The Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem: Israeli sovereignty is not implemented in Jerusalem because of a terrible failure of leadership. The right-wing leadership does not fulfill its mandated tasks.
In a special panel on sovereignty in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, Aryeh King, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, had harsh criticism for Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct in leading the government.
“We are not doing enough” stated King. “The distance between Ramot in Jerusalem and Giv’at Ze’ev in the north of Jerusalem is just a few dozen meters. A road separates between the two neighborhoods. The distance between Ramot and Giloh is similar to that between Gush Etzion and Giloh, but the city sends a refuse truck from Ramot to Giloh and not to Giv’at Ze’ev. We could have created facts on the ground”, said King. “If we wait for Knesset to act it will never happen. We must act in the field. Why shouldn’t there be a Jerusalem marathon that begins in Gush Etzion, passes through Jerusalem and finishes in Sha’ar Binyamin?”
Regarding the riots in Jerusalem, King said “It was wrong to put up the checkpoints but after they had been erected, it was wrong to take them down because the Arabs see this as their victory, which intensifies the rioting. Some officers are weak and do not believe in our right to march in Jerusalem and wave flags in Jerusalem. Our problem is not the Arabs but us”.
He says that Jews, including him, as deputy minister, are not allowed to enter eight Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. He blames Netanyahu for this policy and the policy preventing building in Givat Hamatos and Atarot, claiming that Netanyahu is not criticized for these policies because he is supposedly right-wing.
Head of Gush Etzion Council Slomo Ne’eman added that we do not act as a sovereign people in the Arab neighborhoods or deal resolutely enough with terrorists.
Director of YESHA Council Yigal Dilmoni responded to the facilitator’s question as to how much the issue of sovereignty engages members of the council by saying that the issue should be dealt with by the Israeli government. According to him, were it not for the energetic activism of Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, the subject of sovereignty would have remained a distant vision that would never actually be realized. “Nadia and Yehudit took the matter into their own hands and held a sovereignty conference ten years ago in Hevron, when everyone thought it was a crazy idea. But ten years later, the U.S. president was talking about it” he said.
Dilmoni called on the youth to work energetically to raise consciousness on the issue of sovereignty throughout the Land. “There is no future for us without sovereignty”, he stated, adding that we lack confidence that this country belongs to us. “We must increase our faith in the justice of our cause”, he said.
"Most of the people are right-wing and most of the Knesset is right-wing. We have a problem of governance in Jerusalem stemming from our leadership. We have two right-wing Jerusalem ministers but one of them was in favor of dividing Jerusalem. The minister that preceded him, who may become prime minister soon, never set foot in East Jerusalem to affix a mezuza on a Jewish home. The members of Knesset have forgotten who elected them”, he stated.
The remarks were made at the third Sovereignty Youth Conference at the Oz veGaon preserve in Gush Etzion, where the initiative to expand Jerusalem, the Greater Jerusalem Initiative, was launched.