Analyzing Land Formalization Risks Using Land Regimes: The Case of East Jerusalem's Settler Colonial Land Regime

Urban land formalization (I. e. land titling and registration), is widely regarded as a primary policy instrument for addressing urban poverty and promoting socio-economic and spatial development, particularly within the informal urban areas of the Global South-East. Critical perspectives on urban land formalization underscore a range of threats and risks associated with the market-driven logics underpinning most of these programs, particularly displacement stemming from gentrification and the emergence of a ‘middle class down-raiding’ into formalized desirable localities. Expanding on this literature, in this paper we propose an examination of the relation between perils of displacement and property rights erosion, and the specific land regime within which land formalization programs are enacted. While most of the critical views focus on risks associated with economic development oriented land regime, through analyzing Israel’s initiative to formalize Palestinian land in East Jerusalem we contend that different land regimes – settler-colonial in this case – produces different means and motivations for displacement. Thus, we suggest utilizing the term 'land regime' (e.g., conservation, infrastructural, extractive, etc.) as both an analytical lens and the political deep logic, to better understand how various risks and threats of displacement are embedded and manifested in land formalization programs. In East Jerusalem, 90 percent of Palestinian land lacks formal titling or registration, hindering the Palestinians' ability to plan and secure their property rights. The Israeli initiative is a component of a landmark government decision from 2018 that declared a policy shift towards economic development and reducing disparities in East Jerusalem – ostensibly aligning with the logic of an economic development land regime. However, Palestinian residents perceive this program as a threat to their land rights, viewing it as a land grab operation orchestrated by the state and settler organizations. Palestinian noncooperation persists, despite the program's potential to enhance their spatial and planning position in the face of Israel's long-term efforts to erode their presence in the city through political oppression and spatial and planning discrimination. By analyzing how this land formalization program has been implemented over the last five years and drawing from interviews conducted with Palestinian stakeholders, including community leaders, planners, and landowners, we delineate how the settler-colonial spatial imperative to displace local native populations in order to make space for settlers is operationalized through land formalization. In presenting this analysis, we suggest a thorough examination of the conceptual and political biases reflected in the concept of 'land regime.' This examination will help illuminate how risks associated with land formalization programs and land rights are distributed and materialized according to the land regime in which they implemented.