By Daphna Golan-Agnon

As the United States waits in anticipation for Barack Obama to take presidential office, Jerusalem waits for its own new leader, Nir Barkat, to assume his mayoral duties. The secular Barkat will be replacing the city's ultra-Orthodox mayor-and like Obama, he promises change.

At his first press conference after being elected, Barkat promised to consider dismantling the massive suspension bridge that was erected at the entrance to Jerusalem last year. I would be glad to see the suspension bridge disappear one day. It towers over the city like a giant phallus with an annoying flashing light at the top that disturbs my eyes even in my bedroom. I am afraid, however, that there are far more pressing issues facing Jerusalem, issues that the new mayor-elect has not yet addressed. The previous night, in his acceptance speech, Barkat declared "This is a victory for the entire Jewish people"-entirely ignoring the fact that some quarter million Muslims and Palestinian Christians reside in Jerusalem. If Nir Barkat does not offer hope to about a third of Jerusalem's inhabitants, he does not offer hope to the Jewish population of Jerusalem either.

Divided Jerusalem: Since Israel adopted the closure policy in 1991, Palestinians are required to have permits in order to pass through Jerusalem. To that end, numerous checkpoints were installed to impede the entry of Palestinians into the Holy City (source poica.org).Jerusalem, forty years after the "reunification", is a city divided in pain. Jerusalem has separate public transport systems for Jews and Arabs. There are separate roads around the city for Israelis and Palestinians. The 34% of Jerusalem's population who are Palestinian receive 14% of the Municipal budget. Palestinian neighborhoods have fewer sidewalks, fewer roads and less frequent garbage collection. A public park is shared by 447 people in west Jerusalem, and by 7,362 in Palestinian East Jerusalem. As the struggle against segregation in the United States has taught us, separate is not equal.

According to municipality statistics, there is no room in the municipal education system for 40,000 Palestinian children in Jerusalem. Some of them are forced to study in private educational frameworks of questionable quality, at great cost. There are others however, some 9,000 children and youths who simply do not attend school because there is a shortage of 1500 classrooms for Palestinians in Jerusalem.

In response to a petition submitted on behalf of Palestinian children who do not have places in schools by the Association for Civil rights, The High Court of Justice ruled that schools must be built in East Jerusalem post haste. But the only new school that opened in 2008 was located at a former goat pen in the heart of an industrial area, right beside a polluting metal factory.

67% of Palestinian families and 21% of Jewish families in Jerusalem live below the poverty line. 77.2% of Palestinian children and 39.1% of Jewish children live in poverty. But Nir Barkat is not promising welfare, peace or equality. He is promising to build Jewish neighborhoods on Palestinian land.

The policy of building for Jews only in Jerusalem is part of the effort to preserve the city's Jewish majority at all costs. This has been the State of Israel's declared policy since the occupation in 1967 and it is manifest in discrimination in services, revocation of residency and confiscation of identity cards from Palestinians who have traveled abroad to work or study. It is reflected in the refusal to grant Palestinians building permits and the demolition of Palestinian homes built without permission. It is also evident in the seizure of Palestinian homes in Palestinian neighborhoods by right wing Jerusalem factions with American Jewish funding and the support of the mayor elect.

Next Year in Jerusalem:Everyday Life in a Divided Land: your purchase benefits LCC programmingIn the same week that Jerusalem's mayoral election took place, in the dark of night, Israeli police expelled the Al-Kurd family from its house in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. The family includes Umm Kamal, the mother, her husband-who is partially paralysed, and suffering from chronic heart disease-and their 5 children. The Al-Kurd family and 26 neighboring families also in danger of being expelled from their homes are all refugees who fled their homes in west Jerusalem in 1948. They left behind land and homes that were expropriated by Israel and are now lived in by Jews.

Nir Barkat was not the only candidate to ignore the distress of the Al-Kurd family and others like it that are facing expulsion for the second time. Like all the other mayoral candidates, and in line with policy adhered to by all Jerusalem mayors since 1967, he promised to build more homes for Jews in Jerusalem.

In 1987 in a council meeting former mayor Teddy Kollek-who was considered the most enlightened of Jerusalem's mayors and who held the office for 28 years-explained his policy toward Palestinians residents of the city thus:

"I don't want to give them a feeling of equality. I know that we cannot give them a feeling of equality. But I want, here and there, where it doesn't cost us too much, and where it is only an investment of money or something, to nevertheless give them a feeling that they can live here. If I do not give them this feeling, we will suffer."

Since Teddy Kollek's time, things have only gotten worse for the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. The erection of the wall between Jerusalem and occupied territories tore Jerusalem's Palestinians apart from their own people. The wall runs through Jerusalem and separates Palestinians from Palestinians. It divides families and prevents the majority of Palestinians from entering Jerusalem. Jerusalem's Palestinians are thus imprisoned within a State of Israel that does not want them, in a city that ignores them, disconnected from their own people.

In Teddy Kollek's day, Jerusalem was not only the religious and cultural center for both Jews and Palestinians, but it was also the most important Palestinian commercial center. Now, the wall and the checkpoints around the city prevent Palestinians customers and vendors-and even Palestinians students and doctors-from entering. East Jerusalem is slowly dying.

Jerusalem is not only a holy city for Jews, Muslims, and Christians; it is regarded by both Israelis and Palestinians as their capital. It is a city that has been dogged by violence and tension between Arabs and Jews. This tension will not be resolved by means of walls or separation, but by negotiation about how to share this city. Jerusalem's Palestinians are part of the Palestinian nation and discussions about the future of Jerusalem are discussions about the future of Israelis and Palestinians-discussion of global significance.

I sincerely hope that when Obama returns to Jerusalem he remembers the amazing speech he delivered against walls in Berlin. Perhaps, finally, an American president will put an end to the building of separate roads for Palestinians and Israelis with funds that come from the American taxpayer, to the building of walls with American bulldozers, to the building of Jewish only neighborhoods on Palestinians land. Perhaps Obama will help us talk rather than build on the racism, help us change rather than destroy all hope.

Yes you can, President-elect Obama. Can we in Jerusalem?

 

 

Daphna Golan-Agnon is the author of Next Year in Jerusalem-Everyday Life in a Divided Land (The New Press).