Housing policy and spatial control: Exploring national interests in periods of immigration Erez Tzfadia Public Policy and Administration Ben-Gurion University P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105 Israel Tel: +972-8-6472775; Fax: +972-8-6472816, E-mail: tzfadia@bgumail.bgu.ac.il A. INTRODUCTION The control post-WWII welfare states wielded over their housing market was a meaningful method of achieving social justice while realizing “national” interests, such as regional development. All of this was done while getting the public to identify with the national agenda. Housing policy, however, also had a more sinister side, as it served to achieve national domination of disputed lands and stratified societies according to ethnic affiliation. It appears as if this reality has changed over the past three decades: The current discourse on the decline of national hegemonies and governmentability, the normalization of neoliberal reality and the growth of the global economy, would seem to be forcing the state to be concerned with cost-benefit issues. Furthermore, the human rights discourse prevents the state from favoring or discriminating against certain groups in the housing arena, based on their affinity to national or ethnic agendas. Alternatively, the function of the state and centralized policy has been replaced by neoliberal logic, which is meant to promise “neutrality.” However, a critical analysis of the Israeli settler-society reveals that housing policy as control is served by neoliberal practices. At times it would appear that cooperation between neoliberal and “national” goals is obtained, thus guaranteeing a mutual “benefit.” Such cooperation enables the preservation of nationalism as the main axis organizing social life, primarily when said cooperation takes place in the housing arena for immigrants - the focus of this article. In such cooperation the “free market” advances national goals of development and growth, yet maintains domination, regulation and control. In return, the political and administrative branches of the state advance neoliberal goals of globalization and privatization. Thus, the relations between neoliberal and national goals are normalized, while providing major agents in the “free market” with public resources and wealth. In other words, nationalism and neoliberalism at present are related, and therefore enable the simultaneous coexistence of the two hegemonies: national and neoliberal, both of which stratify society. This article follows two phases of housing projects, designed to absorb Jewish immigrants,