Jerusalem Under the Microscope: A Battle of Consciousness Without a Reference "Between Oslo and the October 2023 Aggression"... Policies Shape the Confrontation of Culture and Identity

Since the Oslo Accords of 1993, Jerusalem has been at the forefront of the most complex confrontation in the Palestinian-Israeli context. Israel seeks to impose unilateral sovereignty over the city through an integrated system of cultural, educational, and security policies, while Palestinians confront this project through popular and community initiatives that lack any formal framework.

A comparison of the two sides' policies reveals a clear structural gap. Israel is pursuing a long-term strategy, while the Palestinian approach remains hostage to fragmented reactions. Yet, Jerusalem continues to produce living cultural resistance tools that keep the confrontation open.

This article offers a comparative analytical reading of the course of this confrontation, tracing Israeli policies and manifestations of Palestinian cultural resistance from Oslo to the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza (October 2023), to understand how culture has become a central tool in the battle for sovereignty over the city, and how policies are being used to reshape reality and impose or resist narratives.

- Israeli Hegemony: How is Israel Reshaping Jerusalem?

Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, Israel has been keen to impose its full sovereignty over both East and West Jerusalem, taking advantage of the postponement of resolving the city's issue until what became known as the "final status" negotiations. Since then, it has worked to establish a new reality on the ground through a systematic plan to reshape the city demographically, culturally, and symbolically, relying on interconnected political, security, and educational tools. The most prominent of these tools are:

* Israelization of education: by gradually imposing the Israeli curriculum in East Jerusalem schools, in an attempt to reshape the consciousness of Palestinian generations in line with the Zionist narrative, and to obscure the national memory and narrative of the Nakba.

* Intensive settlement: encircling Palestinian neighborhoods with settlements and security infrastructure, to impose demographic facts that disrupt the population balance.

* Confiscation of public space: by transforming names, landmarks, and events into Israeli symbols that obliterate the city’s Arab, Islamic, and Christian identity.

* Closing down symbolic institutions: as in the case of Orient House in 2001, to undermine any symbolic Palestinian representation within the city.

* Controlling international funding: through strict regulatory laws that restrict support for Palestinian cultural institutions and undermine their sustainability.

These policies culminated in what is known as the Israeli Five-Year Plan, with its two phases (2018–2023) and (2024–2028), which was marketed as a development initiative to improve the lives of Palestinians in Jerusalem, while in reality it aims to forcibly integrate them into the Israeli administrative and cultural system, through conditional funding and bureaucratic controls that hinder the independence of local initiatives.

In this way, development becomes a tool of soft hegemony, reproducing control not only through repression, but also through the "soft manipulation" of societal structures. This approach aligns neatly with the concept of cultural hegemony as formulated by Antonio Gramsci, where culture is used to establish control rather than express oneself.

- The Jerusalemite Resistance: Cultural Initiatives Confronting the Occupation

In contrast to the organized Israeli project, the Palestinian approach in Jerusalem stands out as a community effort fragmented by challenges and united by will, but lacking central planning and sustained institutional support. Following the exclusion of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority from Jerusalem's landscape under the terms of the Oslo Accords and escalating Israeli restrictions, civil and popular initiatives have become the first line of defense, even if they remain outside an organized institutional framework.

Despite limited resources and the ferocity of the Israeli attack, Jerusalem succeeded in producing a series of cultural and community initiatives that formed the nucleus of ongoing resistance, the most prominent of which are:

* Civil cultural institutions that have activated the public space as a platform for the Palestinian narrative.

* Alternative educational programs, which aimed to strengthen the awareness of generations outside the controlled Israeli curriculum.

* Digital documentation projects, such as Every Paper Has a Story, have chronicled collective memory and narrated history from a Jerusalemite perspective.

* Symbolic events, such as declaring Jerusalem the Capital of Arab Culture (2009) and the Capital of Islamic Culture (2019), despite repeated attempts at suppression and prevention.

* Field cultural initiatives such as the longest reading series around the Jerusalem Wall (2014), the Street Museum, and the Rooftop Initiative that transformed silent rooftops into vibrant canvases of resistance.

However, these efforts, despite their high symbolism, have encountered structural obstacles, most notably the lack of coordination, the multiplicity of authorities, and the weakness of the popular and official incubator, which has diminished their ability to form a unified cultural front in the face of the occupation's policies. Nevertheless, the Jerusalemite community has proven itself a vital actor in the cultural resistance scene, through its continued production of symbolic and cognitive tools that renew identity and confront attempts at erasure. However, this energy is in dire need of a political and institutional framework that transforms it from a spontaneous act into a strategic cultural project capable of sustainability and impact.

- Defining Moments: When the Street Leads the Confrontation

Over the past decade, Jerusalem has been a true testing ground for the effectiveness of Israeli policies and Palestinian resistance. The Jerusalemite street has emerged as a key player, contrasted with the near-total absence of official political leadership. A series of major events have demonstrated how popular initiative can assert itself despite the imbalance of power. In 2014, the burning of the child Mohammed Abu Khdeir sparked a spontaneous popular uprising across the city, without effective political cover. The 2017 electronic gate uprising represented a successful model of organized peaceful resistance, as the mass sit-in forced the occupation authorities to reverse their measures at Al-Aqsa Mosque. During the Sheikh Jarrah events of 2021, Jerusalem became the center of Palestinian action, and the popular movement succeeded in attracting broad international solidarity, despite the slow official response. The Israeli aggression on Gaza in October 2023 was accompanied by an unprecedented escalation of repression in Jerusalem, targeting youth organizations and cultural initiatives under the pretext of "incitement," as part of a systematic attempt to dry up the sources of resistance awareness.

These events demonstrate that the Jerusalemite community has become the most important actor in the confrontation equation, through flexible, creative forms of peaceful resistance, connected to the daily context. However, this resistance remains threatened with erosion unless it receives an official framework and support that enhances its continuity and gives it a strategic dimension that transcends the moment of explosion.

What to do? From reactions to a clear cultural plan

The experience of cultural confrontation in Jerusalem reveals a dysfunctional equation: an organized Israeli project proceeding according to a long-term plan, contrasted by a Palestinian effort dominated by spontaneous reactions and weak institutional coordination. In light of mounting challenges, continuing this pattern appears politically and culturally costly.

The reality in Jerusalem today requires a radical shift in thinking and action, based on moving beyond improvisation and isolated initiatives, toward building a unified Palestinian vision that establishes a sovereign cultural project capable of confronting the project of Israeli hegemony. This begins with unifying references, activating institutions, and restoring Jerusalem's prestige as a center of national struggle, rather than a marginalized area.

Digital space has also become a central arena for confrontation, where the battle for narrative is no less important than the battle for land. Investing in influential and targeted Palestinian digital cultural content constitutes one of the most important tools for influencing global public opinion. In the same context, international cultural partnerships can be employed with political awareness, without falling into the trap of normalization or gray rhetoric. International institutions, once contained within a national vision, may transform into a soft ally that enhances the Palestinian cultural presence and exposes the policies of erasure. Therefore, reviving symbolic collective events should not be viewed as mere occasions, but rather as tools for injecting national awareness, renewing the collective meaning of peaceful cultural resistance, and consolidating the presence of Jerusalem as a cause that does not die, but rather is renewed in memory and on the street.

- Jerusalem Today: An Endless Battle of Narrative and Identity

The confrontation in Jerusalem is not limited to geography or the balance of power, but is deeply rooted in identity and consciousness. Experience has proven that the occupation is not content with controlling the land, but rather seeks to reshape memory and harness culture to serve its narrative. Despite the institutional absence and political fragmentation, the Jerusalemite community has continued to produce its own narrative through cultural initiatives, digital memory, and artistic expressions that keep the city present in consciousness and on the street.

This reality today imposes the need for something beyond symbolic steadfastness; for a frameworked national cultural project that transforms scattered efforts into a cohesive strategic force, capable of confronting soft Judaization and redefining the relationship with the city as a center of sovereignty, not merely an arena for confrontation. Jerusalem is not just a postponed political issue, but an identity whose battle is being fought in every image, every story, and every wall that refuses silence. It is a city that is writing its narrative anew, day after day, and confirms that the battle for consciousness is still open... and will not be easily resolved.