Letters

Architectural Review, The, August, 2002

SUICIDE TERROR

SIR: I write in my capacity as Chairman of the Association of Engineers and Architects in Israel.

The Architectural Review is a journal of high standing, which gives us a picture of what is happening in the architectural field around the world, and it is much appreciated by our members in that role.

The article by Tom Kay in your May edition 'View from Ramallah' is one sided and utterly partisan. We are shocked and saddened that you chose to publish it, and we urge you to restore some balance by conveying to your readers some of the realities faced by us in our daily lives.

These realities are best explained by photographs taken at the scenes of the attacks on ordinary Israelis going about their family and social activities. Each of these attacks was organized and directed by Palestinians from territory under their control, the consequences were 110 Israelis; men, women and children murdered and 813 maimed by Palestinian suicide bombers within Israel, in a period of three months, paralleling the stay of T. Kay in Ramallab. We have selected and attached 11 photographs showing the results of some of these actions. The images show only building damage, other pictures showing the dead and injured have been withheld out of respect for their families.

It would be appropriate, and a courtesy to your readers, to publish this letter, together with the attached material in the next issue of AR, with similar space and prominence to that given to the earlier article.

We urge you most strongly to do so.

Yours etc

ISRAEL M. GOODOVITCH

Tel Aviv, Israel

ARCHITECTURE AS STATE INSTRUMENT

SIR: While not agreeing in every way with what Tom Kay said in his despatch from Ramallah (AR May 2002), I am writing to defend your right to publish such articles. As you say, the AR is concerned with the creation of the human-made environment, so it is natural that it ought occasionally to comment on its destruction.

Particularly so, when Israelis are clearly using the environment in their struggle against the Palestinians. You may be aware that the Israeli government cancelled the Israeli Association of United Architects' entry to the UTA conference in Berlin because it dealt fairly with the country's policy of planting settlements in Palestine. Rafi Segal and Eyal Weizman, who put together the entry A Civilian Occupation on 'the politics of Israeli architecture', suggested that architecture and planning have been 'systematically instrumentalized as the executive arms of the Israeli state'.

'Planning decisions', they said in their introduction to the catalogue, 'do not often follow criteria of economical sustainability, ecology or efficiency of services but are rather employed to serve strategic and political agendas'.

The entry was intended to ask 'what role do architecture and planning play in state strategy, and what is the role of the architect and planner', but few will be able to consider these questions now that the exhibition has been suppressed.

In this context, the Kay article seems a useful, keenly observed contribution to what should be one of the most important debates for our professions today. Compared with some of the other contributions you published in the last issue, it seems remarkably restrained.

Yours etc

JAMES BROOKS

Email address supplied

SHALLOW, ONE-SIDED

SIR: I can certainly see the point of political report in a professional magazine, especially as architecture always was and will always be political.

I cannot however accept the shallow one-sidedness of the article 'View from Ramallah' (AR May, p32). Surely such a biased report about a building would not cross the threshold of your magazine. Dealing with politics, wars and human rights does not allow a professional magazine to step out of its attempted objectivity -- on the contrary.

The conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Middle East is a complex tragedy. Trying to present it in black and white will only damage the attempts that should be made to resolve the conflict.

Coupled with the snobbish, contemptuous articles about Egypt and International Tourism, the style of your commentary articles is slowly turning the Architectural Review into an unpleasant read.

Yours etc

ERAN TAMIR-TAWIL

Tel Aviv, Israel

COWARDLY

SIR: Maybe you should read all of those letters (ARs June and July) once more, because your excuse of a reply to the Israeli readers does not answer any of the claims brought against you.

Claiming that View From is a 'personal account' only proves that you are too coward to take responsibility for your own writers, As someone who lost members of his family, both in Nazi Germany and in Israel (by Palestinians murderers), I find your reply humiliating!

Shame on you.

Yours etc

YANIV KEDMI

Israel

FLIES IN FACE OF DECENCY

SIR: I have always had great respect for your magazine, and for the highly opinionated, but usually very responsible, style of your writers. However, the recent 'View from Ramallah' by Tom Kay flies in the face of all decency.

First of all, since when did your architectural magazine decide to serve as a political stage? Second, I assume your editors review what is going into the magazine - how could they let by such an ignorant, irresponsible article? I was especially offended by captions, which I suspect were not created by Mr Kay, as they were even more biased than the general tone of his opus. To revoke the memories of Auschwitz in the context of that article was a shameless lie in the lowest taste. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an extremely complicated one, and should be approached by an outside observer at least with tact, and with something more than raw emotion.