualities of developing leadership skills and that has helped me to become what I am today” (source). Very revealing words in which he speaks only about himself, and makes no mention of architecture as a social art, or service. As in: for people. In any case, he certainly went far, becoming the prime minister of a wealthy and powerful state. But a state whose population is more divided than ever, and whose rogue politics is dividing populations elsewhere. I imagine he must have more important things to think about today than architecture, like waging war just to remain in power, how to help Trump get elected, or how to avoid getting arrested for alleged corruption and war crimes.

But then again: once an architect, always an architect. Look at Netanyahu’s urban vision for Gaza published in The Architect’s Newspaper. Titled “Gaza 2035,” it is a plan for its reconstruction as a free-trade zone controlled by Israel. It features typical glass-clad office and residential towers that could be anywhere, greenhouses, desalination plants, and high-speed rail link to Neom, of course. Mentions have been made before of what the reconstruction of Gaza might entail, but this vision comes straight from architect Benjamin Netanyahu himself. 

What is most telling about the visualizations of Gaza 2035 is the complete absence of any historical buildings whatsoever. It is a completely new city, designed and built on a tabula rasa. Tabula Gaza has nothing to do with where it is, or the displaced people whose land it’s occupying. It is colonialism at its worst. Seems Netanyahu never read Jane Jacobs or Henri Lefebvre while he was in architecture school, and he must surely have skipped Architectural Ethics 101.

It is clear, then, that the creation of Tabula Gaza for the benefit of the global business elite is another Staatsräson for so much suffering and bloodshed. Perhaps this explains why so many US and European architects, businesspeople, and politicians remain shamefully silent while genocide is being committed: they must expect lucrative contracts to eventually come their way.