Architects, activists slam Jerusalem Old City cable car plan
JERUSALEM — An Israeli plan to build a cable car to Jerusalem’s historic Old City has united architects and Palestinian activists in opposition to a project they say is both an eyesore and a ploy to entrench Israeli control over the city’s contested eastern sector.
Developers say the proposed project is meant to relieve snarling traffic and will ferry some 3,000 tourists an hour from the western sector directly to the Old City, in east Jerusalem. It follows a series of Israeli projects in the combustible city that have enraged the Palestinians.
Further complicating matters is the project’s association with the Elad Foundation, a group that has settled Jewish nationalists in the heart of Jerusalem’s Arab neighbourhoods. The final cable car station will be integrated into a future tourist centre run by the organization.
“The cable car will send oblivious tourists flying over the heads of Palestinians and drop them off in the middle of occupied east Jerusalem, the eye of the storm, the …. centre of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said Betty Herschman of Ir Amim, an advocacy group that promotes equality in the city. “This cable car is putting new facts on the ground that undermine any possibility for a peace process.”