A dapper high-tech billionaire, he envisages a bustling, thriving metropolis with 10 million tourists by 2020 and a million residents by 2030, with new businesses, high-quality residential areas and new tourist attractions on both sides of the city.
Critics say his plans to help the Arabs in East Jerusalem are merely a subterfuge to enable more Jews to settle on the Arab side of the city and to Judaize sensitive key areas like the Holy Basin around the Old City.
Some see a wider strategy to create facts on the ground that will make any future division of the city much harder. Others insist that his rezoning plans and calls to stop demolition of illegal Arab housing in the interim are designed, at least partly, to save Beit Yonatan, an illegal seven-story Jewish settler building named for Jewish-American spy Jonathan Pollard and situated in the predominantly Arab suburb of Silwan.
Barkat’s blunt lecturing of top American officials on why Jewish building should not be stopped anywhere in Jerusalem has brought him into conflict with the US Administration.
And his strong right-wing positions have alienated the centrist and left-wing secular Jerusalemites who voted for him in 2008 against his ultra-Orthodox rival Meir Porush.
Interviewed in his office by The Jerusalem Report in mid-November, Barkat is warm and cordial, but prickly when pressed on his policies. The office is filled with smiling, bustling young aides and exudes a sense of goal-oriented urgency. The blinds to the veranda with its stunning views of the city are drawn, presumably so that the mayor can concentrate on his work.
He wears a dark tailored suit and an open lap-top sits on his small, functional desk. The interview starts and ends precisely on time.The Jerusalem Report: Ever since the Clinton parameters of December 2000, the peace vision for the city has been Jewish neighborhoods to Israel, Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians, and Jerusalem as the capital of both states.Nir Barkat: It will never work. It’s a theoretical model that will never fly in Jerusalem. The faster people realize that, the better it will be for all concerned.Critics say you are using legal arguments designed to push Arabs out of East Jerusalem and to Judaize the city by having more Jews settle on the Arab side.That’s not true. First of all the master plan calls for an additional 50,000 apartments for the city over the next 20 years, a third for the Arabs and two-thirds for the Jews, which accurately reflects the population ratio. The plan talks about expanding Jewish and Arab neighborhoods to meet natural growth needs in both sectors. That’s the plan. Second, look at the facts. There are more Arabs living in Jewish neighborhoods today than Jews living in Arab neighborhoods. And both things are fine according to the law. I don’t have the right and it’s against the law to limit Jews or Arabs from living anywhere they choose in the city, as long as it’s legal.Even if it’s Jews building in an Arab neighborhood like Sheikh Jarrah?If anyone comes to the municipality, Jew or Arab, and they own a piece of land, and they want to build on it, I have to say ‘yes’ – as long as it’s according to the law.What about projects that the municipality itself initiates, like Wadi Hilweh or the King’s Garden in Silwan?What we have done in Silwan is to facilitate the building of a thousand new apartments by raising the zoning limit from two to four stories. This constitutes a dramatic improvement of the master plan to the benefit of the residents of Silwan.So how come they object to what you are doing?They object for political reasons.In other words, you are offering them a really good deal and they are rejecting it for political reasons?I am not offering. I am doing. I am not negotiating with people. My goal is to dramatically improve the quality of life by rezoning, enabling them to build, but to do it properly, and enabling me to collect taxes so that I can reinvest there, because that’s the right thing to do. As for the King’s Garden, what we are saying is that for the people who live there now, in a slum, we will provide legal housing, commerce and a community center, which they never had before.Are you saying people living in a slum will get a high-class apartment without having to add any money?We will be able to guide them and help them financially. Not the municipality, but hopefully there are lots of people who want to help. And by the way, I am ready to build the new apartments first and only then to evict.
So it’s not, as some people suspect, simply a plan to bring Israeli Jews into new luxury apartments and force the Palestinian slum-dwellers to move elsewhere?
The answer is no.Let’s get this straight. You guarantee that this new housing will be for the Palestinian residents who now live illegally on the other side of the valley?If they want to sell to anybody, that’s their prerogative.But they would get first option to live in the new apartments?Yes. No tricks.What do you intend to do about Beit Yonatan, the illegal settler building in Silwan? The Attorney General has just repeated his demand and that of the Supreme Court that the residents be evicted and the building sealed.It’s very straightforward. Tell me what I have to do with the other 30 or 40 lawsuits there. They haven’t given me an answer. There is not one Jewish building in the King’s Garden and I said please give me permission to stop all demolitions there. They haven’t given me an answer. I said please stop all the demolition orders in Silwan. All of them. But they still haven’t given me an answer.
Doesn’t this put you in a position where you are seen to be defying the highest legal authorities in Israel, the Supreme Court and the Attorney General?Tell me what I should do about the other 200 law cases all over the city that are very similar? What do I do with the rest?The authorities have specified this particular one.And others specify others. I have a lot of responsibility here. And I think that the prudent, smart and honest thing to do is to treat everyone the same way.
What do you say to charges that every time the political process seems about to take off, something happens in Jerusalem that derails it – like what happened with the plans for Ramat Shlomo during US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit in March?It is amazing how people put negative spins on good stuff. I basically said to the US administration: Don’t be surprised at developments in Jerusalem. Remember I told you about the 50,000 apartments we plan for Jerusalem over the next 20 years? It’s not just 1,600 in Ramat Shlomo. It’s 50,000. All these projects have to go through different phases for approval. Some are not yet on the table, others are in the pipeline at various stages. If we don’t provide housing solutions, young people will leave the city because there are no apartments for them and Arabs will go on building illegally. So we have to go on pushing new housing projects through the system. It’s the standard way of doing business. You can safely predict that over the next 20 years, there will be developments on the housing front on a weekly basis, because there is no freeze and there mustn’t be any freeze in Jerusalem. So I am just surprised at the way people are surprised.
Is it the case, though, that when you went to the States, because of your position against a freeze in Jerusalem, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell refused to see you?When I go to the States, I have a very full agenda and I do meet people in the Administration. The level is their decision. I don’t play prestige games.So the relationship between you and the American Administration is OK?Absolutely. By the way, I invite the American consul general here from time to time and I have a very good relationship with the ambassador. I shared our plans with them. Everything we do is totally transparent. Any questions they have immediately get an answer. I have shown the US Administration, congressmen and, of course, the people here the master plan so that they will become familiar with the facts. I want to decrease tensions by making sure they know the facts and set their expectations accordingly. I assured them we are working according to the law and that everything derives from the master plan. And if there is anything that looks fishy to them, I urge them to please come to us for answers.Was there any criticism by them of the master plan?No. They saw it and they understood it. It is very difficult to criticize, because it’s an honest and fair plan.Why do you think that if you are doing such major things for the city as a whole, and specifically for the Arabs of East Jerusalem, the public image of what you are doing is not so good?The image, by the way, is not that bad. But I came here to get things done and if you check what I said I would do against what I have done, you will see there is total correlation. So I am fulfilling the promises I made. And that’s what counts in the end.Some people say that because of your activist, pro-settler image, the left and centrist Jerusalemites who voted for you might not be so happy with your performance. They might feel you have gone too far to the right and towards the ultra-Orthodox and might not vote for you next time.I am not dealing with re-election. I am here to improve the quality of life of all the residents of Jerusalem as a united city. That’s where I am. I know there are lots of rumors. People spin on the left and on the right. But I will not be moved from my vision. I will do exactly what I have promised the public. I am laser-focused on that and everything else will sort itself out.