Nir Barkat is one of the few people who made his fortune in the hi-tech / start-up business in city of Jerusalem. He then set out to improve the city in which he made his fortune. Leaving his successful business he ran for mayor four years ago, under the slogan “Jerusalem Will Succeeded”! His promise was to bring the successful modern hi-tech style of management and planning to Jerusalem. To stimulate its economic life, to encourage secular people to make their homes and careers in the city. He really seemed to have a clear rational head on his shoulders and I thought he would be a sensible creative managerial presence in city hall, after the terrible reign of Ehud Olmert. He lost in his attempt to become mayor and became an opposition member of the city council. When Mr. Barkat first entered the Jerusalem municipal political scene, I for one was an enthusiastic supporter. I believed that what Jerusalem most needed after several years of maudlin leadership by Ehud Olmert was a strongly creative and modern thinking leader. A leader who had dealt with practical issues in his past professional life successfully. A person who would bring disciplined rational thinking and creativity to the decision making process in the nations capitol.
The current media frenzy concerning possible negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians combined with the statements by a Labor Party Minister in the government of Ehud Olmert concerning the possibility of Israel relinquishing control over some distant suburbs annexed to the city of Jerusalem brought new life to the community committed to “a united Jerusalem, under the rule of sovereign Israel, for all eternity” This mantra has been repeated so often by so many politicians over the last forty years that it has lost all possible intelligent meaning and defies any attempt at lucid rational
non-partisan examination.
Although it sounds wonderfully nationalistic it is in fact a formula for turning the capital of the state of Israel and the focus of Jewish yearning for millennia into an un-governable squabbling unpleasant arena of endless violence and competition. The two hundred thousand Arabs Palestinians who would become permanent citizens of Israel have never shown an ability or interest in the kind of compromises and behavior of sharing that such a living political arrangement necessitates.
For some reason Mr. Barkat has felt it necessary, and even praise worthy to organize and endorse an organization promoting the idea that “Jerusalem should be strengthened, not divided.”, I could not agree more about the need for strengthening Jerusalem, which I think dividing it might ultimately make possible. The inference was clearly to maintain the city in its current swollen municipal boundaries. Most of the thousand of people who have signed petitions calling for Jerusalem to continue in its present physical size and composition, have probably never set foot in the Arab sections of the city they insist on continuing to control. In addition I would bet they would be horrified if those same fellow citizens of Jerusalem were to come into their neighborhoods and supermarkets. Most of them probably do not even know where the boundaries of the city they are hoping to maintain lie.
Now with the next elections fast approaching Mr. Barkat has emerged as a viable caudate to replace the current mayor.
And here comes a national, really an international focus on Jerusalem. A perfect opportunity to make some popular political moves?
I pretty much accept Mr. Barkat’s contention that developing Jerusalem economically will also strengthen it politically as the capitol of Israel. In the current context that means maintaining the Jewish majority, though decreasing, vies-a-vie the growing Arab minority. It also means developing and promoting Jerusalem as a city in which young Israelis who identify themselves as secular or “traditional” will want to live. A city which would attract and hold graduates of its Hebrew University as a place in which to live raise their families and develop their carriers, to experience the best of modern creative culture.
All this would take considerable investments by the central government. There are issues of infrastructure housing etc.
Mr. Barkat’s idea of adding 200,000 East Jerusalem Arab Palestinians who publicly declare their hostility and rejection of Israel’s right to exist and to govern this city, who hold an antagonistic political pose toward the body politic of the Jewish majority in the country as well as in the city, a population which is in need of advancement, change and modernization. In addition there is in need of educational opportunities which could lead to developing of additional employment possibilities which is a gigantic challenge, unnecessary and wasteful of our precious and limited resources.
