JERUSALEM (AP) – Fifty years after Israel conquered east Jerusalem, the city’s mayor says the upcoming anniversary is a time to celebrate, despite the deep rifts and occasional bursts of violence that disrupt daily life in the volatile city.
But like other prominent politicians of the hard-line Likud Party, Nir Barkat says Jerusalem must remain united under Israeli control, rejects Arab claims they are second-class residents – even though the vast majority are not even citizens – and insists the city’s diverse array of inhabitants are “all my children.”
“Jerusalem is the crown jewel. It will always stay the united, undivided capital of the Jewish people with respect to all religions,” the 57-year-old Barkat told The Associated Press this week at his office, which overlooks the Old City. “The prayer of all Jews, for thousands of years, is to return to the city of God, the holy city of Jerusalem.”
Barkat presides over perhaps the most complicated city in the world: deeply divided between Arab and Jew, religious and secular, rich and poor – and claimed as a capital by both Israelis and Palestinians.
On the other side of the Mideast conflict, the half-century mark of Israel’s victory in the 1967 six-day war is being perceived quite differently.