Re-imagining the "White City".

The political use of urban planning in the Middle East is the focus of Samer Bagaeen's paper (in this issue) and of earlier work by Safier and Bollens (both in Vol. 5, No. 2, 2001). This paper looks at the politics of UNESCO's recognition of the "White City" in Tel Aviv as a World Heritage Site. LeVine offers a critique of the heritage designation which excludes "Jaffa from the narrative of the region's modern architecture and planning" and argues that UNESCO's award--in its motivation and geographical designation--reinforces the myth that Tel Aviv emerged as a city independently from its Palestinian Arab environment. "The fact is that Palestinian Arabs helped build the town from the start, and continued to work, shop, play and in some cases live there right up to 1948." LeVine concludes with a plea "to acknowledge the crucial roles played by both Jaffa and Tel Aviv, and their conflicted yet vital relationship, on the development of the two national movements still struggling to find a home in their ancestral land". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]