Mayor Barkat's Vision of a Unified Jerusalem

Mayor Barkat.... views devotion to Jerusalem not as a problem but as an opportunity. He likes to say that Jerusalem is the world’s most important city and that 3 billion people have it in their hearts, yet only 2 million visitors come yearly. His goal is to bring that number up to 10 million through biblical theme parks, more open spaces and better urban management.

He has a very clear idea of what normality here would look like, he says, a message he plans to take to the United States on an eight-day tour of half a dozen cities, starting in Florida on Monday.

FOR him, Jerusalem is Israel’s eternal and indivisible capital. It must be cleaned up and fattened up with help from abroad. All religions must be free to worship in it. But it must never be shared or divided.

“Like in business, sometimes there is one clear, simple solution to a big problem that seems obvious to everyone and is absolutely wrong,” he says when asked his view of dividing the city so that it can serve as the capital of both Israel and a future state of Palestine....

...His views are... out of step with the new American administration. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized municipal plans to raze Arab buildings in East Jerusalem when she was here this month as “not helpful.”

In several East Jerusalem neighborhoods these days, demolition orders are being issued... Mr. Barkat is bringing a sense of modern renewal and entrepreneurial spirit to City Hall...

Mr. Barkat speaks of his efforts in East Jerusalem as if they were in any normal city. He wants to expand public areas for both Jews and Palestinians, make room for schools and generally clean up what he calls the “wild East.”

The houses Mr. Barkat plans to tear down were built illegally, and that, he says, is his sole motive. He is doing the same for illegal construction in predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem and offers numbers to prove it. About a third of the tearing down is indeed in the West.

The biggest controversy involves Silwan, the area just southeast of the walled Old City where some 7,500 Palestinians live, mostly in buildings without permits. Mr. Barkat wants to turn the area into an archaeological park, the City of David and the Garden of King Solomon, where he says King David wrote poetry, and other great historical figures wandered quietly.

“For 3,000 years, that area has been green,” he asserts. “Now there are 100 buildings that are illegal there. We want to return it to being a park.”

Mr. Barkat has appointed an old friend, Yakir Segev, to be in charge of East Jerusalem. In an interview with a local newspaper, Mr. Segev said: “Jerusalem is a laboratory. If we succeed in solving the conflict with the Arabs of Jerusalem, it will also be possible to solve it everywhere in Israel.”

What Mr. Segev, like Mr. Barkat, means is both improving services for the Palestinians and ending any ambiguity about Jewish dominance. And to that end, they have expressed strong support for more Jewish building to the east of the city, which Palestinians say could end any prospect for a two-state solution.

Mr. Barkat acknowledges only that the issue is sensitive and that it must be handled in a sensitive, but definitive, way.

“The Palestinians are teaching their children how to be terrorists,” he said. “They say they want us out. We come to them with a win-win solution. They come back with a win-lose. The answer is no. I don’t see any solution that divides Jerusalem.”