ABSTRACT

The fall of the Berlin Wall purportedly marked the beginning of a new era of open geographical spaces and unparalleled physical and electronic mobility, replacing a world divided along ideological and political lines. Yet, such post-Cold War dreams went hand in hand with a proliferation of borders, boundaries and physical and virtual frontiers that divide people, cultures and territories. At the same time, such visions of an open borderless world were always nothing but a fata morgana in the deserts of the Negev and the Sahara, as in conflict-ridden areas, such as in Israel/Palestine, establishing firm boundaries so as to delineate territory and attempt to differentiate between diverse social groups remained a desired form of social organization. This chapter relies on an array of qualitative data, including in-depth interviews that were conducted between 2010–2012, as well as library and archival research so as to trace some of the characteristics of the making of some of Israel’s boundaries from the colonial period until today. The focus is on the border delineation with Jordan and its impact on the territorial status of the West Bank, revealing how top-down colonial demarcations impact binational or unilateral boundary demarcation processes to the present and can affect people and lands in often adverse ways. Moreover, it reveals how borders are co-produced by science and technology, but also by environment, politics and diplomacy, embodying the tangible and the abstract, the physical and the visual. Thus, the definition of where political borders might lie may be perceived as a technical problem by surveyors, but it is also crucially a social accomplishment; and it is the socio-technical construction of borders which make them multi-faceted, malleable and subject to interpretation. Yet, once delineated, such borders can have a long-term impact on the physical landscape, economic realities, as well as social imaginaries.