Hating it Lush: On Tel Aviv by Kaleem Hawa

In Theodor Herzl’s 1902 novel ALTNEULAND [Old-New Land] the Viennese protagonists observe the transformation of Palestine from its ‘backward’ and desolate Arab roots into a thriving utopian society.¹ A new state is there in its place; it carries no arms, is democratic and supposedly multi-ethnic. It includes the lands of southern Lebanon and southwestern Syria, its industrial and political capital is Haifa, not Tel Aviv, whose founding the novel precedes. In practice, the Zionist entity² of today was built on Palestinian genocide, and persists as a limping apartheid settler colony. Long before Herzl, Zionist works had adopted the narrative trappings of the frontier story – the stillness of the land, the menacing enemy, and thus, the pioneer hero. For the young city of Tel Aviv, this was Meir Dizengoff, its first leader. After purchasing 12.8 hectares north of Jaffa, the founding members of the Ahuzat Bayit ‘neighborhood association’ distributed the land across 60 lots that would become the outline of the planned city, whose name – which roughly translates to ‘hill of spring’ – brought them full circle, lifting the words from the Hebrew translation of ALTNEULAND.