(Video) EOZ News interviews Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat

Elder of Ziyon..
25 February '13..




The mayor of Jerusalem has a question for those who want construction to be frozen in the eastern part of Jerusalem.

What do you really mean? Because we've just been investing over a half a billion shekels on infrastructure and roads (in the Arab sector.) We're building 500 classrooms in the Arab sector...And we're registering many, many buildings for the residents of east Jerusalem. My question was, what do you mean by 'freeze.' Freeze everything? Or, God forbid, is somebody hinting, 'Wait a minute. Before you give someone a permit, check him out. If he's Jewish, freeze him, if he is Muslim or Christian give him a license'? ...Is somebody hinting to us to look at the color of his skin, to look at his religion before we give him a permit and a license?

Usually I don't get any answers back.

(Continue)

Also: EoZ interview with NGO Monitor's Gerald Steinberg

EoZ Interview with Yossi Kuperwasser, head of Ministry of Strategic Affairs (Part 1)

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Jerusalem was, is, and will always be the capital of Israel

LOTL..
23 July '12..
H/T Brian of London..

For Immediate Release:

Jerusalem Mayor Sets Record Straight on BBC's Questioning of Jerusalem as Jewish Capital

22/7/12 – In response to the BBC’s decision not to refer to Jerusalem on its 2012 Summer Olympics’ website as the capital of Israel, but rather “the seat of government…though most foreign embassies are in Tel Aviv” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat issued the following statement:

“Throughout the history of Jerusalem, with over a dozen conquerors, only the Jewish people have called the Holy City of Jerusalem our capital. Jerusalem today, under Israeli sovereignty, has returned to the role it played 2000-3000 years ago. There is unprecedented freedom of movement and religion and the world is welcome and encouraged to enjoy the beauty and majesty of Jerusalem.”

“We will not accept those who deny our history, our sovereignty, and our right to determine our own capital. Irrespective of the BBC’s political agenda, Jerusalem was, is, and will always be the capital of Israel and the spiritual, political, and physical center of the Jewish people.”

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
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Dann - The Kidron Valley giveaway

Moshe Dann..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost
15 April '12..

Bowing to pressure from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the US State Department and the international community, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has cut back on plans to remove 88 illegal Arab buildings from a rich archeological park in the Kidron Valley adjacent to the City of David, the ancient city of Jerusalem.

According to municipal plans, Barkat proposed relocating only about 20 families in the disputed area, while retroactively awarding legal status to the rest. The entire area would renovated and restored as a garden and world-class tourist site, with an Arab residential neighborhood including shops and restaurants, sports and health care centers. Arabs claim that these plans threaten their property and their way of life.

The city claims it will improve the quality of life. Arabs are opposed, saying it is “Judaizing” the area. The city contends that Arabs have built on public land in an archeological area and it is enforcing “the rule of law”; Arabs decry the lack of building permits.

According to the Jerusalem Municipality, there are an estimated 30,000 illegal Arab buildings in east Jerusalem alone. The municipality is in the process of providing them with infrastructure and legalizing them retroactively.

WaPo expunges Israeli rule of Jerusalem -- an Orwellian ploy

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
11 January '11


At first, it seemed that it may just have been an oversight accounting for the fact that the Washington Post has turned Palestinian wishful-thinking about Jerusalem into actual reality. But it wasn't just a one-time mistake. It again pops up in a Jan. 11 dispatch by Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg ("Netanyahu rejects Clinton criticism" page A10).

What startled me in reading this piece was a reference to Adnan Husseini objecting to plans for 20 Jewish apartments on a Jerusalem spot where once stood a villa of the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who aligned himself with Hitler and fomented Arab pogroms that killed many hundreds of Jews;

The startling, surreal part is Greenberg's identification of Adnan Husseini, a descendant of the Mufti, as "the Palestinian Authority's governor of Jerusalem."

That can't be, can it? Does this mean that Nir Barkat is no longer Jerusalem's mayor, but has been succeeded by a Palestinian governor? From Greenberg's writing, it sure looks like a done deal.

(Read full "WaPo expunges Israeli rule of Jerusalem -- an Orwellian ploy")

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Throwing Jerusalem’s Barkat Under the Bus

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
29 April '10

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat is no extreme right-wing extremist. A generally non-ideological and secular Jew who served in the paratroopers, he was a successful high-tech venture capitalist before entering politics. Barkat’s career has, to date, been solely centered on the city of Jerusalem. He was elected mayor of the city only days after Barack Obama was elected president of the United States in November 2008. The important fact about Barkat’s win was that he beat an ultra-Orthodox candidate, a symbolic as well as a tangible victory for those who hope to keep Israel’s capital from becoming a Haredi shtetl.

In his years on the city council and now as mayor, Barkat’s focus has been on development and improved services but he also understands that the city’s future depends on it remaining united. If it is once again divided, as it was during Jordan’s illegal occupation of half of it from 1948 to 1967, the city will be an embattled and ghetto-ized backwater with no hope of attracting investment. Thus, he is adamantly opposed to those who want to make Arab neighborhoods into a capital of a putative Palestinian state, despite the fact that even the “moderate” Palestinian leadership won’t sign a deal that recognizes the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders might be drawn. Dividing the city is, he says, like putting a “Trojan Horse” within Israel. He is also appalled, as are most Israelis, at the idea of treating the post-67 Jewish neighborhoods, where over 200,000 Jews live, as illegal settlements by an Obama administration that is demanding a building freeze in Jerusalem. He rightly sees Israeli acquiescence to this unreasonable demand as a blow to Israel’s sovereignty over its capital as well as a threat to the Jews of Jerusalem.

These are points that Barkat has been making to the press and the public during a visit this week to Washington. The reaction from the Obama administration has been chilly but perhaps not as chilly as that of the Israeli Embassy. The New York Times, which contrasted the chummy reception that Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak got here this week from the Obami with that given to Barkat, noted that a spokesman from the Israeli embassy was at pains to distance the embassy from Barkat.

(Read full post)

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No equality before the law

Construction laws in Jerusalem applied differently to Jews, Arabs


Hagai Segal
Opinion/Ynet
10 March '10

I felt two very dear people were missing in last week’s press conference where Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat presented his King Garden’s plan: The city’s Legal Advisor, Yossi Havilio, and State Prosecutor Moshe Lador.

They were supposed to be there to praise the plan, or at least show moral support with their very presence. After all, one of the plan’s most prominent aims is to impose law and order in the wild construction market of east Jerusalem, and both of them thus far appeared to be zealous supporters of this challenge. Yet they did not show up.

Havilio, as we know, is the uncompromising fighter against Beit Yehonatan in Kfar HaShiloah. His office has been turned into a war room against the mayor’s aspirations to legalize the building. Havilio did not agree to any compromise on the matter, even when the overall regularization of construction in the area – both Jewish and Arab – was discussed.

Meretz’s representative in City Council actually endorsed the compromise, yet Havilio objected on behalf of the law.

At a certain point, Lador too joined the campaign. Some very harsh warning letters were sent from Lador’s office on Salah al-Din Street to Barkat. The Mayor was asked to immediately seal Beit Yehonatan. “Any further delay constitutes grave damage to the values of the rule of law,” Lador reprimanded Barkat recently.

Sudden patience

King’s Garden, an ancient site that in the past was declared a green zone, includes 44 illegal structures. Their status is identical to that of Beit Yehonatan. Final demolition orders were issued against all of them.

(Read full article)
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