Toughest of jobs: 3 seek to be Jerusalem mayor

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-09 10:13

JERUSALEM – A rabbi, a high-tech investor and a Russian tycoon accused of arms trafficking are vying to be mayor of Jerusalem, the city at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The winner of Tuesday's election takes charge of a troubled piece of land that is being fought over with messianic passion -- and sitting on the fault line of just about every divide Israel has: Arab and Jew, religious and secular, rich and poor, young and old. The fate of the city, claimed as a capital by both Israel and the Palestinians, could prove the deal-breaker in fragile peace talks.

A third of Jerusalem's 750,000 residents are Arab, but every candidate in the election is Jewish -- and none wants to cede any part of the city to a future Palestinian state.

Few Palestinians vote in municipal elections: That would be seen as recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the city whose Arab sector it captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

Taking part in the vote is "haram" -- forbidden by Islamic law, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, Jerusalem's top Muslim cleric, declared last week. And Rafiq Husseini, chief of staff to the Palestinian president, went even further, saying those who participate in the campaign would be "punished."

One Arab candidate entered the race for a second time, only to withdraw and become an adviser to the only Jewish candidate courting the Arab vote, Moscow-born Arcadi Gaydamak, who is on trial in absentia in France, on charges of organizing arms sales to Angola.

Front-runner Nir Barkat, 49, who made millions investing in technology, represents Jerusalem's shrinking secular population. Rabbi Meir Porush stands for the ultra-Orthodox community, which also gave the city its current mayor, Uri Lupolianski.

The mayor of Jerusalem doesn't have a say in the negotiations over the city's political future. But the city's chief can affect the delicate balance between Arab and Jew, especially in managing the holy places that are a regular flash point for violence.

All three candidates in the current contest seek to reverse years of population flight. Overall, Jerusalem's population is growing because of high birthrates among Arabs and Orthodox Jews. However, young, educated, secular Jews are leaving Jerusalem for better job opportunities and cheaper housing -- a serious blow to the city's economy.

The "migration from the city of 17,000 Jews a year is a strategic threat to keeping Jerusalem Jewish," said Barkat, who promises to make Jerusalem more livable through improved services and cultural offerings.

The brain drain and the legions of ultra-Orthodox men who shun employment for religious study have sapped the city's tax base and made Jerusalem one of Israel's poorest cities.

It is also the most divided -- first by the wall that split it for 19 years until the 1967 war, and in recent years by a barrier of walls and fences that Israel started building following a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings.

Palestinians say the barrier's route is meant to skew Jerusalem's demography in favor of Jews. It separates many Arabs from relatives, schools, farmland and jobs.

The suicide bombings have stopped. But in recent months east Jerusalem Palestinians have plowed vehicles into Israeli crowds three times, killing three and wounding dozens.

Jerusalem's future stability and prosperity will likely depend on whether Israelis and Palestinians can find a way to share it.

More than 180,000 Jews live in sprawling neighborhoods that lie in the sector that was Arab-ruled until 1967, and both Porush and Barkat have proposed building thousands more apartments there.

That is bound to make it even harder to carry out proposals to give Palestinians sovereignty over their neighborhoods of the city.

Not that any of the candidates is interested.

"I don't think that all the caving in and giving up of this neighborhood or that solves the problem," said Porush, a 53-year-old father of 12 whose family has lived in Jerusalem for generations. "The minute you give one neighborhood, they (the Palestinians) will want another ... and there will never be an end to it."

The biggest obstacle to an accord on Jerusalem will be the dueling claims to the Old City and its sacred places. In this 0.4-square-mile enclave, the Western Wall, the last remnant of the biblical Jewish temples, abuts Islam's hallowed Al-Aqsa Mosque. Christian holy sites lie just a short walk away.

While the physical lines between Jewish and Palestinian Jerusalem have jumbled, other divisions are glaringly apparent in the modern water, sewage and electrical lines in Jewish neighborhoods, and the rutted roads, cramped schools and garbage-strewn streets on the Palestinian side.

"It is the Jewish administration's moral duty not to neglect the Muslims and Christians dwelling in Jerusalem and should regard them with full respect," Gaydamak said in a written statement to The Associated Press.

Gaydamak hopes to bring Arab voters to the polls in large numbers for the first time. He has campaigned in Arab neighborhoods, placed full-page ads in the Palestinian Al Quds newspaper and showed up to watch the Palestinian national soccer team's first home game.

Some influential Palestinians are reconsidering the voting boycott. They're despairing of ever establishing an independent Palestinian state and instead are proposing that Jews and Arabs live as equals in an undivided country and capital.

Hatem Abdel Kader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' adviser on Jerusalem affairs, says that as long as the two sides are negotiating a two-state solution, Palestinians should not vote in Jerusalem elections because that would legitimize Israeli control.

However, "if we change positions and call for a binational, one-state solution, I'll be the first person to vote in municipal Jerusalem elections," he said.