ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the discursive relationships between notions of belonging, sense of place and spatial planning in Israel. It analyses a specific case study, the conflict between Muslim organisations and communities and the local Jewish council of Nesher around the preservation of an old Muslim graveyard in which one of the Arab leaders Iz A-din el Kassam is buried. A point of clarification must be made here as to the connection between memory, belonging and spatial planning. A sense of belonging and attachment to a place is perhaps mainly associated in the literature with notions of blood, nations, sense of nationalism and identity: 'the geographies of belonging'. The chapter presents a dilemma emerging from the relationship examined between notions of memory, belonging and politics of planning in Israel both at the local and national scales. Planning is usually very political especially in disputed places such as Israel.
