Conceding Jerusalem

"It is sad to be the mayor of Jerusalem," wrote poet Yehuda Amichai in 1968. As we approach the upcoming local elections, it seems as though Israel's political establishment has internalized this saying. Four individuals have submitted their candidacies for Jerusalem mayor: businessman and city councilman Nir Barkat, MK and ultra-Orthodox political wheeler-dealer Meir Porush, businessman Arcadi Gaydamak, and Dan Biron, who is running as the representative of the Green Leaf party. None of the three largest parties are fielding a candidate, and none of the candidates have won the endorsement of any of those parties. There is a sense that the capital has been abandoned by Israel's political establishment. Not only is the Labor Party, the uncontested ruler of Jerusalem during the days of Teddy Kollek, not proffering a candidate for mayor, apparently, for the first time since the state's founding, it will not even run for a spot on the city council.

Members of the Labor Party's Jerusalem branch have dispersed among three parties - Meretz, Barkat's list, and Gaydamak's list. The Likud has also fissured. Some members of its Jerusalem branch are backing Barkat while others are supporting Gaydamak. Heading the Likud list for city council is attorney Elisha Peleg, a man party members acknowledge as too unfamiliar to the public. As a result, it was decided to place the party's chairman, MK Benjamin Netanyahu, at the forefront of the campaign. Kadima, which is fielding candidates in dozens of towns across the country, decided to give up on Jerusalem in the wake of a dispute with Barkat, who was its erstwhile candidate.

There were clear signs during the last election campaign that the city no longer arouses interest among Israel's leadership. Proof of this indifference could be found in the election of a municipal functionary the likes of Uri Lupolianski to the office of mayor, succeeding Kollek and Ehud Olmert. But the 2008 elections mark the first time that politicians at the national level did not waver over the question of whether to submit their candidacies.

People like Maj. Gen. Miki Levi, the former head of the Jerusalem police, and Professor Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the director-general of Hadassah Medical Center, who mulled the possibility of running for mayor, ultimately decided to give up on the idea. Aryeh Deri, who sought to run, had to abandon his efforts after the Jerusalem District Court ruled that his conviction of moral turpitude was still in effect.

This means Jerusalem is left with a weak slate of candidates, and it seems the job of mayor is too many sizes too big for each and every one of the candidates. It is true that part of the apathy with which Israel's leadership views the Jerusalem elections is tied to the overall, public indifference toward local politics, given the relative weakness of municipalities vis-a-vis the central government. There is no doubt, however, that what is happening during Jerusalem's election campaign is bewildering even on a global scale. Is it conceivable to imagine such indifference toward elections in Paris, Athens, Rome, or London - cities with which Jerusalem loves to compare?

The sorry state of Jerusalem - which finds expression in its increasingly decrepit condition, rising emigration, and economic, social, and artistic neglect - stems also from this political concession. The blame should be laid first and foremost at the feet of senior Israeli politicians, who never miss an opportunity to boast of "the city that has been reunited" in their speeches and their party platforms. At the moment of truth, though, they turned their backs on Jerusalem and its residents.