Right-wing activists sabotage J'lem master plan

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat withdrew his municipal master plan following mounting pressure from right-wing activists and council members, Haaretz has learned. The move comes after Barkat had previously authorized the plans.

City planners had been preparing the master plan for over a decade, the first to be authorized by a mayor since 1959. It includes general guidelines for the development of the capital over the next two decades. When Barkat became mayor earlier this year, he examined the plan and requested that some changes be made. Once those changes were implemented, he signed it and passed it on to the district planning committee at the Interior Ministry, which is supposed to examine any objections made by the public.

At that stage, members of the city council as well as right-wing activists began working to prevent confirmation of the plan. They claimed the plan authorizes far too much construction in East Jerusalem for Palestinian residents, while completely canceling the construction of two proposed Jewish neighborhoods in the same area.

According to council member Yair Gabai, city hall professionals took advantage of the power swap - when Barkat replaced Uri Lupolianski - to tilt the plan to the left. "The new changes violate the demographic balance of the city," said Gabai. Another activist leading the opposition to the plan is Mati Dan of the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva. Interior Minister Eli Yishai was convinced by these arguments and ordered the Jerusalem district supervisor, Ruth Yosef, not to present the master plan to the public. This move prompted protests on the left side of the local political map, with the Bimkom organization for planning rights claiming Yishai's order was illegal.

Following Yishai's instruction, Barkat met with Yosef on Sunday and asked her to release the plan back to the municipality for review. Although he said the changes would be "minor," Gabai stressed they would be "beyond mere technicalities." Right-wing members of the city council are demanding that the two East Jerusalem neighborhoods for Jews be put back on the plan, and that the number of housing units authorized for construction for Palestinian residents be cut back by several thousand.

Pepe Alalo (Meretz), a Jerusalem deputy mayor, said yesterday that "everyone had every opportunity to raise objections. The council members and the minister are all politically motivated."

A Jerusalem municipality spokesperson released a statement saying "some comments on the new master plan have been made by members of the council who did not have time to make them in the few months since the last elections. The mayor ordered [one of] his deputies, Koby Kahalon, to gather all the comments and to discuss with the district committee the best way to include this input in the plan."