Dispossession and Resistance in the Living City of Acre
Akka (Arabic) / Akko (Hebrew) / Acre’s (English) Old City is a living Palestinian city. The city became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2001, one of the objectives of which is the strengthening of “the role of communities in the implementation of the World Heritage Convention.” However, its Palestinian people, survivors of the 1948 Nakba, continue to be plagued by dispossession.[1] How can a city claim preservationist policies while attempting to remove its own inhabitants? What vision for the city do such policies suggest? How do Palestinians assert themselves in Acre? Tension is felt in the streets and alleyways of the Old City of Acre where residents are wary of outsiders who often come to purchase land from Palestinians and turn dilapidated structures into luxury property for Israelis and tourists. The following images from August 2021 trace the many walks I took through Acre’s Old City in an attempt to understand how Israeli policies and Palestinian life manifest themselves on the ground. The story of Acre’s Palestinians, and their past and present dispossession, is in many ways familiar to me. In the 1948 war, my family members sought refuge in Nazareth and their lands and homes in Tiberias and Sajra were subsequently confiscated by the Israeli state. My grandmother regularly recounts stories from her childhood before her dispossession. She often visited Acre and stayed with her family members there.
Fig. 1. Palestinian youth watching the sunset from the Acre Old City ramparts, one of the few open public spaces they have access to, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
The coastal Mediterranean city’s population of roughly 49,000 is two-thirds Jewish Israeli and one-third Palestinian—the latter population largely concentrated in the Old City. Unlike other Palestinian towns that were depopulated or destroyed in the 1948 Nakba, part of Acre’s population was able to remain in situ and, as such, the city continues to be inhabited by its Palestinian population, now citizens of Israel. This can be seen in Acre's street life, vernacular architecture, and religious monuments.
Prior to 1948, the houses in the Old City of Acre were owned by Palestinians. But the Israeli “Absentee Law” of 1950 designated the property of Palestinians who were not present on their land at the time of the establishment of the Israeli state as “absentee property.” This was a de facto transfer of property from private Palestinian ownership to Israeli state ownership. The state formed a separate agency, Amidar, in charge of the properties taken from Palestinians, now absentee properties. The Absentee Law applied to Palestinians who were expelled from their towns and villages and rendered refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and other countries. It also applied to Palestinians who remained in Israel but who sought refuge outside their hometowns during the violence of 1948. This meant that a resident of Acre displaced during the war, was able to return to their home only as a tenant of the state. This condition of renting one’s own property applied to all Palestinians in Acre and transformed their relationship to the city into one of precarity.
Acre today struggles with policies of de-development, gentrification grounded in exclusionary ethno-religious visions, and a national and local government apparatus repeatedly accused of bias and racism. Many residents live in crumbling homes, and when/if upon inspection by Israeli authorities, the homes are deemed unfit, the residents are given eviction orders. In fact, the problem lies in the very nature of Amidar. Amidar regularly denies requests for renovation and when it approves them, it often demands that the residents do so themselves at costs they can rarely afford. Once a property has been emptied of its Palestinian residents, Amidar can transfer it to the state which can sell it to private developers not dictated by the Amidar apparatus. Residents view this as deliberate discrimination, and are often stuck in lengthy legal battles with the agency.
In August of 2021, Acre’s municipality installed fences on the public beaches to bar Palestinians from using them. The mayor Shimon Lankri claimed that it was doing so as a COVID measure claiming, a week earlier, that Palestinians are a “serious health problem” since most of them were not vaccinated. He conveniently omitted the fact that in Israel/Palestine broadly, and the West Bank particularly, existing segregationist policies and structural inequality, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in what has been dubbed a “vaccine apartheid:” where Jewish-Israeli towns have full access to the COVID-19 vaccine while, a stone’s throw away, Palestinian communities are left largely unvaccinated. Following Lankri’s statements, Adalah, the legal center for Arab Minority Rights, complained to the Acre municipality about these “illegal, racist measures” and wrote a letter to the Attorney General to intervene. The complaint was accompanied by video footage showing a municipal inspector barring a minibus of Palestinians from reaching the beach. The fences were removed on August 10th.
Fig. 2. Acre's skyline exhibits numerous minarets and church towers atop an otherwise consistent and dense urban fabric, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
Acre’s Old City streets form a quintessentially traditional Palestinian built environment. Vegetable markets, butchers, phone shops, restaurants, knafe makers, arguileh cafes, and tourist shops inhabit a contiguous stone medley of Ottoman, Mamluk, and Crusader architecture. From above, the built fabric is only pierced by mosque minarets, church towers, and an Ottoman clock tower.
“Acre today struggles with policies of de-development, gentrification grounded in exclusionary ethno-religious visions, and a national and local government apparatus repeatedly accused of bias and racism.”
Fig. 3. A Palestinian residential building in Acre's Old City shows crumbling stucco facades, ad hoc electrical work, and an added makeshift room atop the roof, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
Compared to the rest of the city, this historic core is visibly more impoverished, with many buildings in disrepair. Although the houses of the Old City of Acre were owned by Palestinians prior to 1948, the state has seized them under the Absentee Law and now rents them to Palestinian families through Amidar. Palestinians are considered “protected renters,” meaning they were either on the property prior to 1948, or paid a “key fee” to acquire this status. This allows them to rent their apartment for one generation; but the Development Authority policy prevents the next generation from remaining on the property, forcing them to return it to the state. The tenants are also required by law to maintain and repair their rented apartments, which they often cannot afford to do. Some tenants have taken the Development Authority to court, but many were ultimately forced to vacate their properties once their protected renter status expired.
Fig. 4. Palestinian homes in Acre often exhibit a patchwork of maintenance and renovation done by residents as the Israeli authorities neglect the community's old buildings, despite them being part of a UNESCO world heritage, Photograph by author, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
The Old Acre Development Company—a government company under the Israeli Ministry of Tourism—is another prime agent of this erasure. Their website boasts the Old City as a place for “high quality, popular tourism,” yet they fail to mention the very inhabitants who own the built fabric. The lower socio-economic classes of Acre are described as a “weaker population” to be dealt with and transformed “into an economically sound population” through development plans. Acre’s residents, however, see themselves as the native owners of their city and associate a sense of pride with their old homes, which they often care for in an ad-hoc fashion, as we see in this photograph.
Fig. 5. Entrance to a Palestinian home with a "NOT FOR SALE" sign above the door. Such signs can be found around Acre's Old City and are meant for Israeli and International buyers who attempt to buy houses from Palestinians, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
Fig. 6. One of the many "NOT FOR SALE" signs hung on Palestinian homes, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
Around 2011, the Acre municipality began to release certain residential and commercial buildings for sale. Some “protected tenants,” who had the means, took the opportunity to re-purchase the buildings they once owned and had been forced to lease from the state. But the vast majority of Palestinians could not afford to do so, remaining “guests” in their own city. While many houses were being purchased by Israeli developers, residents began to place banners that said “NOT FOR SALE” on their homes in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.
Fig. 7. The entrance to the Khan el Umdan, once a public space, is now barred off as it is in the process of being converted into a luxury hotel, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
Fig. 8. View of the Khan el Umdan courtyard from the barred off entrance, while it is being converted into a luxury hotel, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
It is not only residential buildings that are under threat of dispossession. Khan el Umdan, the Caravanserai of Pillars, one of Acre’s four Khans, built in the 1700s, is a significant historic building at the heart of the Old City.[2] In 2008 and again in 2013, the building was auctioned off by the Israeli Lands Authority, despite the fact that the property belongs to an Islamic endowment, which had intended for the Khan to be a public space for the community. The community demonstrated against the sale, and legal action was taken by the Committee for the Islamic Endowment, to no avail. Khan el Umdan’s court is now sealed off and unlikely to open again as has now become a restricted space, accessible only to hotel guests.
Fig. 9. View of the often empty Courtyard at the Crusader Citadel in Acre. The Citadel, despite it holding one of the few open spaces in the city, is ticketed and as such most of Acre's residents do not spend time there, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
The Crusader citadel in Acre is today under the patronage of the Israel Ministry of Tourism and Israel Antiquities Authority. The citadel’s courtyard, void of any street life, Arabic signage, or people, perhaps testifies to what an Acre preserved without its people might look like. On its website, the Old Acre Development Company lists “England, Germany, France, Italy and Spain” as examples of places that “share a vital historical connection to Acre, which should be utilized to attract tourists from these countries and hold events echoing the heritage of these countries.” As opposed to the mosque, the khans and overcrowded alleyways of Acre with their quintessentially Ottoman architecture, the Crusader citadel’s empty spaces and the European connection is unironically the ideal home for the Development Company and the Israeli Ministry of Tourism’s selective vision for Acre.
Fig. 10. Youth planning to dive into the sea from the Acre Old City ramparts, despite it being a prohibited activity by the Israeli authorities, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
While sites such as the Khan el Umdan and the Crusader citadel are open to ticket holders only and are largely empty, Palestinian youth in Acre have no access to public space, cultural institutions, or sports amenities. A popular pastime for many is to dive off the Old City walls into the sea. The “sport” has become almost a rite of passage for Acre’s young men.
“In the Palestinian collective psyche, Acre is the last living Palestinian city on the Mediterranean Sea (outside the Gaza Strip); since cities such as Haifa, Yafa, ‘Asqalan, and Asdud were either destroyed, partially-demolished or depopulated in 1948. ”
Fig. 11. A Palestinian couple on a date atop the Acre Old City ramparts, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
Acre’s waterfront is one of the few sites of leisure for families and youth, the place where people escape the overcrowded and crumbling urban fabric of the city. One often sees couples on dates, individuals walking or simply sitting on the Old City walls to take in the view. In the Palestinian collective psyche, Acre is the last living Palestinian city on the Mediterranean Coast (outside the Gaza Strip); since cities such as Haifa, Yafa, ‘Asqalan, and Asdud were either destroyed, partially-demolished, or depopulated in 1948. For Palestinians, such cities are experienced as ruins of the Nakba, even if material traces of the destruction have been long buried and replaced by Israeli buildings.
Fig. 12. An "Unauthorized Swimming Zone" sign near the Acre bay beach. Instead of investing in lifeguards and allowing for safe swimming, the Israeli authorities in Acre opt to render swimming illegal in predominantly Palestinian areas, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
Fig. 13. The Acre bay beach, with some defiant swimmers, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
Acre’s beaches, outside the Old City walls, are also used for collective leisure such as swimming and sailing, but even there the politics of dispossession continue. The closest beach just south of the Old City’s ramparts is closed for swimming, but residents defiantly use it. When the mayor Shimon Lankri ordered the installation of fences on public beaches, Acre’s Palestinians saw the move as a deliberate attack on their right to the sea. Adalah, the legal center for Arab Minority Rights, complained by reminding the municipality that its measures were “being illegally taken without authority,” meaning the measures were illegal since in Israel, access to the sea is public and doesn’t belong to the jurisdiction of local authorities. Adalah saw this move as part of a growing trend of “local apartheid initiatives that express a goal of achieving racial segregation.”
Fig. 14. Entrance to the Jazzar Mosque with a sabil to its right, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
Acre’s mosques and churches remain somewhat uncontested Palestinian space, the largest of which is Al Jazzar Mosque. The mosque was built in 1781 by the notorious Ottoman governor Ahmad Pasha Al Jazzar, who’s name “Jazzar” means “butcher” in Arabic. Also known as the White Mosque, it remains Acre’s most impressive Ottoman landmark. There are popular claims that Ahmad Pasha Al Jazzar, known for defeating Napoleon during the 1799 siege of Acre, designed the mosque himself. A beautifully detailed late-Ottoman sabil stands to the right of the otherwise easy to miss main entrance shown here.[3]
Fig. 15. View of the lush grounds of the Jazzar Mosque compound, a veritable protected public space in the heart of Acre, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh.
Through the modest gate you are greeted by the mosque guards who ask you if you need a tour of the grounds. Al Jazzar Mosque’s compound holds one of Acre’s only accessible green spaces. The garden is typically full of children playing and families sitting under the blooming plumerias, or fitneh trees (فِتْنَة) in Arabic. The gardens provide a welcome escape from the tension visible in the streets and on the residential and commercial buildings of Acre.
Fig. 16. General View of the Jazzar Mosque, also known as the White Mosque of Acre, 2021. Photography by Mahdi Sabbagh
The mosque compound functions as Acre’s Muslim Palestinian population’s collective establishment, a space of coming together and safe repose. This becomes critical because Acre lacks recreational spaces, especially for its youth. Urban life, social bonds, and the politics of care, found in the compound of the Al Jazzar Mosque perhaps best exemplify what occurs when the local community is allowed to be the custodian of its own built heritage. One wonders what Acre might look like if its community was, instead of branded as a “weaker population,” celebrated, protected, and encouraged to use and care for all its historic landmarks.
Notes
[1] The Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” signifies the beginning of the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israeli paramilitary forces in 1948. The Nakba of 1948 resulted in the depopulation and destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages as well as the destruction of major Palestinian cities such as Yafa, Haifa, Beesan, and Safad, to name a few. Many consider the Nakba an ongoing process that continues to this day.
[2] A Khan or Caravanserai, is an inn serving merchants and traders typically built along major trade routes. A Khan is often organized around a courtyard.
[3] In Ottoman architecture, a sabil is a public fountain typically built in central locations or near a holy site or landmark. Sabils in cities like Jerusalem were numerous and constituted a veritable public network providing drinking and cleaning water to all residents.
Citation
Sabbagh, Mahdi. “Dispossession in the Living City of Acre.” PLATFORM, May 2, 2022.
