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Chapter 6 The North The previous part was devoted to the double core of Israel, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This part will focus on the other side of the Israeli geographical coin, settlement frontiers and peripheries. Although necessarily discussing earlier cores and core margins, this part will focus on the major "objective regions" of the Zionist enterprise. Some of these regions constitute past ideological cores, so that they served as creators of modes of life, settlement forms, and settlement decisions. Overall, however, this part is concerned with the actual geographical-regional setting of these settlement projects, with settlement frontiers eventually turning into national peripheries. The several regions have reflected, in one way or another, Zionist objectives and their priorities; furthermore, they contributed to the evolution of Zionist myths and cultural values, which had specific regional roots and connotations. The cores played a crucial role in the development of frontiers, in the evolution of frontier values, and in the eventual turning of frontiers into peripheries. All these aspects were dependent on a mutuality between the "objective regions" and the cores. This relationship was expressed not only in resource allocation and movement, controlled from the cores, but also in the creation and molding of social values. Hence, the conclusion of this part permits the presentation of a joint perspective for both cores and frontiers-peripheries. We will begin with several general elaborations of the nature of frontiers and peripheries in general and on those in Israel in particular . These will be followed by an analysis of four specific regions: the valleys, the Galilee, Haifa, and the Negev. The part will conclude with a series of expositions on the territorial and cultural processes involved in the creation of cores, settlement frontiers , and peripheries in Israel. The major "objective regions" of the Zionist project in this account will not include Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, which were discussed in Part 1, because they served, at least from the mid-1970s, as a settlement ideal in itself. The development of the Negev desert in the 1950s had a similar character, but not to such a degree as the occupied territories and for several reasons. The Negev formed an integral part of the State of Israel when the major efforts for its set191 192 SOCIETY AND SETTLEMENT tlement were made, whereas the occupied territories have presented a special challenge, not least with their being under military control. The Negev project, furthermore, was backed by consensus; the West Bank project, in contrast, has divided the Israeli political spectrum more than any other settlement ideal or project. The West Bank project has a very strong historical connotation, raising basic questions of the degree of geographical and spiritual-cultural continuity to previous Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. The Negev, on the other hand, was supposed to become a leading region for the new modes of life developed in pioneering Palestine, in both its rural and urban settlements. This and the following chapter will complete the cycle of the three dualities proposed in Chapter 1. The duality between structure and human agency is introduced here once again. Part 1 focused more on the structural-social dimension, here the spatial domain is revealed. The strong, two-way bond between the "objective regions" and the cores will display another aspect of the role of human agency. By the same token, this part provides an additional exposition of the spatial dimension of the duality between society and space, following the earlier more ideological focus in Part 1 and the geographical presentation of the cores in Part 2. The third duality-between ideology and vision, on the one hand, and realities , on the other-will accompany the analysis throughout this part as it moves from cores and frontiers to peripheries. Thus, answers will be provided to the two following questions: What has the classical territorial-modes of life approach to Zionism of the Left achieved? And what happened to these achievements once Labor Zionism adopted social Zionism and settlement-territorial Zionism moved to the Right? The frontiers, some of which served initially as ideological cores, transmitted social values to the core, which turned these values into cultural and political myths. This process facilitated the allocation of resources for the development of frontier spaces or a spatial expansion of society. The gradual weakening of these values and myths in the core, coupled with a cultural and economic enhancement of the core itself and core values, led to the evolution of core-periphery relations. Periphery...

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