by Dr. Guy Bechor, www.gplanet.co.il, translated by Hillel Fendel
Better a decade late than never: Final approval for the Jerusalem Old City Cable Car was received this week when the Supreme Court rejected the various objections submitted by left-wing organizations. It was in May 2013 - nine years ago - that we first reported that the project was approved and expected to be ready in two years' time…
The four-station cable line will run for 1.4 kilometers (nearly a mile) from the historic Old Train Station between Bethlehem and Hevron Avenues, all the way to Dung Gate (the gate of the Old City Wall that leads to the Western Wall plaza.)
The cable project is expected to solve the terrible traffic congestion problems to and from the Old City, especially during holiday seasons. During rush hour, it will be able to handle traffic loads of 3,000 people per hour.
Since there are no further hurdles to overcome in the construction of this grandiose project, I expect the Jerusalem municipality to begin work on it right away, and complete it within a year. After all, the infrastructure preparations have already been done, and I have total confidence in Moshe Lyon – undoubtedly Jerusalem's best mayor since Teddy Kollek.
Since this is clearly such a beneficial project, it might be surprising to some that it faced so many objections. But such feelings quickly evaporate when we note that much of the opposition was funded by foreign sources. Progressive organizations, funded by European and of course German governments, fought very strongly against the project – and why? Simply, because it will unite Jerusalem!
But they will never agree to say this outright, and therefore used all sorts of excuses to explain their opposition: "It will harm the environment; its path overflies graves thus defiling Cohanim (priests); the deceptive New York Times 'newspaper' is against," and many more. According to them, though there are cable cars in many Western cities, Jerusalem must be treated differently and may not be permitted to have such luxuries.
The organizations in question are Emek Shaveh, Ir Amim, and others. Emek Shaveh, which maintains that it works to prevent politicization of archaeological findings in Israel, says it objects "to the fact that the ruins of the past have become a political tool in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." What this means, of course, is that it doesn't like when finds are made that prove that Jews lived here in the past.
Ir Amim, for its part, says it "aspires to a sustainable political future for Jerusalem as the shared capital of two sovereign states." Need more be said about where it stands?
For years, these and other foreign-funded orgs tried every which way to hinder and impede this glorious project. It is reminiscent of how they and/or others tried to prevent other important initiatives in Israel, such as Route 6 (the highway that connects northern and southern Israel, and the country's only toll route); the Begin Highway in Jerusalem; our gas production; the light rail in the capital city; and the security fence. Similarly they tried to block the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv; the Basic Law that states that Israel is the Jewish People's national home and that only the Jewish People can actualize its right to statehood here; the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv train; and Jewish construction throughout the Land. Can you even picture to yourselves Israel without these critical projects?
Of late, these organizations have suffered significant setbacks at the hands of the Supreme Court, which has handed down several important precedential rulings:
• Despite remarks by controversial Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman in favor of changing Basic Law: The Nation, the Court has swept into the dustbin of history all the appeals against it.
• The Supreme Court also affirmed that the homes in dispute in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood of Jerusalem are Jewish-owned.
• The same is true for the Petra and New Imperial Hotels inside the Jaffa Gate. Hopefully the names of these hotels will be changed to Hebrew ones very soon.
• South of Hevron, based on a Supreme Court ruling, 18 illegal Arab structures were demolished, making way for the IDF to actualize its right and need to conduct military training exercises there; 20 years of adjudicating the matter ended with the Court's ruling that the residents did not live there at the relevant time, and that their expulsion does not violate international law. The village in question is Yuta, as it is known in the Bible, and not Yata, as the Arabs call it. Yuta was a large and flourishing Jewish city for hundreds of years.
They Must Pay!
Yes, the foreign interests succeeded in delaying these important projects – but not in preventing them. In the meantime, however, the legal and other costs to fight these organizations are tremendous, and the cumulative damage caused by the lack of construction is also nothing to sneeze at. The Government of Israel must demand that these organizations pay for these losses. It is inconceivable that small groups are able to block important national projects for a full decade just because they feel like it – and especially when their efforts are funded by other countries – without paying the costs. We must put an end, once and for all to these "if at first you don't succeed, try and try again" efforts, which are so detrimental to the national Jewish return.