Social Scape

SOCIAL SCAPE

There is a social framework in Jerusalem that requires a balance between both its Jewish and Arab residences. This emphasizes a dependence on one another to maintain a functional community and requires a need to establish a means of coexistence. This scape demonstrates this idea visually using a series of lines or paths following the amount of labour, where and by whom. Facts and percentages will also be given to support this argument.
Throughout Jerusalem’s history, ever since Israel’s independence in 1948, there has been an inflation of Jewish communities and a repositioning of Arab communities creating what is generally known today as East and West Jerusalem within the municipality boarder of Jerusalem. This has had an effect on labour percentages, creating a trend within employment by sector, the ethnic background of the employees, and where the employees live within greater Jerusalem. This in itself adds a level of tension between the residences and a need to communicate in a system of dependence.
Although the majority of the population in West Jerusalem is Jewish (%), a 1994 study demonstrates that “an estimated 12,000 Arabs were employed by Jews in the Jewish part of the city, making up some 40 percent of the Arab workforce in Jerusalem” (Klein, pg. 22). This is a large percentage of employees required to transport into the area, principally from areas either in East Jerusalem of from the West Bank. “According to figures the mid 1980’s, when employment of Arabs was at it’s highest, the Bethlehem and Ramallah districts supplied most of the day labourers to Jerusalem” (Klein, pg. 22). This issue was enforced during the lengthy closure imposed on the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1993. The closure lines were almost identical to Jerusalem’s municipality boundary. “Close to 90 percent of the employees of large East Jerusalem workplaces, such as the Arab electric company, the Al-Magased Hospital, and the Waqf offices are Palestinians who live outside the city. These institutions could not function properly because of the inability of employees to get to work regualarily.” (Klein, pg. 36)

“The fact that Jerusalem is an open city has an effect on the incomes of the Arabs who live there. Tourists can move freely from one side of the city to the other, creating mutual, though asymmetric, dependence between Jewish and Arab service providers in this field. The strong Israeli sector needs Arab manual labourers, and the Arabs are dependant on incomes from workplaces in Jewish Jerusalem.”(Klein, pg. 24)

According to data taken from the Jerusalem Institute of Israeli Studies (1996; Kimhi, 1997; Dumper, 1997: 214-16), Arabs employed in east Jerusalem work a significantly higher percentage of industry, construction, and commerce jobs than Jewish people employed in West Jerusalem.